by Lynn Red
“Oh hell, I’m fine. All this blubber is good for more than keeping me warm, you know.” He laughed, but winced as he did, once again clutching his side. “I think you need to make sure you aren’t hurt worse than you think you are. You got a hell of a gash in your side.”
Dawson looked down, touching the shreds that used to be the left part of his shirt. Blood marked his hand, and he knew he should be in pain, but he just wasn’t. “How did he cut me?”
Tenner shrugged, and winced again. “There’s glass all over the damn place. And when you were tearing him up, he dug into your side with a broken bottle I think. I owe you my life, Dawson,” he got very serious, “he woulda shot me right in the face.”
“You’ve saved my life over and over for the last ten years,” Dawson replied. “I owed you more than a few. This just ticks off one of the many. But who was that guy? Why would he come in here and start shooting?”
Tenner took a deep breath and clutched the wound in his shoulder. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him. That’s Duke Denny, although, he’s a whole lot worse for wear since I saw him last.”
“So this wasn’t some random psychopath?”
Tenner shook his head. “I may have gotten into it with him about ten years ago. Just business stuff that I never took personally, but he clearly did. I didn’t know the guy, but at first he tried to partner with me on the bar. I wouldn’t do it, so then he tried to buy the building out from under me. Tried to, you know underbid me for the place, and offered full cash, that kind of thing. Real scumbag, you know? Luckily he had terrible credit, so the bank wouldn’t think of selling to him.” He let out a long sigh. “Damndest thing.”
Having momentarily forgotten his burning need to talk to Angie, Dawson tore the rest of his shirt and stuffed it against the worst of Tenner’s wounds. “Quit trying to get up,” he said, with a hand firmly on his old friend’s shoulder. “Ever since you took me in after the whole bridge thing, I’ve been trying to pay you back. Well, here we are.”
“Hey! He’s movin’!” A slurred, slightly inebriated voice called through the gentle silence that had settled over the bar. The only other sound in the room was the old vinyl-playing jukebox was slowly playing a 45 of Dylan singing All Along the Watchtower at what seemed to be 20 spins a minute. The old record was dragging. Dylan’s voice sounded like it was being dragged across a very fine cheese grater, which somehow just added to the emotional effect.
As the rumpled, bloody, bruised stranger hauled himself to his feet, Dawson calmly left Tenner, walked over to the man, and punched him right in the jaw. The stranger fell to the ground, stiffened, and started to shake. “He’s in shock,” Dawson heard Tenner say.
The old man’s voice was an echo in Dawson’s brain. An electric chill slid down his spine, tingling through the nerves all the way down to his fingertips. At the urging of his body, Dawson’s fingers curled, then his toes clenched up, dragging against the smooth leather inside his boots.
“Dawson?” Tenner shouted. Two bar patrons ran to his side, but it was too late. “Dawson?”
Tenner’s voice was an echo of a memory.
The huge bear tried to catch himself as he fell face first into the bar. A handful of patrons tried to hold him up but it was no good. He crashed backward against the bar, leaving a crimson streak as he slid to the floor.
His head hit the ground, bouncing twice; each one thumped out just a little more of his consciousness. As he finally slid fully into darkness, all he could hear was shouting and the noises of panic. But all he could think about?
Angie.
6
“I think he might need some help back there.” Tenner’s voice, and the words that led Angie back to meet her bear, kept running through her head all night long. Call after call, nothing could get her down. Not even pet squirrels being harassed by a bat. She was flying high, rolling hard, and generally just smiling a lot more than she should have been, given the circumstances of her job.
She couldn’t help but dwell on the way he smiled and the way he touched her shoulder in a completely non-creepy way. There wasn’t even a hint of moisture on his hand, so he was about six steps above anyone else she’d dated in years.
After the sixth call, Angie realized she’d been giving instructions to the cops in a sing-songy voice. Patrolman Williams, one of the oldest cops still driving the beat, had laughed at her over the radio and asked if she’d gotten laid. White Creek operates in a slightly more relaxed manner than most places on earth.
He laughed, she pretended to be embarrassed, and everyone had a good time. That is, until Colton sent a call over her way.
“Hey Ange?” he asked. “I think you should handle this one. I don’t really know how to...”
“Yeah all right,” she answered. “Part timers never know much.”
She’d snickered at him, but he looked genuinely concerned as he tapped the buttons to transfer the call.
“State your emergency?” she asked. This time she wasn’t doing any singing. “Hello?”
Crashing sounds, thudding sounds and some loud shouting drowned out whoever was trying to talk. She repeated her request, loud enough to be almost shouting. “Hello? Emergency?” The phone number was registered to Tenner’s, and when she saw that, her heart sank.
Colton looked over at her, and she shook her head, mouthing ‘I don’t know, can’t hear.’
She sent out a call to any patrols in the area to report. And then she heard the sickening thonk of a piano being hit in a way that pianos should never be hit. Angie grimaced, and immediately, Colton was at her side. “What is it?” he asked, grabbing her shoulder.
She bit her lip, trying not to believe, not to imagine, her worst fears. “It’s the bar – Tenner’s – the place Dawson works. I don’t know what’s going on, but it sounds like a fight, or a... hell, like a riot.”
“Angie? That you?” the ragged, gasping voice on the other end immediately throbbed in her canine chest. Her breath tightened, and before she knew it, she was breathing hard too. “Angie?”
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Is anything going on still?”
She noticed then that the sounds had mostly died away. There was just a hint of speaking in the background. “No,” he said, still breathing heavily but calming somewhat. “I took care of it. But this place is a mess.”
Something about the way he answered made her very nervous. “What do you mean you handled it? Handled what? What are you talking about?”
Suddenly, the line went dead. She had no idea why, but Angie was starting to panic. She hardly even knew the guy and she was still worried about him getting hurt, hurting someone, or well, anything else. It was the not knowing that really stuck in her brain. Tingles of electricity shot through Angie’s scalp and down the back of her neck, raising the hairs as they went.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she was able to get through again. Hearing Dawson’s voice felt just about as good as a long bath. “What happened?” she asked.
“I can’t say, exactly,” he said. “Someone pulled a gun, I heard Tenner shout and then,” he paused. She heard him licking his lips, the stubble of his beard rasping under his tongue. “Well... you know.”
“No, I don’t,” she heard herself say. It was like an out of body experience with her brain leading the way. “What do you mean you handled it? And why did the line go dead just now?”
“Well... I guess instinct took over. I mean, when I came to, the whole place was a mess. Tenner’s shot; hurt real bad, but I handled it. As far as the phone, God only knows,” he laughed in a way that obviously hurt. “Phone company’s never been that good.”
His voice was distant, as though he was trying to, himself, figure out what had happened.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You sound like you’ve been through a war.”
She heard the sound of sirens coming through the receiver. Police were there, or at least were outside. He coughed with a little wheeze trailing off the end
, and then groaned softly. “At least that’s what I was told. I was out for a while. I think I cracked a rib. Oh, they’re here, I gotta—”
The shouting and general chaos of a bunch of confused police bursting into a scene they didn’t know the exact situation of took over. She heard the phone hit the ground, and a lot of ‘get down!’ and ‘hands out of your pockets!’ She shouted his name into the phone, hoping that somehow someone would hear, even though Angie knew it wasn’t her place, wasn’t her business, she couldn’t help herself.
Someone hung up the receiver, but not before she heard Dawson groaning about his ribs, and a voice she vaguely recognized as Tenner’s saying that he had no idea what happened. He said someone who had it out for him pulled a gun, fired, and then Dawson went—
And that’s where it ended.
Angie was shaking, trembling, from her head to the tips of her fingers. She came back to reality with Colton gripping her shoulders and shaking her gently. “Ange? You all right? You kinda zonked out. What’s going on? Is anyone dead?”
She shook her head, still dazed. “No, at least I don’t think so. He didn’t say, he...”
“That was the guy? That was the bar?”
“Yeah, but... I don’t know what’s going on past the basics. I need to go and make sure he’s okay. If nothing else, I think I can safely count him as a friend at this point.”
“Go, go,” Colton urged her. “It doesn’t matter why you want to check on him, but if you’re this shook up, you must be feeling something. I’ve never seen you get all flustered like that before.”
And it was true. So achingly, horribly true. She was unshakeable, unflinching. Angie was the one who could handle the worst, most horrific emergencies without batting an eye. She always broke down afterwards, but never in the heat of the moment. “I don’t know what’s going on with me, Colt,” Angie said. “There’s something in my stomach twisting up. It’s like an octopus in is there, suckers sticking all over my insides.”
“That’s... really gross,” he said with a smile. “But I think that might be love.” Angie returned the expression and sniffed hard, then shook her head.
“Leave it to me,” she said. “I can take the worst situation and make it somehow even more awful.” She laughed, softly. “Hell, I don’t even know where to go.”
“Well, you’re a dispatcher. You could, you know, use the radio?”
That got her laughing more. “Yeah, yeah, I suppose I could, huh?”
She sent out a call to the patrol cars that had just left Tenner’s, and found that Dawson and Tenner had been packed up in the back of an ambulance and sent off to the White Creek General. “Is he okay?” she asked.
“Aw, I’m sure he’ll be awright,” Harry Davis, tortoise-shifting patrolman, answered, though he didn’t sound as sure as he acted. “He’s a big boy, yanno, big bear. He got him a few good cuts, and a buncha bruises on them ribs, but, you know, he’s awright. Real cut up though, real busted up. He’s strong, but... damn he’s real messed up.” Davis’s voice was a long, drawn out, monotone drone. “That other one, the fat walrus though, he’s tore up plenty bad. Shot a couple’a times. He’ll be awright though, just take longer.”
Chewing her lip from the nerves gnawing at her guts, Angie nodded and Colton grabbed her shoulder again. “Okay so, WCG?” she used the in-the-know acronym for the hospital. “Did he hurt anyone?”
Davis let out a long-winded laugh. “I daresay that young man who decided upon the shootin’ won’t be doin’ that no more. Got another call comin’ through, you take care, little girl.”
The tortoise signed off, leaving Angie with nothing but her nerves and Colton latched onto her shoulder. “It’s gonna be fine,” he said. “Bears will heal, and fast, too.”
“That’s not really what I’m worried about,” she said. “From the sound of things, he really tore up the guy who got violent. All these things are running through my head. I can’t stop thinking he killed someone, or ended up really tearing someone up. Even if he was just defending himself, that’s still...”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Colton said, staring straight into her eyes. “Listen to me, Ange. You know I’m right. You know I’m telling you the truth, and you know you tend to get excited when you really don’t need to. Am I right or not?”
“You’re right,” she grumbled looking at her toes, which she wiggled. “I need a mani-pedi.”
“Go check on your boyfriend, I’m sure everything’s fine. Call me when you find out?”
She nodded, wandering toward the door to the batcave as they called the dispatch room, in a haze. It didn’t occur to her that Colton called Dawson her boyfriend until she climbed into her car and cranked the ignition.
Her stomach hit her knees. “Boyfriend?” she asked her rearview. “No way. Right? When the hell did I turn into a giggling teenager? Or is it because something is really happening? Ugh, I’m going to kill myself with stress unless I cool the hell off.”
She grabbed four sticks of Trident out of her glovebox. She kept it there so the heat in the car would keep it slightly soft. Angie had a touch of TMJ from grinding her teeth all the damn time, so her gum habit wasn’t the best thing in the world, but it was better than cigarettes. Also, it staved off some of her near-constant anxiety. It didn’t work as well as a prescription, but it also didn’t turn her into a drooling zombie. Sometimes the zombie thing was preferable, but not right now.
*
“Dawson Lex,” she told Nurse Hibby, an old swan with a mean streak and a heart of gold. “The ambulance and the police brought him in about twenty minutes ago. Or at least, I think. I kinda lost track of time.”
Hibby smacked her gum and plucked a pen from her bouffant. She kept it stuck in the front, which Angie always found a bit curious, but what the hell, she only liked melted gum. “Relation?”
Angie tilted her head, knowing very well what she’d been asked, but gawking in a slightly stupefied way.
“Mate? Sibling? You his momma? I doubt that last one, but I’ve seen weirder things.”
Angie shook herself back to reality. “Oh, uh... well just a friend.”
“You know the rules, Ange,” Hibby said. “Friends can’t go in until they’re in their rooms.”
“He’s in surgery? He said on the phone he was fine!” She caught herself almost screaming. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to screech. But he said he was fine when I talked to him.”
Hibby cracked her most patient, tolerant smile. This was a woman who had dealt with every single damn thing imaginable, and managed to do it all with a certain elegant grace that belied her general agitation. “Not surgery, just getting patched up.”
“I’m his mate,” Angie spat out. “Just got together, sorry, not used to the change.”
She had no idea why she lied, she had no idea why she had to see him, but as she said the words I’m his mate she felt something melt deep inside her chest. Hibby must’ve noticed the change in her mood.
“Well I’m guessing you don’t have the paperwork, but since he was asking for you, I guess it can’t hurt. I’ll warn you though, he ain’t in great shape.”
Halfway down the hall, what she’d just heard struck her. “Wait,” Angie stopped short, her feet skittering softly on the cold tile floor. The scent of alcohol, Ben Gay and that weird, antiseptic aroma of medical care facilities struck her like a pungent non-smell. “He asked for me? How did he know I was here?”
Hibby chuckled. “Listen honey,” she said. “When a man’s that far gone for someone he just met, you may as well be mated.”
Angie cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he busted half his ribs and was doped up on morphine. And past that, I mean that he was so zonked out he was sort of drooling. But he was still moaning for you. He told me the whole story while I was checking him in. That stuff really does a good job of making people tell all sorts of truths.”
Angie was shaking her head, stunned silent. “I
can’t believe...”
“Believe it, sugar,” Hibby said. The way she said ‘sugar’ ended with an ‘ah’ sound. “Eve do it? Make the match, I mean?”
Angie didn’t know what to do except to nod. “Just yesterday.”
“Mhm. She works quick. But come on, your bear is waiting. I’ll just warn you though, the outfit he’s wearing is slightly less dashing than his butt-hugging jeans and that shirt that could hardly keep his muscles inside.”
With a dumb smile on her face, Angie followed the rest of the way. Just outside the door, a grumble, and a crash. Hibby pushed past her. “He is still a bear, and he don’t like shots one bit. Come on in here if you think you can calm his ass down!”
“Dawson?” Angie almost shouted as she entered the room to find him on all fours, crouched on the hospital bed with his ass in the air, sticking straight out of his split-open gown. There was also something else dangling there. She could only imagine his openness had something to do with opioids. “Dawson! Stop!”
“No more Jell-O! No potatoes!” he roared, flinging the tray aside. “Milkshake!”
“Get him a damn milkshake,” Hibby said to the two orderlies. “Don’t you two know anything?”
“Yes ma’am,” one of them said, and both of them rushed out of the room.
“What are you doing, Dawson? You should eat that Jell-O and be happy about it. Last time I was in the hospital, they wouldn’t let me have anything except ice chips. Also, what kind of luxury hotel is this? Mashed potatoes and milkshakes in an ER? Honey, that ain’t what I’ve seen. How did you manage all this food?”
“We’re used to feeding bears,” Hibby cut in. “We know how they get unless they’re fed well, and fed often. Anyway, keeping them happy lowers our insurance rates.”
The rage and fury in Dawson’s eyes almost immediately dissipated like clouds parting after a brutally hard rain. “Angie?” he blinked heavily. She was amazed he was coherent, with all of the drugs he’d been shot up with. “Is that you?”
A moment later, she laid her hand on his back. “Lie down,” she said. “You’ve gotta calm down. And besides, your dong is hanging out of that gown.”
