What if the son of bitch wasn’t dead yet?
The obvious decision was, of course, to slow things down. Take half steps where full steps would have been the easy and logical thing to do. The natural thing.
After about twenty minutes, Sheriff Woods barked out, “How much longer, Kingsley?”
“Yeah,” Bunny added, “I’m sweatin’ so much right now I could go for a beer.”
“Are we close?” Kate asked, genuine concern in her pretty voice.
“A little longer,” I said. “Maybe another ten minutes.”
“He’ll be bled out by then,” Bunny said. “I’m telling you, stone fucking dead.”
“Don’t be so negative, Bunny,” Kate said. “He could very well be alive but in real danger nonetheless. Our job is to get to him as quickly as possible.”
“Who died and left her boss?” Bunny said. “She’s just a kid.”
“And doing a very fine job,” Woods added. “Just keep hiking, Bun.”
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I knew we were getting close. In a minute or two, I’d be able to see the very spot where I left Sonny lying in a big puddle of his own blood. I couldn’t get it out of my head that he’d be somehow sitting up, a smile plastered on his face. He’d be toking on his vape device, blue steam oozing from his nostrils. The bleeding would have stopped due to the tourniquet I rigged up, and even his color would have returned. Sure, he’d need stitches and lots of them, but otherwise, he would be no worse for wear.
He’d go wide-eyed when he saw the sheriff.
“Well, ain’t I glad to see you, Sheriff Woods,” he’d say. “Boy, have I got a story for you.” Then he’d take special notice of me, too. “And our new writer boy, Kingsley, can help me tell it. Can’t you, Kingsley?”
That was the problem with being a writer. You couldn’t help but let your imagination run wild. You couldn’t help but imagine all the possibilities of any given situation, good or really bad. It was a matter of instinct. It was great for the work. But it also was also the reason why I was able to survive a joint like Sing Sing for as long as I did. I was always playing out different scenarios in my mind. Would a beefy, skin-headed Aryan sneak up on me in the showers and shiv me in the kidney with a sharpened toothbrush? Would a big black stud corner me, make me get down on my knees, make me give him what he wanted with my mouth and tongue while a screw turned his back on the whole thing? Or maybe a riot would break out in the mess hall. Maybe the plastic trays and the cups would start flying, and the whole place would explode, and it would be everyone for himself. The screws would run for their lives, and there would be no one to protect anyone. The Aryans had gotten to me once, when I wasn’t imagining the bad things that could happen to me.
Day in and day out, I imagined the worst, and it was those thoughts that kept me on my toes at all times. They kept me alive. But now, I was imagining something completely different. I had just attempted murder, and I couldn’t be sure that I’d done the job properly. When I’d left Sonny behind, I’d been super confident that he was a goner. Now I wasn’t so sure. The sweat that was building up under my clothing and the sweat that was beading on my face wasn’t just from the onset of a hot day. It was also because of my nerves.
I didn’t get nervous very often. When you lived in a state of constant anxiety, you learned not to sweat the little things in life. But if it ended up that Sonny survived, I’d be looking at a court-mandated lethal injection or, at the very least, life behind bars, which in itself was an agonizingly slow death.
Breathing shallow, heart pumping in my throat, I pushed back some branches that concealed the spot where I’d left Sonny Torchi, bleeding out. My stomach dropped when I saw that he was gone.
17
A massive pool of blood soaked the leafy ground directly beside the pine log he’d been cutting when the chainsaw ran out of gas. I looked one way and then the other. I spotted the chainsaw set on the trail bed. But no Sonny. Kate approached me. So did the sheriff and Bunny.
“Is this the place?” Kate said, her eyes wide, her pretty face having barely worked up a sweat.
“Yes,” I said. “I swear I left him right here. That’s his blood.”
“Well, then, he can’t be dead, can he?” Woods said.
“Well, I’ll be a dumb-ass broad,” Bunny said, not without a hoarse laugh. “That son of a bitch must have had some life left in him after all.”
My throat went dry. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Was Bunny right? Had Sonny somehow managed to get up and walk into the woods even with most of his body bled out? What the hell was happening here? No way Sonny could have gotten up and walked away. Not in the condition he was in. I stared at the ground. It took a few beats, but soon I saw something that looked different from everything else. There was a smear of blood that ran from the blood pool, off the trail and into the thick woods.
“Maybe he tried to crawl his way out,” I said, pointing at the long blood trail.
“Looks like it to me,” Kate said, her eyes now focused on the same blood smear.
The sheriff locked eyes with me. His eyes were steely gray, his face long, cheeks concave, his upper lip invisible under that salt and pepper mustache. I’m not sure why he felt the need to do it, but he drew his gun.
“Expecting company?” Bunny said.
“I got a funny feeling,” Sheriff Woods said. Then, his eyes still locked on mine, “Kingsley, you’d better let me take the lead from here on out. Understand?”
My temples were pounding in time with my pulse. I might have been covered in sweat, but I had goose pimples.
“Follow me,” the sheriff said.
I swallowed something dry and bitter tasting and did what he said.
“Try not to walk so loud,” Woods went on as he followed the blood trail.
“Do as he says,” Kate whispered. “Sheriff Woods knows his woods, if you get my drift.”
I did.
“When we finally find Torchi,” Bunny said, “drinks are on me back at the bar.”
“One thing at a time, Bunny,” the sheriff said. “Let’s find Sonny first and take it from there.”
It grunted at us through the trees. A deep, angry, guttural grunt that sent a shiver through my bones.
“Stand back,” Woods demanded in a shouting whisper.
He took careful aim with his weapon, slowly cocked back the hammer. He fired. There came another grunt. This one agonized. Until the grunting suddenly stopped and we made out a heavy thump on the forest floor.
“Dead on,” Woods said, not without a grin. He turned. “Bunny, radio in that I just shot a black bear on the Loon Lake Trail and that Encon is gonna have to come pick it up.” He holstered his pistol. “Oh, and tell them I want the hide. I don’t care if black bear season isn’t for five months yet.”
My head was spinning with the possibilities. Was this the black bear Sonny had mentioned yesterday? The one with the tag in the ear? The one Encon had sent a warning about? Had that same black bear actually sniffed out Sonny’s blood just like a hungry shark would sniff out the blood of a mortally wounded fish or even a human being? But then Kate asked the question that had to be on everyone’s minds.
“Sheriff,” she said, “did the bear take Torchi’s body?”
“You people stay back,” he said. “Judging by the direction of the blood trail, that’s exactly what’s happened. I’ve heard of this kind of thing happening before, especially with wounded hunters stupid enough to shoot themselves in the feet with their own guns. Or occasionally, one of their hunting partners will confuse them for a deer. A man gets shot, collapses in the woods, and the bears take over. It’s like a shooting gallery out here in November and December.”
He started toward the shot bear. I followed.
“Stay back, Kingsley,” he said, again drawing his gun. “That bear might still be alive.”
He walked into the woods. His bootsteps crushing and crunching the dea
d leaves that covered the forest floor.
When I could barely see him, he shouted, “The bear is dead!”
“What about Torchi?” Kate barked.
“He’s here all right,” he said. “He don’t look so good. Hang on while I check his vitals.”
“What are we waiting for?” Bunny said, now jogging her way to the sheriff with Kate following close on her boot heels.
“Holy shit,” Woods called out. “He’s alive. Sonny Torchi has a pulse.”
My worst fears were confirmed. How the hell did a man bleed out, then get snatched up by a black bear, get dragged into the woods, and live through the ordeal? If I were to write this kind of thing in a novel, my editor would tell me it was unbelievable, that my plot and storyline had somehow gone radically off the rails. But like they say, you can’t make this shit up. Or what’s the other one…truth is all too often stranger than fiction.
I made my way to the scene and nearly puked over what I witnessed. Sonny was on his back, his mouth wide open, white foam oozing out both corners, his blue tongue sticking out like an insult. His eyes were open wide and every now and again he’d wink, as if he were sending me a personal message in Morse Code: “I’m alive, you cocksucker, and I know what you did, and now you’re a fucking dead man.”
The dead black bear was lying right beside him, a small trickle of blood running from its head down over its snout. Its left ear had a yellow Encon tag stuck to it. The bear smelled like shit, let me tell you. I had to admit, Woods had made one hell of a shot. A headshot. The sheriff knew how to shoot, that was for sure. Take it from a soldier who proudly earned his marksmanship medal. Apparently, the bear hadn’t dug its teeth into Sonny’s skin, but instead just managed to drag him along the forest floor by his bloody pant leg. Too bad the bear hadn’t bitten him in the neck.
The others hadn’t quite reached the site yet, so I whispered to Woods, “What the hell do we do now? The bastard’s alive.”
He took hold of my arm.
“Not for long,” he said. His voice was so low, it wasn’t even a whisper. I practically had to lip read him.
“I need that one-hundred grand, Sheriff,” I said.
“You’ll get it when he’s gone, and when the town is safe from his family.”
He was right, of course. That’s exactly the way I’d handle the money portion of our program if I were in his boots. The others broke through the brush.
“How is he?” Kate asked.
She immediately dropped to her knees, tossing the medical kit down beside her. She pressed the left side of her head against Sonny’s chest, her ear against his heart.
Bunny just stood there staring at the dying man.
“Think I’m gonna barf,” she said.
“Bunny!” Sheriff Woods barked. “Come on, have more respect than that.”
She locked eyes with him. “You’re kidding, Sheriff, right? We all know what Sonny is.”
Woods just shook his head and bit down on his lip. Kate was present, so he knew, like I knew, that he had to go through all the motions of saving the caretaker’s life.
“Think you can stabilize him, Kate?” he said. “He’s too far bled out for my skills. And no way are we’re choppering him out in these heavily forested conditions.”
“I’m gonna give it my best,” Kate said, opening the kit, grabbing a hold of some medical scissors.
She proceeded to cut away Sonny’s blood and mud-stained shirt and then the pant leg that covered the gaping wound caused by the chainsaw.
“Bunny,” she said, “don’t just stand there. Take care of his tongue.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bunny said, her tone indicating that all this fuss would be for nothing.
I couldn’t only hope she was right.
Reaching into the kit, Bunny came out with a plastic device which she placed over Sonny’s blue tongue. Presumably, so he didn’t swallow it or choke on it. Meanwhile, Kate slipped on some blue latex gloves and then went to work on the massive gash in Sonny’s leg. It was still bleeding, but not nearly as much as it had been when I first left him.
“I need to clamp this off,” Kate said. “Sheriff, can you pass me two clamps?”
Woods took a knee, found the clamps, and handed them to her.
“Sonny,” she said, “if you can hear me, this is gonna hurt bad.” Then, looking up at me, “Mr. Kingsley, I need you to hold down Mr. Torchi’s shoulders. He’s liable to make a fuss when I apply the clamps.”
“Sure,” I said. What the hell else could I say?
I stepped over to where his head was set on the forest floor. Taking a knee just like Woods had before me, I pressed my hands on both his shoulders and put my weight into it.
“Here we go,” Kate said.
When she stuck the first clamp deep into the wound and snapped it shut on the severed artery, Sonny heaved his chest into the air. He also yelped like a dog. He gave off the same reaction when she clamped the other half of the severed artery. He coughed up more foamy phlegm, and then he seemed to pass out again.
“Is he dead?” Bunny asked.
Kate took hold of Sonny’s left hand, felt his pulse.
“He’s just fainted is all,” she said. “But his pulse is almost nonexistent. We need to get him out of here.” She looked between the sheriff and me. “We can wait for someone to bring us a stretcher or we can all chip in to carry him out of here.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes,” Bunny said. “He’s, like, three-hundred pounds.”
Kate reached back inside the medical kit, pulled out a syringe. She filled the syringe with clear fluid from a vial. I could only guess that it was an antibiotic. When she was done, she tossed the syringe back into the kit, closed it, and stoodup.
“He needs blood and saline, stat,” she said. “We carry him, or he dies.”
“Okay,” Sheriff Woods said, clearly playing along. “Let’s do this. Kingsley, you’re the strong man here. You take the shoulders, and I’ll take the legs. Ladies, you take the arms.”
He then indicated that we all lift on three. I never thought deadweight could be so heavy. Maybe he wouldn’t make it out of the woods after all.
“What about the medical kit?” Bunny asked.
“I can carry it with my free hand,” Kate said, bending at the knees and grabbing hold of it.
We started for the trail, straining our backs on behalf of a man who was better off dead.
18
By the time we made it back to the trailhead at the Loon Lake beach, we were all exhausted and soaking in our own sweat. Cora was there to greet us, the tears still streaming down her face.
“Oh my God!” she screamed. “Is my husband dead?” Her roleplaying was spot on. So spot on, it made me sick to my stomach. Or maybe by then, the whole morning was making me sick to my stomach.
“He’s not dead,” Bunny said. “So stop with the dramatics already.”
“Bunny!” Sheriff Woods barked. “That will be enough.”
Bunny went sort of pale then.
“My apologies, Mrs. Torchi,” she said. “Been a long morning. We’ll take good care of your husband.”
But I knew Bunny was hoping that he’d die as much as me, Woods, and Cora were hoping he’d die. We all had our own reasons for wanting Sonny dead, but taken collectively, they all added up to one thing: Torchi was a bad man with bad people under his employ and even badder gangsters propping him up down in Queens. There was something else to consider. If he survived this ordeal, it could very well mean that I’d have to find another way to kill him and do it quickly, before he opened his trap and spilled everything.
I went to Cora, wrapped my arms around her, not like her new boyfriend, but a very concerned friend. She cried and trembled in my arms. After a time, she placed her lips near my ear.
“What are we going to do?” she said. “He’s still alive.” My heart began to speed up, and my body felt suddenly lighter than air. Cora had been put
ting on a terrific act after all.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “I promise.”
“Will you go to the hospital?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you want me to drive you?”
“That would be the right thing,” she said.
While Bunny, Kate, and the sheriff piled into the EMS van, Cora and I got into my Jeep. I fired it up, and we followed the speeding van out the gravel drive and onto Loon Lake Road, which would take us through the town and to Crown Point General. While the warm wind slapped our faces, Cora remained silent. It was as if she were waging a war against herself. On one hand, she wanted her husband dead. Wanted him dead more than anything in the world. On the other hand, she was a good person. And good people didn’t take murder with a casual grain or two of salt. Just the thought of carrying out the act would cause enough turmoil in their heads and bodies to twist up their intestines and mess up their brains.
I knew Cora was fighting that very war because I could see it in her eyes. The way they hardly blinked. The way her million-mile stare saw far beyond the road and the mountains and the trees. Maybe she hadn’t been the one to cut her husband in the thigh, but she was just as guilty as I was. Maybe more so. And she knew it in her flesh and bones, and most of all, in her heart and soul.
We cruised through town, past the jail, past the grocery store, past the burned house, past Bunny’s bar, and past all the old houses falling apart from both lack of repair and lack of money.
Maybe Torchi was a creep who deserved to die, but one thing was for sure, the town of Loon Lake sure could use a facelift. As soon as the town was behind us, I set my hand on Cora’s leg. But she pushed it off. She turned to me.
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