by Mark Tufo
Now I’m no doctor and I didn’t even play one on TV, but even if BT's wound wasn’t fatal now, I could tell he would bleed out sooner rather than later.
“Fuck that.” Tracy said quietly.
I was thrown against the passenger door violently as she did something physics wise I didn’t think was possible. She had u-turned a minivan at 70 miles per hour and we didn’t violently flip down the roadway. Somehow Tommy had had the foresight to grip the roof- mounted handgrip and hadn’t even lost a beat as he popped what appeared to be the remainder of a Kit-Kat bar into his mouth. It would have been humorous if I wasn’t pinned nearly upside down by the g-forces being applied to my body. Brendon respected applied pressures (even if Tracy didn’t) and slowed his car down to a saner but still scary 45 miles per hour before he tried to do the same maneuver. Within a quarter mile he was alongside our right side.
He nearly shattered his voice to be heard above the whistling wind as it came in through our now defunct windshield. “What’s going on Mike?”
I wanted to give him the full story about BT’s injury and the need to get him some attention and quickly. Being succinct seemed more prudent. “We’re going to finish what they started.” He nodded gravely to my words. Jen had replaced Nicole in the front seat and was busy loading her extra magazines. There was a barbarous set to her features. BT was breathing laboriously through the haze of pain as Travis and Tommy fashioned a crude tourniquet on his upper thigh.
“Dad I think it broke his leg but we got the blood stopped.”
“Holy shit BT, does it hurt?” I asked stupidly. It’s common knowledge that there is no greater pain on the planet than a broken femur, yet he hadn’t cried out since the initial shot that caused his injury.
“What do you think Talbot.” BT winced as Tommy pulled the slipknot tighter on the tourniquet.
I winced in sympathy with him. And then like an idiot, I let my thoughts wander and wonder. Is a broken leg worse pain than say, someone gripping one of your nuts in a pair of pliers and crushing it? Oh, God, I nearly vomited at my own speculation. Better not to go there at all.
Within thirty seconds of cresting a small rise in the road, our quarry was in sight. The hunters had become the hunted. Redneck number one might be an asshole but he wasn’t a dipshit. While his traveling companions were staring at awe at us as we bore down on them, he was punching and cajoling and kicking them into action. They were nearly done with the transfer of supplies and the unceremonious disposal of their brethren when we had come upon them. If they got behind the wheels of those trucks and got them moving this was going to become a very dangerous game of chicken.
I saw Tracy hesitate. She wasn’t sure if she should keep going or turn around. The odds of making another 70 mile per hour u-turn unscathed weighed heavily against us. She pinned the gas pedal down. I tasted tooth fragments as my head slammed into the dashboard. Tracy had used the minivan like a guided missile as she smashed the living fuck out of the nearest redneck that had not been thoroughly convinced to get his ass moving. His ass was moving now, at least what was left of it. His broken body hurtled into the air like he carried his own jetpack. I prayed that I would not be able to hear the sound his body made when it struck back to earth. What was not already broken would shatter like dry sticks under a heavy moose’s hoof. I barely had time to recover as Tracy peeled the car off to the left. I’d like to say she narrowly missed the parked truck but that would be an outright lie. The shower of sparks and the squeal of metal on metal would have made me a liar. The caustic smell of burning paint assaulted my nostrils. Sparks showered my lap looking for fuel to grow into a larger version of itself. A loud tell-tale report let me know that someone’s tire had burst. I could only hope it wasn’t ours. I was thinking it was going to be a bitch to get triple A out here on such short notice.
And then it was over. The metallic burnt smell whisked out of our car. The din of war was reduced to just wind coming though our various new ventilation systems. Brendon had come through the far side in much better shape than us. They had decided wisely to use more conventional weapons. They had struck at least two and possibly a third man. What was left of our would-be hijackers would fit comfortably in a tollbooth. Tracy had tears streaming down her face as the stress finally wore her down. How the hell she could see through the stream of tears and the shear of wind through the dispersed windshield was once again something that eluded me.
“Tracy.” I said softly. She looked over. “We need to go back.” She didn’t question my sanity she merely acknowledged my words. BT was near to passing out as his eyes were beginning to roll up into his head. “Do you want me to drive?”
She turned the car around and sped back to the trucks. That was sufficient answer for me. This time, however, there was no call to arms as Redneck number one and one of his militia sprinted out into the snow-covered field. Throwing their weapons to the side as they did so.
“So much for comrades in arms.” I said as I pointed to the lone injured gunmen that hobbled desperately to keep up with his fleeing leader. By the time we were abreast of the trucks, the two lead runners were nearly out of sight and didn’t look like they were going to stop any time soon. The injured one had fallen over maybe a hundred yards away and seemed to be rapidly succumbing to whatever injury had taken him down. “Stop.” I told Tracy.
Now she did question my sanity in a backfire of neatly phrased expletive words. I was duly impressed.
“Hon.” I placed my hand on her shoulder. “We need to work on BT. Plus, how far do you think we can go in this cold weather without a windshield? I’m already freezing my ass off and I must have a couple of quarts of adrenaline running through me.” She didn’t think I was any saner but she did as I asked. I knew appealing to a lack of warmth would get to her. I have the heating bills to prove it.
I shivered as I went through the contents of the trucks. Not because of the cold but because of what they contained. There were handcuffs, zip ties, duct tape, rope, a variety of knives and what could only be described as medieval torture tools. Everything the home rapist could wish for. Jen had been more and more disgusted as we moved from cargo hold to cargo hold. There was food and medical supplies and even some oxycodone, which I knew BT would appreciate. But interlaced with this were the true purport of what these animals were up to. There was s&m magazines strewn about that would only arouse the sickest and twisted that society had to offer. Polaroids’ of previous victims spilled out from the glove compartment as I searched through the truck. These pictures made the magazines seem tame in comparison. The reality of how close we were to disaster struck me physically. I could see the tortured faces of my wife and daughter in these pictures of misery. These women and girls screamed in agony as every inconceivable act of depravity was forced upon them. I had not noticed Jen as she peered over my shoulder. I bumped into her as I had grabbed the pictures and was headed for the nearest snow bank, no one else needed to see this.
She walked wordlessly away from me as I dug a hole in the snow and tossed the offending images in, covering them quickly. Fearful that the infused evil on them would seep through my gloves I hastily wiped snow vigorously on them. Two pistol shots pulled me away from my infected finger wear. Jen was standing in the field over the prone body of our intended assailant. If he had had a flicker of life in him before, Jen had made sure to extinguish it. I felt no pity. I don’t think that under his tutelage our demises would have been so ‘clean’ for lack of a better word.
Tracy hadn’t flinched at Jen’s actions. I rightly assumed she must have come across her own grotesque cache of monstrous mementos.
“I can’t find an exit wound on BT. I’m pretty sure that bullet is lodged on his bone.”
I turned to her. My eyes just plain felt heavy. If there were such thing as a stressometer, mine was rapidly red lining. I was pretty good at field sutures and staunching blood flow, even setting the occasional bone, but this would require full on surgery. There was no way around it. I bl
anched at the prospect, sewing torn skin was vastly different from intentionally cutting someone open and feeling around for a bullet. Rooting around in muscle and tissue, making sure to not nick any major arteries while also insuring that I did not cut myself on any of his bone fragments was not doing me any favors. Pondering, leads to hesitation, which leads to mistakes.
“Brendon, hey man come over here. You’ve got to help me get BT into the truck bed.”
“I’ll help Mr. T.” Tommy said as he handed a bottle of whisky to Tracy.
Tommy’s helping turned into a one-man wonder show. If I hadn’t been watching it with my own eyes, I would have cried ‘bullshit’ and still I almost did. Short of having an engine lift I don’t know how Tommy could do it. It wasn’t with the ease he had displayed during the Wal-Mart encounter but still I watched in awe as Tommy hefted the burly giant BT out of the minivan. Twenty feet later he gently placed the big man in the bed of the truck as Brendon and Travis had hopped up on the back of the truck to help.
“Tracy put a couple of those smaller knives to flame.” I said as I grabbed the bottle of liquor from her.
“What do you need that for?” She asked.
“Disinfectant.” I told her, right before I unscrewed the cap off and took a long pull of the bitter, burnt gasoline derivative.
“Yeah disinfectant.” She said as she went to sterilize some knives.
Jen had returned, seemingly no worse for the wear. She looked basically like she had just returned from taking out the garbage and I guess in reality that was all she had really done. She grabbed the bottle from me. I felt a little ashamed as she made my rather significant drag from the bottle seem child-like in comparison. She wiped her sleeve over her mouth before she spoke. The tenor of her voice belied her true feelings to a point, but not completely.
“What are you doing Talbot? Besides drinking this rot gut. Oh what I wouldn’t do for a nice Pinot Noir.” She took another long pull.
“Uh, could you save me some, I need it for BT.”
She smiled abashedly. “Sorry.” She said as she absently wiped her mouth again. “For what?”
“Huh?”
“Why do you need this?” as she shook the bottle in front of my face, not really handing it back.
“The bullet didn’t come out, I’ve got to go in and get it.”
“Have you ever done that?” Now thrusting the bottle into my hands. I guess she thought whoever possessed the bottle had to perform the surgery.
“I filled in pot holes, Jen. Not much call for field surgery in that line of work.”
“What about before that?” She grasped.
“Oh yeah sure, I left a lucrative and life fulfilling job as a highly skilled surgeon to live the prosaic life of a road crew man. Filling holes seemed a much nobler profession.”
“Don’t go there Talbot. Don’t cover over your insecurities with sarcasm. You know what I mean.”
I sighed. I knew what she meant. She was asking if I had I ever had the need to put any of my friends back together after some raghead had done their best to make Humpty Dumpty fall. “I’m sorry.” I told her. “No there was never time during the heat of battle to help and by the time the last bullets had flown they would be medi-vacced out. Some I got to visit in the hospital while they recovered. Others I watched as their bodies got loaded on a plane and headed back home.”
She witnessed the pain in my eyes as I pulled the band-aid off a wound that would not heal. “I’m sorry Mike.”
“Me too.” I took another pull of the disgusting concoction while leaning over a moaning BT who was luckily still passed out. How long he was going to remain in that status while I delved into his leg was another story all together.
“One for me.” I took another swig. “And one for you.” As I poured a liberal amount of the elixir into the wound.
BT’s eyes flared open. Fiery pain seared across his brain plate. He looked right at the source of this intrusion. “What the fuck are you doing Talbot!?” The gods shook under the assault of those words.
It must have been the warmth of the liquor as it spread throughout my body. I felt no fear, only resolve as I explained to BT what was happening. It was tough to tell which of us was more detached as I clinically laid out my plan. I sounded scholarly as I slurred my way through the procedure. BT nodded at all the right moments. I handed him two oxycodones and the bottle. He didn’t shun either one away or question what they were.
I’m going to wait until those kick in and then I’m going to start.” I reached out to grab the bottle back.
“Think you’ve had enough.” He grinned savagely, the pain distorting his features. “I’d appreciate it if you got started now instead of waiting, not sure how much longer I can keep this macho shit up, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry in front of a woman. The last time I did that, I was six and my mom had just whopped me upside the head for writing on the walls with peanut butter. Don’t ask.” He told me, just as I was about to.
Tracy came over with three knives, one still smoldering a dull red from the heat. BT looked at the blade and then back at me. “You know what you’re doing right? Wait don’t answer, I don’t want to know.” He finished the bottle. It clattered loudly to the ground as he threw it over the side. I placed a shirt under his head as I gently pushed his head back down.
“You want something to bite on?” I asked him seriously.
“Why you think this is going to hurt?” He laughed. He then set his eyes hard, on some distant object high above our locale. I hoped for his sake it was God. The call of a lone falcon was the only sound as I plunged the knife into the bullet hole. Tears silently streamed down BT’s face as I made the hole big enough so that I would be able to plunge my fingers in.
“You sure you don’t want to wait until those pills take affect?” Sweat froze on me as fast as it formed.
A curt shake of his head kept me going. My respite was not to happen. BT went rigid as I submerged first one and then a second finger into his bloody laceration. The sheer size of BT’s thighs meant I was going to have to go deep in my attempt to find the foreign body. Lady luck was going to have to be on my shoulder for this. If the bullet had struck and tumbled away I’d never find it. I had gone in as far as my two fingers were going to allow and not struck home yet. There was a hollow sucking sound as I pulled my fingers out of the wound. Nobody commented, but I could hear more than one disgruntled stomach recoil at the noise.
“I’ve got to make the hole bigger BT.” I wanted to apologize.
“Can’t get much worse.” He replied. I’m glad he didn’t realize then that he was wrong.
My hand was steadier as I made the second lengthening incision. BT didn’t flinch at all when I stuck my whole hand in up to the knuckle. A potent combination of Jack Daniel’s, Oxycodone and shock were all taking affect those plus the minding numbing cold. I concentrated hard on the fact that I was merely feeling around in some beef. Sure it was warm bloody steak but it was steak nonetheless and that was what was going to let me keep going. If I were to dwell on the reality of the situation, BT would end up dying from infection. My hand was relatively warm compared to the rest of my body, encased as it was in the living tissue of my friend. That being the case, my fingers were not numb and were therefore able to detect when I brushed up against something that didn’t have a right to be where it was. Relief was my immediate thought. Relief to rid BT of the bullet and relief to get my hand out of his thigh.
I oriented the foreign material as best I could so as to not damage anything more on its way out. What I removed was not a bullet, not unless they were white about an inch long and a quarter inch wide. Tracy was the first to recognize what I had removed, I could tell by the sounds of her retching, although the others weren’t far behind. The splintered bone fragment shone brightly in the noonday sun. I hastily tossed it before BT had the chance to see it.
“Wasn’t it was it.” BT said resignedly.
I shook my head and dove my hand ba
ck in. No sense in stalling at this point. For fifteen minutes I pulled various sized pieces of bone out, most no bigger than a toothpick. Two or maybe three fragments were taken out, roughly the size of my pinkie. I didn’t think there was going to be any bone left to knit together when I was through. Blood coated the bottom of the truck bed. BT was drifting in and out of consciousness. My time line for success was rapidly diminishing. Either I got the bullet or the bullet got BT. It was that simple of an equation but one in which I’m sure was never up on any algebra teacher’s chalk board.
“Where is the fu…got it!” I could tell by the mushroom shape this wasn’t another bone fragment. BT couldn’t share in my elation, he had passed out, I think. “Jen?”
Jen had earlier hopped up on the bed of the truck to help. “He’s still breathing.” She answered. “But its thready.”
“That sounds mighty ERish.” I said triumphantly as I pulled the bullet free from its human stockade.
“What can I say, I had a crush on the triage nurse, Margulies on that show.” She said as a smile spread across her face as she also saw the bullet. “Now what?”
“Well I’ll sew him up, we’ll set and splint his leg as well as possible and then we’ll get out of Dodge.”
“I meant what about internal damage.”
“From the bullet or my ministrations?”
“Well probably both.” She said honestly.
“Shit Jen, I’m already 5 orders of magnitude above my pay grade. I can only sew him up and hope his body will take care of the rest. IF he’s lucky he’ll only have a pronounced limp when he can walk again.”
“Worst case scenario?”
“Are you kidding me? Do you see the blood we’re sitting in. Do you see how sterile an environment I’m working in. Or, better yet, my surgical skill level. The bullet looks fairly whole but I’m not completely sure I didn’t leave a piece of it in, plus there’s no way I got every bone fragment out but if I don’t close him up soon he’ll bleed out. Which may still happen depending on how many blood vessels, veins and arteries were damaged. That he’s alive up to this point is near miraculous. We’re going to have to pump him full of antibiotics for the next two weeks and pray.”
