Wounded

by Percival Everett

  She kissed me. She turned away and started out of the barn and I could tell we still had a problem.

  “Morgan,” I called to her.

  She stopped, but did not turn to face me. “What?” It came out as an uncharacteristic bark.

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “You’re not supposed to say anything.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said.

  “I know you didn’t, John.” She turned and looked at my eyes. “You’ve been perfect. You’re always perfect. You take care of all of us perfectly. Now, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Is that all right?”

  The rain was falling steadily now. It was five-thirty and dark and still there was no sign of the Jeep coming down the hill toward the house. I’d been checking the window for a couple hours and before that I’d been stepping out of the barn to watch the lane. Morgan brought me some tea.

  “I’m sure he’s all right,” she said.

  “Come on, let’s go for a drive,” I said. “Gus, you stay here in case he comes back.”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ll drive, you look,” Morgan said.

  We put on our jackets and walked out to Morgan’s car. Morgan was shaking and not because she was cold.

  We drove all the way to town. The pharmacist told us that David had been there hours ago. I used his phone to call Gus. David had not shown up. We drove the streets of town. I was behind the wheel now. We checked the grocery parking lot and the lots of the Wal-Mart, the motels, and the restaurants. I parked in front of the sheriff’s office.

  “John?” Morgan said.

  “I don’t know, honey. Let’s see if we can get some other people on the road with us.”

  Inside, Hanks listened to me and told me that no accidents had been reported. I used his phone to get another no-show report from Gus. He had a dispatcher call another deputy and ask him to drive the road to my place.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Come on,” Morgan said to me and pulled me toward the door.

  “I’ll call you if I hear anything,” Hanks said.

  Morgan and I walked out and got back into her car. I was again behind the wheel, but I didn’t start the Jeep. “I can’t believe this is happening again,” I said. The rain was falling less hard.

  Morgan reached over and touched my hand.

  “I love you so much,” I said.

  “I know you do, John. I love you, too.”

  “Where is he?”

  THIRTEEN

  TO SAY THAT I couldn’t believe the current set of circumstances was an understatement. Morgan and Gus took turns convincing me, or trying to convince me that I was not to blame for having let David drive into town alone. After driving back and forth between town twice, Morgan and I stapled ourselves to the house and waited for the phone to ring. Gus fell asleep on the sofa and Morgan covered him with a blanket. Then she fell asleep on the big chair in front of the stove. I paced, let the dogs out a couple times, and finally watched the sunrise. At first light I called the sheriff and learned that nothing had been learned.

  “So, what now?” I asked Bucky.

  “I called the Highway Patrol and they’re supposed to be sending an investigator,” he said.

  “What should I do?”

  “I don’t know, John. We’re still out there driving the roads. All the roads we can anyway.”

  “Thanks.” I hung up and looked in on Gus and Morgan. They were still asleep. I gently woke Morgan to tell her I was going to feed the horses.

  “Okay,” she said. “Do you want me to make breakfast?” She was only half awake.

  “No, you sleep some more.”

  I left the house and went about the chores. My mind kept turning to the thugs in the BMW. How could I not think of them? The next time I talked to the sheriff I would mention them, ask if anything was known about them. I wondered if I should call Howard or David’s mother. That thought made me feel as if I was giving into the worst notions and I felt bad, like I was giving up on the boy. Thinking of this made no sense to me and I became disoriented. I sat and watched the three-legged coyote splash after a stick in the mud.

  I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t very well go about my daily business as if nothing was wrong. I didn’t know where else to drive and look. And I didn’t see myself going into town and making myself a troublesome and unwanted fixture at the sheriff’s office. I cleaned half the stalls and went back to the house.

  Morgan had coffee waiting and was starting breakfast when I walked into the kitchen. Had there been any word she would have spoken up immediately, so I didn’t ask.

  “What’s the weather like?” she wanted to know.

  “I think we’re done with the rain,” I said. “It’s not terribly cold.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Is Gus still asleep?” I asked.

  “He’s in the shower. You know, he’s looks really tired.”

  I nodded. I opened the door and let the dogs in. They were wet and muddy, but I didn’t care. The phone rang. Morgan watched me while I picked up. It was Daniel White Buffalo.

  “Daniel,” I said.

  “Hey, I heard about your friend,” he said.

  “What did you hear?” I could hardly feel myself breathing.

  “One of the deputies drove by last night, said he was missing.”

  “Yeah, he’s driving my Jeep,” I said.

  “We’ll keep our eyes open over here.”

  “Thanks, Daniel.”

  We sat stupidly silent on the phone for a few seconds. “Okay, Daniel. Thanks.”

  “You bet.”

  I hung up.

  The phone rang again and this time it was Bucky. Morgan came and stood close to me while I talked to him.

  “John, I’ve got a guy from the Highway Patrol and he’d like you to come talk to him.”

  “Okay. Anything yet?”

  “No, nothing. Can you come in now?”

  “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “We’ve looked just about everywhere,” the sheriff said. “We’ve got a plane up right now.”

  “That’s good, I guess. I’ll be right there.” I hung up and looked at Morgan. “I’m going in to talk to the Highway Patrol.”

  “You want to eat something first?” Morgan asked.

  “I can’t eat. I’m going to go wash my face, then head into town.”

  “I’ll stay by the phone,” Morgan said.

  The drive into town felt exceptionally long and I didn’t even notice the view of the valley as I made the big curve. Though my hands weren’t shaking, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find them so. The traffic in town was a little heavier than usual; I had to sit at one light through three changes before I could get past it. But it was while I was idling there that I saw the BMW parked in the Wal-Mart lot. My thought was to go into the store and find the men, but I didn’t know what I’d say. Instead, I drove on to Bucky’s office and parked the pickup in a diagonal space in front of the town square.

  Bucky introduced me to a tall man with a handlebar mustache. His name was Reg McCormack. He wore expensive Western boots and an easy manner. His handshake was cold, limp.

  “Tell me about your friend,” he said.

  “He’s about six feet tall, one-sixty maybe, twenty years old, light brown hair. He’s white. He was driving my Jeep.”

  “Any reason he drove into town alone?”

  “We’d just come back from picking up hay and we found out my uncle had forgotten to have us pick up his medicine,” I said.

  “Whose idea was it that he drive?” McCormack asked.

  I looked at Bucky, then answered, “He offered to drive in.” I didn’t like the tone of his questions.

  “How long was he gone before you became concerned?”

  “It was getting dark,” I said, thinking. “Three hours, I guess, maybe a little longer. He’d never driven in alone before.”

  “Why was that?”

  I s
hrugged. “Hey, why all the questions?”

  “I have to ask them, Mr. Hunt.”

  “Listen, my friend’s kid is out there somewhere, probably in trouble.”

  “Your friend’s kid?”

  “Yes, David is the son of an old college friend.”

  “I understand you had some trouble with the boy before,” McCormack said. “A deputy had to drive out to your ranch?”

  “He got lost in the woods, but I found him.”

  “So, he has a habit of going missing,” the man said.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “He was driving this time. Last time he’d had words with his father and ran out of the house drunk.”

  “Was he drunk this time?”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “He wasn’t drunk when he left your place,” McCormack said. “Was he drunk when he left town to head back?”

  “I think he wasn’t,” I said.

  “But you’re not sure.”

  I was starting to get mad, but I sucked it in. “A twenty-year-old kid is out there somewhere, maybe pinned under a Jeep, and we’re playing games in here. You should be talking to the thugs in town who are running around shooting cattle and writing the word nigger in the snow with blood.”

  “I will,” McCormack said, unfazed.

  “No, really, these guys have tried to pick fights with David on a couple of occasions,” I said. “They drive a BMW.”

  “Why would they want to fight David?” he asked.

  “They don’t like the fact that he’s a homosexual.”

  “How do you feel about that fact?”

  I stared at McCormack for several seconds, then stood. “Bucky, this is getting us nowhere. You’ve seen the guys I’m talking about. Find them and ask them some questions. In the meantime, I’m going to drive the same roads for the seventh and eighth times trying to find David.”

  “I’m trying to help, Mr. Hunt,” McCormack said.

  I nodded. “Then talk to the guys in the BMW.”

  As I was walking through the main office, I became aware of a bustle of activity. I paused and watched, listened. Bucky came out of his office.

  “Hanks found your Jeep,” he said.

  The vehicle was parked, almost neatly, about twenty miles off the main highway on an undeveloped road into the Red Desert, about thirty miles west and south of my place. I hadn’t found it because I was looking between my place and town. I used the station phone to call my house and then followed Bucky and McCormack. The Jeep had been spotted from the air and there apparently was no sign of David. As I drove I felt as if progress was being made, but that none of it sounded at all good. Now, my hands were shaking.

  Hanks was standing at the rear of the Jeep when we arrived and he had admittedly done little more than wait. The sheriff department’s plane was still circling. The sheriff, McCormack, and I all walked around the vehicle like it might say something. McCormack looked the most closely, asking us to keep our distance.

  “We’ll need to go over it,” McCormack said.

  “Team’s on the way,” Hanks told him.

  McCormack stood next to me. “Your rig?”

  I nodded. “Can you tell anything?”

  “There’s a small, white, paper bag on the seat,” Hanks said.

  “Probably my uncle’s medicine,” I said.

  We stood around while clouds collected over us. The plane left. More men arrived and I watched as they examined the Jeep. I looked down the deeply rutted dirt path and wondered how far it went into the desert. I tried to get my bearings by looking at the hills and the distant butte. I realized I wasn’t that far from where I’d found the coyote. We were perhaps only ten miles south of that place.

  McCormack came back to me. “You ever been here before?”

  I shook my head.

  “Your friend didn’t say anything to you before he left?”

  “He said, ‘See you later.’”

  “I’m just trying to help,” he said.

  “Yeah, fuck you,” I said. That was unlike me, but I wasn’t feeling much like myself. I turned and walked toward my truck.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to look for my friend,” I said. I turned and walked back to him. “My uncle needs his medicine.”

  McCormack called to one the investigators. “Let him have the bag.”

  I took the medicine and left.

  As I drove away, I glanced into my mirror and watched McCormack watching me leave. I knew that there was no way for him to implicate me in David’s disappearance, but still I was insulted. I didn’t know what to do. I would go home, give Gus his medicine, tell him and Morgan about the Jeep, and then stare at the telephone. I had to call Howard and David’s mother, Sylvia.

  The ruts of the trail threw me about pretty roughly. I hadn’t felt it on the way out, perhaps because of adrenaline or shock. But now every trough and hole bounced the truck. One thing was certain, no BMW had come along this road. That thought slightly depressed me, because the thugs were the only notion I had about what might have happened.

  When I arrived at the house I didn’t know how to let Gus and Morgan see me from the porch, I became self-conscious about my gestures. If I shook my head, they might take it to mean that David was found dead. If I didn’t, they’d assume the same thing. A shrug would have been incomprehensible. So, when I set the brake and climbed out of the truck, I shouted, “Nothing!” That was more than an assessment of what was known, it was a statement of what I was feeling. I was numb with shock, too confused to admit my fear and somewhere the anger and guilt and anger about feeling guilty.

  I tossed Gus his medicine and he caught it. “They found the Jeep,” I said. “Abandoned in the desert.”

  “Oh, John.” Morgan embraced me.

  I put my hand to the small of her back, but didn’t find the strength to pull her close.

  “What now?” Gus said.

  And what a good question that was. I looked at the old man. “I don’t know, Gus. I don’t know.” I looked at the mountains, then felt that the air was turning colder. “I’m going to call Howard. Then I’m going to drown myself in the shower. Then I’m going back out to look for David.” I stopped and looked at both of them. Morgan’s eyes were red from lack of sleep and Gus was as drawn looking as I had ever seen him. “How are you two?”

  Gus nodded.

  “We all need rest,” Morgan said. Then, “This is all so unreal.”

  You watch the news and see stories about awful accidents and missing loved ones and it seems so distant, like it isn’t real and then when it happens to you, it doesn’t seem real. I kept expecting David to walk into the study where I was sitting, then I entertained thoughts that there was no David, that I had made him up. I pulled my rifle from the cabinet and set the cleaning supplies on the desk. I looked at the phone, knowing I would use it. I then looked at the rifle in my lap and had a feeling that I would be using it as well.

  I opened my book, found Howard’s number and dialed.

  “Howard, it’s John.”

  “Hey, I was going to give you a call.”

  “Howard, there’s a problem here.”

  Howard was silent at the other end.

  “David is missing.”

  “What do you mean by ‘missing’?”

  “We can’t find him.” Before he launched into reasonable, sensible and appropriate questions, I continued, “He drove into town and didn’t come back. He went in to pick up a prescription for Gus. The police just found the Jeep he was driving abandoned out in the desert.”

  Howard was still silent.

  “I don’t know what to say. I’ve been out searching. They found the Jeep by air. As far as I know there was no sign of anything strange or unusual. But I haven’t talked to the sheriff for a couple of hours.”

  “Missing? Was there blood?” The question made sense, still it ran cold through me. “Was there any blood?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I d
idn’t see any. I’m so sorry, Howard.”

  “What should I do?” His question hung in the wires between us. It wasn’t really directed at me, but then it was.

  “I don’t know. I’m going out to search more. I don’t know where to look, but I’ll look.”

  “I’ll call Sylvia,” he said.

  “Okay. I’m sorry, Howard.”

  “You think he’s okay?” he asked.

  “I hope so. I hope so.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  I hung up and blew out a long breath that shook my lower lip and realized my teeth were chattering. I placed my head down on my arms on top of my desk and soon fell asleep.

  In my dream, Susie was sewing at a treadle machine, something she never did; in fact, she didn’t own one. But there she was, her booted foot marking an exact rhythm. I had been working outside. I was sweating and for some reason I had not removed my jacket or my filthy boots. She was intent on her activity and when I asked her what she was making, she said,

  “It’s a patch quilt, but it has no pieces.”

  “Then how can it be a patch quilt?” I asked.

  She stopped sewing and glared up at me. “Why do you always have to be so critical of me?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess I just don’t understand.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t understand.” Her foot started again and she began to push and pull the fabric beneath the needle. “You think I don’t know.”

  “I think you don’t know what?”

  “I see the look in your eyes,” she said.

  I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I felt pressed to make her feel right. “Is the quilt a gift for someone?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer me, didn’t look up, kept sewing.

  “It looks like it’s going to be beautiful.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Who?”

  “We don’t have children, John. Have you noticed that?”

  “Some people don’t have children, Susie.”

  “And I suppose I’m some people.” She stopped the treadle, but kept her focus on the needle. “Am I some people, John? Am I?”