by Penn Gates
The first rifle shot comes while the flair is still falling to earth, then another, and another. After the third figure in the driveway is flung backward by the impact of a bullet, the others rally and begin returning fire. They know they're being targeted from the higher ground on either side of the drive, but not exactly where until there's another muzzle flash and then one from the other side, alternating fire.
Two of the intruders break and run up the drive where it curves to the left. Nix scrambles back up toward the peak, but before she can get into position both of them fall from shots fired out of the darkness. Nix wonders which of the guys is over there. It's some fine shooting. Hard to believe none of them had ever fired a gun before they came to St Clair farm. There's another shot from behind her and she looks over her shoulder in time to see a black shape fall on the driveway running back to the dairy barn.
Nix tries to count how many figures lay on the gravel in front of the root cellar and has gotten to seven before she realizes that the rifle fire from the eastern side of the drive has stopped. Oh God! One of them has been hit. Cash or Michael? Everything seems to slow down. She can see every detail, all at once, like she's looking through God's eyes. One of the figures still standing raises a rifle and points it toward whoever is firing from the trees, and with all the time in the world, Nix takes aim and fires. The figure drops and doesn't move. Things begin to move normally again and she realizes that the shooting has stopped completely.
Why is Michael scrambling down the hill like that and running across the drive? But she knows why. Nix slides down, grabs the edge of the roof, and lets go, catching the railing with her feet, and landing in a heap on the floor.
She hurls herself at the front door and yells as loudly as she can, “Brit! Get Margaret—Cash got shot!”
Nix races down the steps and sprints across the drive, jumping over bodies like they were so many logs, intent on getting to him. She comes to a sudden stop, almost pitching forward, as Rick and Terry come out of the brush carrying Cash between them. Even from a distance Nix can see the dark stain spreading around the hole in his jacket. Michael walks beside them, his face expressionless. He has his own rifle in one hand, Cash's in the other.
The flare is laying in the gravel, weak but still glowing, until it sputters and dies. For a few seconds, the awful scene is blotted out before the intense white light of a butane lantern illuminates the carnage. It’s Mary carrying the light down the porch stairs ahead of Margaret, with her medical kit, and Brittany hugging an armload of towels and a blanket.
Margaret is so organized, Nix thinks, but the thought seems detached from anything real. She tries to speak, but her face is strangely numb and her lips aren't able to form the words. For an instant she feels like she might fall, then she pulls it together and locks her knees to stay on her feet.
“Set him down for a moment, please,” Margaret says, polite even in crisis. “I want to make sure he is not bleeding too much before you are moving him any more." She's silent for several minutes while she locates the wound, which appears to be in his right shoulder. “It is bleeding badly,” she says. “Mary, some clean cloths, please. We will need to apply pressure."
She looks over at Nix and frowns at what she sees. “Nix, come here, please. You must help.”
Nix somehow stumbles to where Margaret is bent over Cash and drops heavily to her knees on the gravel. The sensation of stone bruising her kneecaps doesn't make it to her awareness. All she knows is that his eyes are closed, and he's not moving.
Margaret immediately shoves an old towel into Nix's hands. “Hold it tightly against the wound.” She grabs Nix's hand and guides it. “Like so. Do not be afraid to press hard. We must slow the bleeding before I can see what we are dealing with here.”
Margaret shoots a glance at the fearful young men crowding around, all of them talking at once. “Standing around gobbling like turkeys is not helpful!” she says in a voice made shrill by nerves. She jerks her head toward Eric and Bob. “You two—in a little bit I will tell you to pick Cash up—and you will do it exactly how I tell you.”
She goes back to examining the wound, but says over her shoulder, “Shame on all of you. Will you leave this slaughterhouse for the children to see? Start the cleaning up now!”
They lay Cash gently on the single bed which has become part of the furnishings of the office. He's still unconscious, but he struggles against the pain. Nix knows he wouldn't want the guys to witness what's coming next and she curtly orders Terry and Bob out of the room. She braces herself and kneels on the bed, holding Cash down as Margaret probes the wound.
As she works Margaret explains in detail what she's doing in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice. “No bone is shattered. It does not seem like any large vein was hit. The bullet is in the muscle. I believe I can get it out in one piece." She screws up her face in concentration. “Mary—sweat is running into my eye. If you please, sister—”
Margaret's younger sister silently blots her brow. Mary is also in charge of sopping up the blood that continually wells up from the wound, making it hard for Margaret to see what she's doing.
Nix wonders if Margaret is wrong. What if it nicked an artery? There's an awful lot of blood. She takes a shuddering breath.
“Are you all right, Nix?” Margaret asks. “Do you want one of the boys to be holding Cash down?”
”No!” Nix whispers fiercely. “Don't worry about me. Just keep going and get that sewed up before he bleeds to death.”
Margaret seems already to have forgotten she asked Nix a question. She continues to probe the wound, intent on locating the bullet. Suddenly she goes very still and closes her eyes.
Nix feels like all the air has been sucked from her lungs at once. That's it, then. He's dead. And the world has died with him.
But Margaret continues to stand there, and Nix finally focuses enough to see that her right hand still grips the tweezers she's inserted into the gaping hole in Cash's shoulder. And that hand is trembling with the effort of holding on to the small object she's been searching for.
“I have gotten it out!” Margaret cries and holds up the chunk of metal to show Nix. “Mary, do you have the needle threaded?” she says over her shoulder. “The bleeding will not stop until I sew it up.”
Mary nods wordlessly and gives Margaret what she's requested, her movements as quick and efficient as her older sister's.
It looks too much like a murder scene, and the metallic smell of blood permeates the room. The intense light of the lantern makes everything appear flat and two dimensional. Nix feels the room begin to spin, as if it's trying to turn the world right side up again. She bites down on the inside of her cheek until she tastes her own blood and wills herself not to faint. She sneaks a look at the girls. Neither seem to have noticed her latest moment of weakness.
“Take that bottle of whiskey and dribble it—very slowly—into the wound,” Margaret says to Mary.
Cash groans and tries to pull away, but Nix keeps him lying flat and Margaret holds down his arm.
“All right,” Margaret tells Mary, “Start blotting again. I will do a stitch, then you blot, I will do another, then blot again—and so on. Once I am sewing a few stitches the bleeding should lessen and then stop.”
Nix has that floating feeling again, but she forces herself to count to ten—ten bodies in the driveway—no, don't think of that. Where is Michael? She can't remember seeing him after they got Cash down the hill. Maybe he's scoping things out. He shouldn't be out there alone. Are there still sentries posted? Will anyone think to check the bodies for survivors?
“It is done,” Margaret says quietly. She turns to wash her hands in a basin of water. She glances at Nix. “You can let go now.”
Cash groans and mumbles something.
“If he wakes up, we will need to give him some of the whiskey,” Margaret says. “But only in a very small amount each time. It will keep him from going deeper into shock, but too much will only slow the healing process.”
Hours pass—it might be days—Nix has lost all concept of time. It's a blur of worried voices at the door, bloody clothing and towels—and Cash's face, white and still. Nix refuses to leave his side. She sits watching him through the night—and praying, to her grandfather's God, to George's God, and finally, to her own. When she's absolutely sure Cash is breathing normally and won't slip away from her when she closes her eyes, Nix puts her head down on the edge of the bed and escapes into sleep.
Someone is calling her name. For a second she thinks it's Deke, telling her she really fucked up this time. She wakes with a start. Cash's eyes are still closed, but he moves restlessly. He's coming out of it and when he does, he's going to be hurting bad.
“Everybody OK?” he groans. “Where's Nix?”
She grabs on to his hand tightly. “I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere.” She places her other hand gently on his chest. “Try not to move. You'll pull your stitches.”
She doesn't know if he can hear her, but she keeps talking, trying to get through the layers of exhaustion and shock to let him know he's safe, that everything is all right. She brushes away the bits of leaves and twigs in his hair. The mud and dried blood stand out like war paint against his pale skin. She gets a wet cloth and wipes it away. She wants to see that infectious grin light up his face again.
“Don't you dare die, Hatfield,” she whispers fiercely. “Everybody here needs you too much." She clears her throat. “I need you." She takes his limp hand and holds it tightly in hers. “You told me a long time ago you weren't going anywhere—you promised,” she whispers.
When Nix opens her eyes again, the gray light of early morning is seeping into the room. She looks around—a different room. How did she end up on the sofa in the parlor? She sits up and winces. Every bone in her body aches. The house is unnaturally quiet. Cash! She jumps to her feet and dashes down the hall to the office.
Just as she reaches the door, a small figure slams into her and wraps his arms around her waist. She can feel his tears soaking the front of her sweatshirt. “Nix, I’m scared!” Martin wails. “I wanna see Cash. Please—I gotta see him!”
Worried sick herself and still exhausted, she wants to pry him off of her and tell him to get lost. The only important thing right now is making sure Cash is all right—and that’s all that Martin wants, too, she realizes.
She hugs him tight and whispers against the top of his head, “I’m not gonna lie to you, bud. Cash got shot and he’s hurting pretty bad right now.” She holds him at arm’s length and tilts his chin up so she can look into his frightened eyes. “What he needs more than anything is to lay as still as he can and try to rest.”
“I won’t bother him,” Martin says in a low whisper. “I know how to be quiet. I just gotta see him, that’s all. I promise I’ll leave then, cross my heart and hope to—” His face crumples. “He’s n-not gonna die—is he, Nix?”
“No he’s not!” Nix says fiercely. “I won’t let him!”
Margaret is holding Cash's head and giving him a sip of some sort of tea she's brewed. He still looks pale but his eyes are open. They fasten on Nix when she steps into the room and then slide to the small boy hanging on to her hand.
“Martin—” Cash wheezes, grimacing in pain.
Margaret sets the cup aside and raises a scolding finger. “You must not move a muscle. I will be very angry with you if you undo all my good work.” To Nix she says, “Please stay with him while I go fetch more tea.”
The girl’s face softens as she puts an arm around Martin’s shoulders. “You have seen what you need to see, and now you will be coming with me, young man.” As his face starts to pucker, she adds, “Do not worry. You can be seeing Cash again very soon.”
Once the two of them are gone, it seems to Nix that the room feels a lot colder. She wonders if she should add a chunk of wood to the coals in the fireplace. She glances surreptitiously at Cash. His eyes are closed again. She tiptoes across the room, trying to miss the floorboards that squeak and reaches for the poker. The sound of Cash's voice makes her jump.
“Do me a favor,” he says. Each word sounds like it hurts.
“Anything,” Nix says eagerly. “What do you need?”
“Stay out of here,” he whispers. “Margaret doesn't need your help—and I don't need a nanny any more than you do.”
Nix suppresses a shiver. Aloud she says, “No problem, Rambo—just as soon as I'm finished here." She adds a small log to the fire and slips from the room.
She's halfway down the hall when she stops and turns around. Just because she's gotten tossed out of the sick room doesn't mean she can't be around in cases there's an emergency. She sits down opposite the office door and leans her back against the wall. When she hears Margaret coming back, she drops her head and pretends to be dozing. The minutes drag by.
◆◆◆
It's some time after noon. Nix has given up the pretext of being asleep and she passes the time watching Margaret come and go. Finally Margaret stops and looks down at her.
“I have gotten more tea into him before he fell asleep again," Margaret says. “Rest is the most important thing now. The more he sleeps, the more his body will be using the time to heal itself.”
Nix listens politely to what the Mennonite girl says and thanks her. She hates the look of pity in Margaret's eyes. She knows she needs to stop haunting the hall outside the office. She needs to find something to do before she loses her mind—again.
It occurs to her that quite a few people must be desperate to know what's going on. Nix pauses before stepping through the door into the common room and sees the reality of Cash's vision. A cheerful fire is burning in the wood stove and the young men are sitting in small groups, talking in low voices, but when they see Nix, conversation trickles into silence. They stare at her, white-faced, waiting for her to speak. And then it hits her. She's covered in blood—Cash’s blood. She must look like the angel of death.
“Margaret sewed him up as good as new,” she tells the anxious faces, “And he said a few words before he went back to sleep." And that's the truth, as far as it goes. These guys need some good tidings, not more to worry about.
What she leaves unsaid is the fear that the wound will become infected. The bullet tore through his jacket and shirt and there's the possibility that a piece of that debris remains in Cash's shoulder. Margaret hopes that the copious bleeding actually washed away those particles, and the alcohol poured into the open wound has penetrated deeply, but only time will tell.
“What can we do?" Terry speaks for them all. Nix realizes they're desperate to do something —anything.
She looks at the young faces, still smeared with mud, hair sticking up in peaks from pulling off their knit hats. But their eyes—not so young any more.
“We all feel helpless as hell,” she says, “But Margaret and Mary are the ones who will get Cash through this." She pulls out a chair and sits down, trying to think of something encouraging. She runs her fingers through her hair and says, “It would be nice to be able to tell Cash when he asks—and he will—that we have all the loose ends tied up.”
“Like what?” Rick asks.
“Like—were there any survivors? How many did we take down? What did you do with the bodies?”
“No survivors." Terry frowns. “We counted eleven in all. Everyone accounted for except that prick, Jason. We loaded up the bodies and buried them down the road aways. We tried to wash the area down much as we could.”
Nix' stomach lurches. She doesn't want to imagine what that carnage would look like in the light of day. She changes the subject quickly.
“Just because we fought off one attack doesn't mean we can relax our guard." She speaks directly to Terry. “Put half the guys on sentry duty while the rest of you grab some z's, then switch off." She gives him a hard look. “And don't leave the farm unguarded again.”
He looks stricken, but he nods. “Sorry.”
Nix forces herself to smile at him. These teenagers have be
en through a trial by fire and they passed with flying colors. But it looks like they've started to realize that battle is not at all like it is in the movies. And it's the demons after the enemy is dead that are the hardest to fight. A few already stare blankly into space, the better to see the images burned into their minds.
She raises her voice to make sure everyone hears her. “You men did outstanding work last night. You protected your home and family. I'm proud of you, guys." When Nix rises from the chair she's been slumped in, they all jump to their feet. She sighs. When did I become Queen fucking Victoria? she thinks.
“I've got to get out of these clothes,” she says aloud. “We'll talk more later.”
◆◆◆
Nix wonders how long she's been awake. Except for the short nap on the sofa this morning, she thinks she may have been on her feet for over twenty-four hours. She's gone back down to the shack to change clothes and clean up a bit. The place is dank and cold without the stove blazing, but she's too tired to clean the ashes out and haul wood inside to make a fire. Anyway, she's not going to be here that long. She wants to be within shouting distance in case Cash takes a turn for the worse. No—no! It's unthinkable that he might die. If he does, I'm checking out, too, she thinks fiercely. These brats can survive with what they've learned—or not.
There's a tap on the door. Her pulse races. Oh God, don't let him be dead. She tries to pretend she's not there—maybe the bearer of unbearable news will just go away. But there's a second tap, and a third. Then someone starts pounding rhythmically like the drum they beat for a fallen hero. Nix yanks open the door.
Michael stands outside. He has dark smudges under his eyes that almost look like bruises. “Is he still alive?” he chokes out.
He looks out of it—in shock—as though he's sustained some injury that's invisible to her.
