by John Hansen
The branch came down again from above onto the back of my head. I raised my free hand up behind my head to try to protect me, but the branch just smacked my arm back onto my broken nose, causing a searing bolt of pain to shoot though my neck. The bark on the branch was rough and some little sticks were poking out of it, and one of them struck a hole in my cheek. Someone switched on a flash light that lit up the scene.
I screamed out for help, spitting through blood-clotted foam, knowing no one would come to aid me in the middle of nowhere. I was as good as dead. Stars floated in front of me as I made out the other figures standing next to my body on either side. I took a quick scan of them through a blurry haze of tears, dirt and sweat. I recognized no one in the flashlight glow except Jake, impossible not to recognize, standing with his arms hanging at his sides.
He did not have his sunglasses on now. I wondered with curiosity what his eyes looked like, even in the midst of my fear and impending death. A foot kicked me in the ribs from my left side, then the branch came down again. Another kick from the left, I felt a rib crack. Jake then walked over, reared up a leg and brought a foot down on my crotch. I screamed in pain.
I rolled over onto my chest to try to protect myself, but the beating intensified, kicks and now punches onto my back and head – from all of the figures at once. My face was pressed down against mud by someone, and I frantically gripped at anything I could hold onto to try to raise my face from the much, but I just ended up grabbing a sneaker, which then shook me off. The branch came down on my back and then broke in half. Hands reached down and spun me onto my back. Nobody else had spoken yet during the attack.
In the moonlight I saw the gleam of metal, and I saw that Jake was pulling a long knife from a sheath on his hip. The others held my hands and head down, and Jake knelt down beside my head. I could see him better now. For some reason I couldn’t fathom I had this overwhelming compulsion to see his eyes, finally revealed behind those shades. I watched his face come close and saw that he was scowling at me, but that his eyes were small, brown, close together, almost comical. But this goofy face made him scarier, much scarier – like an inbred hillbilly with disfigured features. With his close, angry eyes and hideous scowl, it was an unexpected face which disturbed me all the more. He looked nothing like Clayton.
In his right hand was the long hunting knife and he held it over my neck, hovering, looking doubly dangerous because it was hard to see, except for a thin gleam of reflection in the moonlight. This is it. This is how I die. I smelled alcohol and stale cigarettes like an ashtray along with the stink of sweat coming from his body.
“Tonight you are gonna die.” Jake said in a whisper. “
He pressed the knife against the left side of my neck, very hard and cold against my skin.
“Like you killed Alia?” I said in a croak, wrestling for a second under the grip of the other figures’ hands. I felt like these were my last words, and that it was fitting that it should be about Alia, out here in the woods. She and I would die together, at last, I thought. But I still didn’t know why…
“Why did you kill her?” I said with a groan as I struggled. Maybe he would just tell me… “And why are you killing me?”
“You don’t even know what you did, do you?” he asked, pausing with the knife pressed into my skin. “You should have taken the hint and left; the earrings weren’t enough? What else did you need, her finger?”
I thought I heard the sound of a car off in the distance by the road. If only there was a way to get their attention, whoever they were. Jake pressed his hand down on my face, covering my mouth and nose, preventing me from breathing. How many ways did he plan to kill me?
“What did I do?” I tried to ask, but it only came out a wet muffle.
Yet Jake must have heard me, because he pressed the knife against my neck a final time, and said, “You should have asked Ronnie.”
He pressed the blade down and dragged it across my neck; I could feel it slicing my skin. I screamed under his hand, and thrashed in the mud. But suddenly I heard a horrific crashing sound approaching through the trees, like some great beast was approaching us. Instead of a bear’s roar, a car motor revved and the sounds of branches cracking and snapping and metal popping and bending all rushed into the clearing along with bright headlights suddenly illuminated our group. I could see Jake clearly now, a look of confusion flashing across his face as he squinted into the light, rain streaking down his cheeks; and then his hand was over his eyes, shielding them as he hopped up and backed away. I felt blood pouring down my neck, mixed with rain and the mud.
The others who were holding me released me and stood up quickly. Someone shouted, “Who the fuck are you?” at the truck, as if it was a creature with a life and voice of its own. The truck suddenly jerked forward and then ground to a halt not five feet from my head, and the door swung open with a metallic pop of old metal. I rolled over to my side, protecting my neck from the mud, and squinted in the glare along with my attackers.
A figured jumped out from the car with something big in his hand. As he stepped near the headlights, I saw, with complete disbelief, that it was Larry, and he was holding a long and heavy axe! He swung it wide in front of him as his stomped towards the group without any hesitation. But now I saw that it was a not an axe but a wooden boat oar, and probably the one Alia and I had used in the canoe. One of the guys was still holding the broken branch, and he suddenly flung it at Larry’s face, but Larry swatted it away with the oar and then suddenly rushed at the boy, with another wide swing.
“Three Cuts!” I shouted hysterically in a hoarse, incoherent rasp. I still couldn’t process what I was seeing – Larry was swinging his axe-oar in the attackers’ faces with all his might. He did actually look intimidating and dangerous.
The skinny boy stepped behind a small pine tree, trying to dodge the oar, but Larry shouted angrily and swung it with a surprising quickness. The oar smacked against the trunk, breaking the small tree in half and knocking the boy off his balance. He stumbled back in the brush.
Another of the gang rushed Larry and punched him in the face, but Larry took the punch on his jaw without the slightest effect, and then he quickly jammed the oar’s handle into the boy’s stomach. The boy fell in a crunch, coughing and gasping for breath. The others then all stepped back, leaving Jake standing over me, still gripping his knife.
“Who the fuck are you?” Jake asked again.
“I’m from Two Med, and you better beat it.” Larry said in a rush – out of breath and gasping for air himself. He looked down at me and then back at Jake. He readied the oar for another swing as his chest heaved with short breaths.
Larry slowly advanced towards Jake, stepping over me as Jake backed away. Jake made a halfhearted jab at Larry’s gut with the knife, but Larry smacked his arm away with a fast swing of the oar, the wooden handle hitting Jake’s arm. Jake cursed and he cradled his arm.
The skinny kid that had been behind the tree stepped out and quickly swung a large branch into Larry back. Larry grunted and swung the oar at the boy’s side, flipping the oar sideways in his hands as he did, so that the wide head of the oar smacked the boy’s shoulder and caused him to stumble back into the darkness. Jake watched this standing by a tree, and then cursed Larry and turned and began to sprint back through the woods in the general direction of the car.
Thirty-Eight
Larry looked around him for a moment, his breathing slowing down. He looked down at me, and then came over to me and knelt down with one knee on the ground, planting the oar handle in the mud and leaning on it as he looked me over. His face showed sorrow mixed with a worried concern as he looked over my check, nose and then my neck.
“Jesus Christ, Will,” he muttered, “what did they do to you?”
“How the hell did you know I was out here?” I asked; my voice sounded weak and strange.
“Shhhh. Better not talk,” he said.
He dropped the oar and knelt down, and helped me slowly to sit up
. He looked my neck over and told me to hold my hand over the bleeding cut. He stood up heavily and slowly and trotted off toward the truck. I saw him reach into the back and haul out a large tackle box. He trotted back, his belly bouncing up and down in the headlights; and then he opened the tackle box beside me, pulling out the sliding trays. He poured some water over my neck and face, which stung horribly and drenched my t-shirt in bloody streams, and then he wrapped my neck in a gauzy bandage.
“This’ll have to do until we get to the hospital,” he said. He helped me stand up, and I swayed on my feet.
“Probably got a concussion,” he said, looking analytically into my eyes. Then he patted me on the back lightly and turned me towards the truck. “You’ll be all right though, boy – you’re tough.”
I didn’t feel tough… I thought I might die as he set me in the passenger seat, my neck was still bleeding through the bandage. Larry jerked his truck into reverse and backed out of the woods the way he had driven in – through the small trees and brush and mess. Branches and leaves covered the hood of the truck. As we backed out into the road, I looked back and saw that Jake’s car was gone, thankfully.
We drove for a while in the dark, the truck loudly bumping along in the night, past trees, road signs, occasional shacks and sheds, and we were soon into Browning, to the only hospital anywhere around.
The emergency department of the hospital received me and took me back to a room, laying me on a bed and pulling off my t-shirt and jeans. In muddy, soaked underwear, I laid back and let them clean my wounds. I heard Larry tell them that we worked in Two Medicine and that I had foolishly fallen down a steep ravine on a night hike.
I was given an IV and they put some kind of pain killer in it, which caused me to experience a wonderful calm and weightlessness – like I was floating slightly above my body. The doctor shot a local anesthetic into my skin on my neck, and then sewed up the cut. He did the same on my punctured cheek. I figured I must have looked terrible, and I didn’t want to see the wounds.
As I lay there being worked on, I couldn’t figure how Larry had come out of the night and saved me. When the doctor finally finished and the nurses were cleaning up and filling out some paperwork, I looked over sluggishly through a drug haze at Larry, who was sitting in the corner of the room near my bed, arms folded and brooding over my pile of bloody clothes by his feet.
“Larry,” I said, hoarsely. “You need to tell me – what were you doing out there? I was nowhere near Two Med. How the hell did you find me?”
He didn’t look up at me, but kept staring at the bloody clothes. “I saw the car stopped on the side of the road, still running, and I figured someone needed help.” He shrugged nonchalantly like it was an everyday thing and perfectly reasonable. “I saw the path next to the car, leading off into the woods and then I saw some people beating a person on the ground.”
I couldn’t make sense of it, even in my narcotic haze it didn’t make any sense.
“So you decided to just plow through the woods in your truck?”
“I heard you scream,” he said. “I thought they were killing you.”
“But why were you even out on the road tonight? Where were you going?” It hurt to move my jaw, but I was compelled to keep asking.
“What are you?” he asked, sounding irritated, “Sherlock Holmes? Just be glad I did.”
“But…” I sluggishly protested as my mouth now feeling numb from the local anesthetic.
“Just drop it, for now,” he interrupted. “I’ll explain it all on the ride back.” He got up and walking out towards the lobby.
The nurses gave me some pills for the pain, antibiotics, and some topical ointment, and also some discharge paperwork warning about the signs of a concussion. I signed myself out and found Larry in the lobby. He helped me walk out towards his car, and got me situated in the seat.
We drove off into the dark, again, this time pointing back towards Two Med.
Larry switched off the radio after a while, looking over at me for a second.
“You ok?” he asked.
My head was leaning against the window and I was feeling hazy and nauseous – a side effect of the pain killers I figured. The pain had returned somewhat, but I was ok, and told him so.
“Thank you for saving my life, Larry,” I said in a muffled croak. My cheek rested on the window. The coolness of the glass felt calming on my skin, which was burning hot around the wounds.
Larry reached up with a large Mason jar in his hands and took a swig of something brown.
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Thank Ronnie.”
“Ronnie?” I turned my head slowly from the window and looked at Larry. “Thank him why?”
Larry nodded. “He told me that you were out at the lodge, and that you were maybe gonna be in trouble with some locals.” Larry ran a hand over his stubbly head. “He said some Reds were after you because you went to the powwow.”
I thought about what Jake had said before he tried to cut my throat. “Why would Ronnie tell you?” I asked hoarsely. “What did he expect you to do?”
Larry shrugged. He took another swig and settled back against the rear window. I could now smell the sugary smell of whiskey coming from the jar – and from him. I looked at Larry’s face and he looked exhausted.
He rubbed his nose and held the steering wheel with one hand, the other wrapped around the Mason jar. “I told Ronnie that that story about the powwow was horseshit,” he said. “But Ronnie was so damned adamant… I had never seen him worry about anything.” Another swig, the jar was almost empty.
“I looked that young man straight in the eye and told him to tell me straight off what the hell was going on; and he told me that the Reds were out to get you because they thought you killed that girl you brought around – Alia.” He looked at me for a moment, seeming to gauge my reaction.
“I figured that was horseshit too,” he resumed, looking back out onto the road. “But Ronnie was so damned adamant… I knew something was up.”
Larry finished the jar and dropped in into the floor board, where it rolled back under his seat. “You’re no killer.” he said, quietly, strangely.
“Are you ok?” I asked after a moment.
He burped and took a deep breath. “We here.” He pulled off the road and drove down the dirt road and into Two Med’s parking lot.
We parked by the store and all the lights were off inside. It must have been one or two in the morning, I figured. Larry’s old truck didn’t have a clock. Larry walked me across the lawn and up the back stairs to the kitchen and tried to flick on the lights, but the power was out. I squinted in the dark as he rooted around in one of the kitchen drawers and brought out a candle, lighting it with one of the big wooden matches used to light the fireplace. As my eyes adjusted to the flame’s light, he carefully sat me down at the table.
“You look like you need a drink,” he said, walking over to a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of Jack Daniels. “And so do I.”
I watched him pour two large glasses halfway up and then drop a couple of ice cubes in each. He sat down and put the glasses between us.
We each took our glasses and paused before sipping. He leaned his glass over to mine, and clinked them together in a quite toast.
“Here’s to my last night in Two Med,” he said gruffly. His eyes looked tear-filled – on the brink of crying. It was a blotchy and wretched face that shown over the whiskey glass. His eyes closed as he took a long gulp of whiskey.
“What are you talking about?” I asked him, sounding just as gruff. What a pair we made, and what an image, I thought. One guy banded up like a patched-up, bloody mummy, looking like he’d been in a war, and the other a muddy, teary-eyed ogre – sipping drinks like two comrades in arms.
Larry didn’t say anything for a long time, and then cleared his throat. “I’m turning myself in tomorrow, because I killed that girl, Alia.”
Thirty-Nine
I stared at him, mute, my glass touching my lips.
I felt my heart stop and turn to lead in my chest.
“What?” I asked him.
He nodded, tears beginning to stream down his face. “I killed her, Will. I did it.” He said, his face contorted into a hideous crying mess.
I was unable to make sense of it as he cried silently for what seemed a few minutes; then he reached back and drained his entire glass. He then grabbed my glass and held it, as if for support. The ice cubes spun around and settled in the whiskey.
“I ran her down,” he said, “in my truck. That night I had been to see Nancy – she’s this woman who has a place on the outskirts of Browning. She’s a… a prostitute,” he said, blurting out the word like it was a bullet.
I shook my head in disbelief. “You ran her down?”
“I was driving back from seeing Nancy; I been seeing her a lot lately... I do it on my runs back from Kalispell for supplies. I was driving late and I must have not seen her – Alia – on the road I mean, not before I knew that I had ran straight over somebody and…” He stopped, and chocked back a sob. He put a hand to his awkwardly to his mouth and then wiped away new tears.
“It sounded like I ran over a log, Will. The ‘thumping – like I ran over a big log.’”
A bitter taste filled my mouth as tears now filled my own eyes as I pictured it.
“You stupid, dirty bastard,” I said quietly, viciously. “You killed her. And you didn’t even do anything to help her, just left her out there? You didn’t even tell anyone what happened?”
He looked shocked and afraid. “How could I? I got out and saw she was dead. I mean I… panicked… and.” He looked down at the glass and raised it to take a sip, but then thought better of it and dropped it back to the table.
“I dragged her body into the woods, as far as I could go in the dark. I left her there. She was dead, though.” He nodded slowly at his glass. “She didn’t suffer.”
