by A W Hartoin
Raptor almost fell over in her squat. “It was your Grandad’s idea. Hal wanted to go to Disney World.”
“Seriously? That would’ve been better.”
“Yeah, nobody dies of alcohol poisoning at Disney.”
“It wasn’t alcohol poisoning,” I said.
“You don’t know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You always think that,” she said.
I held up my hands as Wallace rushed me and tried to hide under my rear. I almost fell over but managed to cling to the spindle. Raptor laughed, enjoying every moment.
“Why do I talk to you?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
A huge crack of thunder rattled the table and hail hit like it was the coming of the apocalypse. It came sideways, pelting us with ice the size of golf balls. Janet grabbed me. “Come on!”
We ran for The Stone House and its wide overhang. We lost Raptor, not that I wanted to keep her. We squeezed under the overhang with fifty bikers, some of whom had to be wishing for panties with the cold breeze that had kicked up.
“I hope they got under a tree or something!” yelled Janet.
“I’m sure they did!” I yelled back. “Call Barney!”
Janet called Barney. No answer. She tried Robert, Grandad, and Big Mike. No one answered. She tried Barney again and then looked at me with wide eyes. “Barney always answers.”
“Maybe he can’t hear the phone!”
She just looked at me. She knew. I knew. Dad always says that people have a lot more senses than we give ourselves credit for. He investigated rapes where the victims knew they shouldn’t go into a parking lot. People who called in sick the day their co-worker went postal and shot up the office. They knew for no discernible reason, but they knew. And we knew.
“Call Raptor!” I yelled. A piece of hail hit me on the hand, leaving an instant welt. We couldn’t go out there, not without risking a concussion. I didn’t have a leather jacket on and Janet wasn’t wearing a jacket at all.
“She’s not answering!” yelled Janet.
Crap on a cracker. Grandad.
I saw the skunk by a guy’s boot. The box it rode on was bigger than my head. I shoved Wallace into Janet’s hands and snatched up the skunk.
Several bikers tried to stop me. “You’ll get hurt! Don’t be crazy, girl!”
I put the skunk over my head and ran. That has to be the only time in history that anyone has ever done that. I ran around the house and thankfully, the hail lightened up. The hail hadn’t lasted that long the day before. Hopefully, it was almost done.
I cornered around the bar and ran smack dab into Grandad. He knocked me on my butt and I lost the skunk. He yanked me to my feet and shoved me under the bar overhang. It wasn’t big, but we fit. Barely.
I hugged him. “Thank god. I thought something happened!”
“Mercy, where have you been?” he yelled.
“Trying not to get clubbed to death by ice.” I started to go back to the big overhang, but he yanked me back.
“You have to help!”
“What?” I yelled.
“Raquel!”
“Nobody can help her!”
“It’s Robert. She’s panicking!”
The bartender thrust an umbrella at me and we ran through the parking lot. I was under the umbrella. Grandad was getting hit, full in the face. He didn’t waver. The hail that hit me was seriously painful, but it was like he didn’t feel it. Maybe he didn’t. His focus was absolute.
We ran past rows of bikes to a truck parked next to a custom trike. A group of guys were huddled over someone on the ground, jackets up. Raptor stood next to them, unprotected, with her hands in fists pressed to her mouth.
All I could see was a pair of boots and nobody was inclined to move. “What happened?” I yelled.
“I don’t know!” yelled Grandad. “We were running for that shed.” He pointed at a hay shed in the field next to the parking lot. “He went down.”
The hail lessened to sleet. I gave Grandad the umbrella and pushed my way between Barney and Big Mike. “What is it?”
Big Mike held up his hand. It was covered in blood.
I knelt in the mud. “Call an ambulance!”
“I did!” yelled Barney.
Robert grabbed me. “Oh, God!” He was white as printer paper with bluish lips and shook violently. I patted him down. No blood.
“Where’s the pain?”
“My back,” he squeaked out.
“Flip him!”
Nobody moved.
“I have to see it!” I tried to roll him, but he wasn’t a small guy.
Big Mike woke up and rolled Robert effortlessly. The wound wasn’t immediately apparent. He was coated with mud and dried grass. Everyone shielding us blocked the light.
“Step back! I can’t see!”
Nobody moved.
“Now!”
They moved back and I pulled up Robert’s jacket and shirt, revealing a stab wound. It was sizable, a puncture and a slash to the right. Blood poured out of the wound. I whipped off my jacket and wiped away the mud. The blood pooled instantly. They must’ve hit the kidney.
“Where’s that ambulance?” I yelled.
“It’s going to be a while!” yelled Barney.
“What the hell?”
He wiped the rain out of his eyes. “It’s the rally. Busy.”
“We have to take him in. Find the owner of this truck or a car. Anything! He can’t wait.”
One of the badass bikers I’d seen earlier pushed his way in next to me, took one look, and said, “He needs an ER!”
“I know. Who are you?”
He held out a big hand. “Channing. Ortho. Did you call it in?”
“It’s going to take too long!” I yelled.
Channing stood up and yelled. “Rafferty! Open this truck.”
The sleet lessened and I stood up, shielding my eyes as Rafferty ran over and broke the truck’s window with a rock. He yanked open the door and climbed in. The truck roared to life in fifteen seconds. I looked at Channing, who shrugged and said, “He’s not an ortho.”
“Get him in!” yelled Grandad. “I’m driving.”
Big Mike picked up Robert, who bit his lip so hard it bled. I crawled into the truck and helped pull Robert in.
“I’m going!” yelled Raptor.
“The hell you are!”
Big Mike held her back. Then I ran around the truck and got in, pressing my jacket to Robert’s back. Grandad jumped into the driver’s seat and we pulled out.
“Go faster!” I yelled.
“I can’t. We’ll hit someone.” Grandad wasn’t yelling. He could’ve been going to the store for milk.
I peeked over the dusty dash. People were running through the parking lot, zigzagging through the bikes with jackets or shirts over their heads. One woman ran in front of us with her skirt hiked up, showing her bare bottom. If Grandad hadn’t hit the brakes, we would’ve run her down. She never looked at us at all.
We went over a rut in the field and Robert cried out, “Oh God!”
“We’ll get there, brother,” said Grandad.
“I know. I know,” said Robert, breathless with pain. “You always get me there.”
I felt around Robert’s hip. “I’m going to use your phone, Robert.”
“Okay.”
The phone was coated in blood, so wet the screen wouldn’t react. “Grandad, I need your phone.”
He unlocked it and handed it over as we finally made it to the highway. I called 911, breathless myself.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“I have a seventy-year-old white male with a stab wound to his lower back.”
“What is your name, ma’am?” she said, calm as Grandad.
“Mercy Watts. His name is Robert Babinski.”
“Please give me your location.”
I glanced around for signage. None. “We’re driving…I don’t know.”
“We�
��re driving to Spearfish,” said Grandad.
“Spearfish. We’re driving to Spearfish.”
“Were you at The Stone House?” she asked.
“We were,” I said.
“Stop driving and wait for the ambulance.”
“What’s the ETA?”
She paused and Robert groaned. His blood seeped over my fingers and ran down the seat.
“What’s the ETA?” I repeated.
“Twenty minutes.”
“We can’t wait that long. He’s lost at least two units so far.” I looked at Grandad. “There’s a hospital in Spearfish?”
He nodded and we passed a group of bikers pulled over and hunkered down in the driving rain. “Our ETA is fifteen minutes.”
“Pull over,” said the dispatcher.
“Our ETA is fifteen to Spearfish. Please alert them. He’ll need blood and an OR.”
“Spearfish is expecting you.”
“Great.” I screamed and dropped the phone as Grandad passed a semi and narrowly avoided a head-on collision with a 4-runner. “Holy crap, Grandad! You’re going to kill us.”
“I’m never out of control,” he said and he certainly looked in control.
Robert patted my hand. “He’s Ace. Don’t worry.”
Oh my god. The guy bleeding out is comforting me.
“I’m fine. Grandad just drives a lot like my dad,” I said, calm as I could muster.
“I’m better than your father,” said Grandad.
Robert spasmed, but squeaked out, “Combat will do that.”
“Did you see who stabbed you?” I asked.
“No. I had my jacket up.”
Grandad patted him on the shoulder. “Almost there.”
“Did you see anything?” I asked Grandad.
“No. We were running for the hay shed.”
My chest got tight. Robert was with our guys. Could one of them have done it?
“Who—”
A barrage of hail hit the windshield, cracking it and causing Grandad to blink. Twice. That’s it. I’m not going to lie. I screeched like my mom when she used to step on my Legos. There was some cursing. Better than Mom’s, so I’m proud of that.
Grandad patted me on the head like a hound dog. “Calm down, sweetheart. It’s only hail.”
“Hail from hell. Who has hail like this?”
“South Dakota.”
“Thanks,” I said with an eyeroll. “How long now?”
He squinted and I remembered that Grandad had glaucoma. It was a wonder we’d lived so long. “We’ve just entered Spearfish. Now where’s that hospital?”
“Oh crap! I thought you knew where it was,” I said, scrambling for the phone.
“I don’t know everything, sweetheart. Almost everything. But not everything.”
“Good to know.”
He unlocked the phone again and I pulled up google maps, but the signal was worse than spotty. It took forever to load. “Look for a sign. I can’t get it.”
“Got it.” Grandad jerked to the left, throwing me sideways and cracking my head on the window. Horns blared. We’d cut off two lanes of traffic and I’d come within two feet of being hit by a rusty SUV.
“Crap!”
“Sorry. I had to make that turn,” he said.
“You’re insane! Robert, was he always this insane?” I asked my patient. He didn’t respond. “Robert!”
“Is he out?” asked Grandad.
I slapped Robert. “Wake up, Robert. Stay with us.”
“Waaa,” he moaned.
“Thank God,” I said. “Robert, talk to me. Okay?” I looked and saw the Spearfish Regional Hospital sign up ahead. “We’re nearly there.”
“Uh huh.”
“Why does Raquel hate me?” It just popped out. But thinking about her might help.
He blinked rapidly. “She doesn’t.”
“She’s really nasty to me.”
“No. She’s a good girl.”
“I think she spit in my lemonade once,” I said.
That got a tiny chuckle out of Robert. “No.”
“Are you saying she’s not a spitter? She seems like a spitter.”
“She’s jealous. You have…things,” he said weakly.
Grandad did a hard right. “We’re here, brother.” Grandad laid on the horn and we jerked to a stop under the ER overhang. A rush of medical personnel flew out of the doors with a gurney. They had Robert out of the truck, on the gurney, and inside in ten seconds flat. Neither Grandad or I said a single thing. It wasn’t required. Spearfish knew their jobs. I admit I was surprised. I’d seen major medical centers with more drag.
A nurse came out with a clipboard. “Are you Mercy Watts?”
“Yes.”
“Can you fill out Mr. Babinski’s information?”
I was at a loss. I didn’t even know his address. Grandad took the clipboard. “I’ll do it. I’ve known Robert for over fifty years. How’s he looking?”
“We’ve taken him straight into an OR. He’s lost a lot of blood, but he was still responsive, which is a good sign. We’ll know more soon.”
Grandad dimpled at her and I swear, she blushed. What was it with the Watts men? “Thank you, darling. I’ll get this to you soon.”
“Thank you, sir.” She returned to the ER and I sighed. “You are something.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“Not at all. It’s a gift.”
“I agree. A gift that you, my sweet girl, share.”
“Hardly.”
“You don’t know your own power,” he said.
I couldn’t have felt less powerful at that moment, leaning on the truck, feeling my heart continue to pound in my chest. “Whatever you say.”
Grandad, on the other hand, ambled around, smacking his hands together. His face was polka-dotted with bruises from the hail and there was a good amount of swelling. “I say that was a good bit of excitement.”
“You call that excitement?” I ran my fingers though my sopping wet hair and realized too late that they were coated with blood. “Oh, gross.”
Grandad chuckled. “What did Crane call it? The Red Badge of Courage?”
“I think he was referring to getting wounded yourself, not other people’s blood.”
“There’s all kinds of courage in this world.”
I looked into my grandad’s eyes and tried to see if something was hidden. He looked the same as always. Wet and beat-up, but the same. “You weren’t freaked at all?”
“Sure. I’m freaked right now. Robert’s one of my oldest friends.”
“But you’re so…calm.”
“Would yelling and crying help?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
“No.”
“Then why are you fussing about it?”
I cupped my forehead with my less-bloody hand. “I really don’t know.”
Sirens sounded in the distance and a zing went through me. “We stole this truck.”
He chuckled. “We sure enough did. This is going to make for a great story.”
“A great story of us going to jail.”
“We’re not going to be arrested. I’m a retired cop and you’re you. We were saving Robert’s life, remember?”
“The owner might not see it that way,” I said, pointing to the windshield. “We kinda wrecked it.”
“That was an Act of God.”
I looked in the cab at the tremendous amount of blood soaking into the cloth seats. It would take an Act of God to get it cleaned. Grandad looked over my shoulder. “I’ve seen worse.”
“I’m sure you have, but that’s not going to fix this truck.” The sirens were getting closer. “I hope you’re feeling charming.”
He dimpled at me. “I’ll leave it to you. A bloody Marilyn beats a broke-down old cop.”
“You’re hardly broke-down.” I glanced back in the truck. Maybe I had enough left over from my last DBD paycheck to fix it. It would set back our investigation of The Klinefeld Group and that st
ung.
“My knuckles hurt,” said Grandad.
“Because you punched a marine.”
“Still hurts.”
Wait a minute.
Looking back in the cab, I said, “That’s a lot of blood.”
“You said he lost at least a couple units.”
I did say that, but it was more than that. The seat and my jeans were soaked. Most of the blood was on my side of the cab. But not all of it. There was a decent amount on the driver’s side. It took a second for it to click.
“Oh, shit!”
“What?” asked Grandad.
I grabbed him, spinning him around and pulling up his jacket and bloody shirt. He had a long slash, reaching from his bony left hip across his back. Ten inches, at least. I ran to the ER doors, hesitated while they slid open, and then yelled inside, “We’ve got another one!”
The nurse who gave us the clipboard grabbed a wheelchair and sprinted out. “Who is it?”
“My grandad.”
Grandad stood there, looking mildly surprised, and then he twisted around. “Well, would you look at that. He got me.”
“You didn’t feel that?”
He shrugged. “I felt a pain, but I thought I got a crick in my back when we were over Robert.”
The nurse tried to maneuver the chair behind him, but he wouldn’t budge. “Sir, I need you to sit down.”
“I’ll walk.”
“Sir, please.” She glanced at me. “He has a significant wound.”
“It’s a scratch,” he said.
I clenched my fists. “It’s not a scratch.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“I don’t care. Sit down!” I yelled.
Grandad looked at the nurse. “Do you talk to your grandfather like that?”
“Please sit down, sir,” she replied.
Instead of sitting, he ambled toward the door. I ran over and held up his phone. “I’ll call Grandma.”
“I won’t give you the code,” he said as the doors slid open.
The nurse held out her phone to me. “I’ll give you my code.”
Grandad patted his chest. “I’m wounded.”
“I know you are, sir,” she said, suppressing a smile at the charm. “Please sit.”
“I’ll do it for you. As a favor, not because I need it,” he said.
“Whatever it takes.”
Grandad eased down into the chair. I think I saw a wince, but he controlled it well. The nurse gave me a thumbs-up and whisked him into the ER. I heard him asking what her name was, if she was married and had any children in quick succession before the doors closed. I shook my head. By the time Grandad was done, she’d be bringing him gourmet coffee and a cruller. It was the Watts way. He’d make her feel good on instinct, a talent that seemed to skip my generation.
