Black Helicopters

by Blythe Woolston

  It is very comforting having our Da with us this way.

  It’s crowded in the back seat. The helicopter shark thing is still there — so are Corbin’s school backpack and his sweatshirt and a load of other crap. Now we add Corbin and his bag full of drinks and snacks. The fat dog goes in the back seat too. The dog is coming along because Hey! Why not?

  I perch forward on my seat in the front. The vest is starting to rub the skin off the side of my neck, and it is hot. I tug the zipper on my hoodie, just a little, just enough to be a little cooler. Once the car starts moving, the air will circulate and I’ll be able to forget about my body and where it hurts and where it stings.

  Eric turns the key in the ignition and says, “Where are we going?”

  “Does this car have a computer that tells you which way to turn?”

  “This car doesn’t have a radio that works,” says Corbin. “Mom says a radio is a distraction, and Eric should pay attention to the road.”

  “Your mom is totally right,” I say. It would be handy to know what the cops are thinking, but Those People probably wouldn’t say the truth on the radio. Radio reports would be a distraction, lies and distraction. I need to trust what I know, not what they want me to know. “That’s OK about the car computer thingee, too. I’ll be the car computer thingee. I’ll say where to turn, how fast to go. I’ll say everything. That’ll be fun, huh, Eric? ‘Turn right when leaving the driveway.’”

  My pawn Eric does what he is told. Perfect.

  It is time to open file: ACTION/OCTOBER.

  “You can’t stay in the mountains for the winter.” Da is talking to us through the screen. “If it hasn’t snowed already, it will soon, and you need to leave before you get caught. The bus is roadworthy. I always kept her roadworthy. Bo, you can drive her down. She’s bigger than the truck, steers a little harder, but you can handle it. Both of you, these are the things you got to do before you hit the road. Valley, write them down.”

  It’s a long list, very specific. There are jobs for both of us.

  “Once you get these done. It’s time to come back. Open the file named Castling.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask Bo.

  “I’m gonna swap this tire with the spare,” Bo says while he spins the lug wrench in his hand.

  “Not on the list,” I say. “On the list is ‘cache supplies, take the stove apart, and make sure nothing in the bus can shift around.’ That’s what we do today. Nothing on the list about tires. Is it flat?”

  “Not now, but I don’t trust it. The spare is better.”

  “What about the stove?”

  “Gotta wait until it cools off anyhow.”

  “Not that hot. Fire’s been out since last night.”

  “This won’t take long. Done before you know.”

  I don’t see the point, but it’s not my call. Bo’s still got the com. I’m going to cache the supplies, just like it says on the list. The wind blows cold on my neck while I walk off with my sealed plastic bucket that holds 25 percent of our cash money, two handguns, ammo, a tarp, MREs, and a field first-aid kit. I’m going to put it in the place it belongs so it will be waiting if we need it.

  Bo is sitting on the tire when I get back.

  I wonder why he isn’t working, but then I see the front of his shirt is dark and wet. He’s holding one hand in the other. The color on his hands shows the wet is blood.

  Da taught us how to sew up cuts.

  He put a buck’s hindquarter on the table and slashed through the muscles with a knife.

  “Most the time, you can just tape it shut and it will heal, but if it’s a deep cut, that don’t work. You can sew muscles together. There’s things you can’t fix. Tendons, once they snap it’s over.

  “And live meat bleeds more, way more, so you got to wash it out with saline so you can see. And you don’t want to sew no dirt into the cut, so that’s another reason you got to wash it with the saline. Hold the edges together with the pointy tweezers. The needle is curved to make it easy to hook through the meat. Make sure you use the needle clamp to hold the needle, because blood makes it slippery, and you have to have it under control. You need to twist the needle just a little to get it to punch through. Skin is tougher than you think, and muscle, muscle resists. You feel that? Don’t pull the sutures too tight. There’s almost always time to make a knot after each stitch. Keep it clean.”

  Live meat bleeds more, way more. Right now Bo’s hand is live meat, but his fingers are so messed up, the meat isn’t even bleeding right.

  “That needs washing,” I say.

  When we get it washed, it looks worse. Those are bones sticking out. One of them looks like it got pulled apart at the joint. That has to be better than the other one. That bone got crunched through and splintered to bits.

  “I’m going to have a hard time flipping the bird,” says Bo.

  “You’re lucky it’s your right hand.” For most people, that wouldn’t be lucky, but Bo is left-handed. “What I need to do is get rid of that smashed bone before I try to put it together. You gonna let me get this? I got it.”

  “Yeah,” says Bo.

  So I give him some antibiotics and the pills we got for pain. Then I get to fill the little syringe with anesthetic we got from the vet supply store and poke it into the raw meat here, here, here . . .

  “Hey! Shit!” says Bo.

  “That hurt?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s weird. I would have thought it hurt so much already. Maybe I actually hit a nerve or something.” While I’m talking I’m pressing the tip of my finger on the smashed meat. Bo isn’t saying anything about that hurting. It’s getting numb. That’s good. “It’s probably better if you don’t look at it,” I say.

  “I can look at it,” says Bo.

  “OK. Your choice.” I pick up the sharp little scissors and cut off some of the raggedy pieces. It’s better to have a clean edge for healing.

  When I look up, Bo is staring out the window. He’s staring so hard, I bet he can see right through the world to the other side. Then I use the scissors to cut down into the unsmashed meat until I can see the joint between the crunched bone and the rest of the finger.

  “Once I get the bone out of there, I can sew them both up.”

  I use tweezers to pick out the bits, tiny and sharp as the baby teeth of a weasel. The biggest part is still stuck in place, held there by white tendons. I dig the point of my knife blade in and pop the bony sockets apart. It’s like butchering a grouse.

  I check again for bits of bone. I squirt it with saline. I use the scissors again to trim away scraps of skin and muscle. I bring the clean edges of the meat together, put the needle through, tie the knot. Another knot. Another. Keep it clean. Keep it dry. Take the full course of antibiotics.

  “I’m done.”

  “Yeah.” Bo is still looking out the window.

  “Go lay down. Keep it elevated.”

  “Yeah.” When he stands up he’s a little woozy, but it’s only a couple of steps to the bunk.

  “I’ll clean this up and build the fire. You sleep.”

  “Yeah.”

  I pick up the little pieces of bone I pulled out. I rub off the blood. This morning they might have got warm when Bo wrapped his hands around his coffee cup. This morning, blood cells were getting made inside there. That’s over now. It’s over.

  I’m wired.

  I wish I could do it all again.

  It was interesting — really fun. I bet Bo doesn’t want to take another go. It was not so much fun for him.

  I burn the mess of soggy, bloody gauze and sterile wrappers once I get the fire going. I drop Bo’s finger bone into the deepest, hottest heart of the coals.

  That finger’s going to get to Valhalla before the rest of him. It’s funny. First thing Bo does when he gets to the other side, he flips everybody off.

  Bo’s a funny guy.

  “I think we need to know what’s next,” Bo says.

  He’s been a
sleep for a day and a half. I checked and changed the bandages. I gave him water and pills, but he was never really awake enough to pee. Today, he did that — and he ate food when I handed it to him. And now he’s talking. “We should look at the file named Castling.”

  I look at him with one eye part-closed.

  “I know, Valley. We still haven’t torn the stove down. We haven’t crossed it off the list. But we’ve lost a couple of days. We gotta take that into account.”

  We lost a couple of days because Bo didn’t stick to the list. I don’t say it, but there it is. I don’t say it because Bo has the com. That’s the way of it.

  It is time to open file: CASTLING.

  There isn’t enough sun to trickle charge the laptop, so we sit side-by-side on the bed platform at the back of the bus. Bo can stay in his sleeping bag that way. He can conserve his energy.

  “Good,” says Da. “You’re prepped and ready to go.”

  Not exactly, I think.

  “Bo, the bus is sort of noticeable when it’s on the road, so you make sure you keep it slow and steady. Now I’m going to give you the directions to where you gotta go. When you get there, you tell Captain Nichols who you are; say, ‘I’m Bo White, Dalton’s boy.’ Now, Valley, you write these directions down. I’ll go over them a couple of times so you can confirm.”

  So Da gives us the directions, and I check them step-by-step.

  “One last thing,” says Da. “I can’t give you the orders you need here on out. The situation on the ground is changing. One of you has to have the com, and the other one has to respect that. That’s why I can’t just give it to one of you. You have to decide. And the way you decide it is — you play chess. The winner has the com. That’s how it will be.”

  I shut the laptop.

  Then I get the chessboard from where it sits on the table. I set it up beside Bo on the bed. I get a candle, because the light is sliding off the edge of the world and it will be night soon. It will be night before we finish the game.

  I hold out my two hands. I do not know which hand holds the white pawn, which holds the black. I hold my hands out and Bo reaches out toward one. I open my hand. It is the white pawn. Bo has the first move.

  We are peaceful in the candlelight, playing chess like we have so many times.

  But this time is a little different. It matters who wins.

  This time, I win.

  It’s no wonder. Bo is distracted a little bit by the pain in his hand and the pills that keep it from being worse. But he made the move that got him hurt in the first place, so I am the better player where it matters. I win, and that means I have the com.

  There’s more traffic than usual on the frontage road. That’ll happen when you blow up a truck stop by the interstate. More traffic is fine. We fit right in. We are not worth noticing. We are invisible.

  I squirm around so I can see Corbin in the back. “The more I see it, the more I like your shark thing. It reminds me of Viking dragon ships. You know about those? They put dragon faces on the front to scare people. When people saw those ships coming . . .”

  “Dragons aren’t real.”

  “Maybe not, but Viking dragon ships were real. They sailed places where no one had ever been before. They had adventures. We’re like that. We’re having an adventure right now. I think we should have Viking names, since we got a Viking dragon. I’m Valkyrie. You”— I poke Eric’s shoulder with my fingers —“Eric’s a good start. We’ll call you Eric the Boneless.” He flinches a little, because I poked him harder than I needed to, but doesn’t say anything.

  “What about you, Corbin? Who are you gonna be?”

  “Crow. His name means crow,” says Eric. I guess he’s listening after all.

  “Corbin the Crow?”

  “I don’t want to be a dumb bird.”

  “Personally, I like crows — and ravens. I’m glad to know you, Corbin Crow. But, if you need a name to take into battle, how about Corbin Sharktooth? That’s fierce, if you want fierce.” Corbin shows all his teeth. He’s Corbin Sharktooth now.

  I twist myself back until I’m facing forward and pull the zipper all the way down on my hoodie. I’m sweating under my vest. I can’t do anything about the weight on my shoulders, but there’s no reason not to be more comfortable, to feel a little air. I roll the window down a little. When I do that, Eric glances over. His hands grab the steering wheel tight, and then he glances again. He sees the vest. He sees it. I can see him starting to be afraid.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “Trust me.”

  “Is it . . . ?” He wobbles his head back and forth. I think he’s trying to see his brother in the rearview mirror.

  “It’s safe,” I say. I don’t tell him there is more to it than that. I don’t tell him that I can touch the trigger. I don’t tell him it is my choice when and where and who.

  “Can you just take it off?”

  “It’s safe. I’m safe. We’re safe. As long as I don’t try to take it off.”

  “Is that why you need to get to your uncle? Wouldn’t the police be better?”

  My uncle. Ha! I forgot I told him that. “No,” I say. “The police can’t help us.” Does he notice? Does he notice that now I’ve made it about us, all of us, and not just me?

  It’s snowing. It might be gone by tomorrow afternoon, but right now snow is dropping in blobs the size of baby birds, or the ghosts of birds, white and disintegrating. This snowfall is heavy — and wet. We could wait. In a few days, we could be driving the bus on naked, frozen dirt. In a few days, we could be having a hard time opening the bus doors because they are blocked by banks of snow. It’s a choice. It’s my choice, because I have the com.

  “We should go.” I say, “We let the fire die. I tear down the pipe. We get things packed stable and we go.”

  Bo doesn’t argue.

  He helps as much as he can, one-handed.

  The snow hasn’t stopped by the time we reach the blacktop, but now it’s colder. The flakes are smaller and angrier. Everything is freezing hard. The miles behind us taught us some things. Stuff that was packed secure rattles loose every time we go over a rock or a rut, and the whole road down is rocks and ruts. It’s a constant fight to keep stuff from sliding forward. I get one thing stuck tight and then something else comes at me. Another thing I know now is that the windshield wiper on the driver’s side doesn’t work, so when I have a chance I have to climb up on the heater beside the driver’s seat and reach out through the window to push away the snow so Bo can see. I’m wet and cold to the shoulder, but that’s nothing compared to what Bo has to handle. He needs to shift with his right hand, and that hurts. I can tell by the way he seizes a deep breath before he reaches out to do it.

  Here on out, it’s pavement, slick pavement, and traffic — and the highway patrol. We are lucky, though. It is getting dark and the road is bad enough that most people aren’t on the road. As for the troopers, we see lights blue and red glittering through the ice and wet on the windshield, but they are in a hurry going the other direction. As long as we stay on the road and other people wreck, we’ve got cover, because the authorities have more pressing concerns.

  I believe we have come to the right place. We followed Da’s directions every turn and mile marker. I believe we are at the right place, but Captain Nichols doesn’t have the welcome mat out. That’s OK. That’s normal. That’s smart. But most people just need barbwire and signs about how willing they are to shoot you to make their point. What I see in the beams of the bus headlights when we pull onto his road kicks everything up a notch. The rusty gate is eight feet tall and sixteen feet wide and filled top-to-bottom, side-to-side with a direct message: KEEP OUT. A barricade like a fortress wall stretches as far as I can see into the night on either side of the gate. If he ever does let us in, we will be deeply protected. That is why Da sent us here. This is the safest place for us now.

  Bo turns off the bus. It’s the middle of the night. We have come as far as we can without invitation. Now we wait. />
  Something is hitting on the bus door. It’s still dark. “Hey,” I say. “Hey, Bo.” But Bo is already reaching for the door lever with his good hand. He pushes it open.

  All we can really see is the shotgun barrel.

  “I’m Bo White, Dalton White’s boy,” says Bo. “He said we should come.”

  “Dalton White is dead.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re his boy?”

  “I’m Dalton’s boy. And this is my sister, Valley,” Bo says. Then he adds, “We didn’t know. Not for sure. You know for sure he’s dead?”

  “I’ll open the gate. You pull on in. We’ll talk, but yeah, he’s pretty for sure dead.”

  Captain Nichols’s computer is big, like a TV in a motel. His house smells like dirt, and not the good kind. But it is warm, and he gives us cups of coffee before he calls us over to stand beside him while he sits in front of the screen. He types in “Willow Gulch fire” and then we can read.

  Firefighters battled flames and smoke — as well as explosions — at a remote cabin on Willow Gulch Road. An area resident reported plumes of black smoke at 11:30 a.m. Arriving fire crews found a frame cabin fully engulfed. Shortly afterward, several explosions rocked the home.

  Two firefighters near the structure were knocked to the ground by the blasts. They were treated for cuts and bruises but were not seriously injured.

  Two water tender trucks shuttled water from nearby Little Willow Creek. Suppressive action kept the fire from spreading to other outbuildings or the surrounding forest. Deputies trained at the national fire academy remained on the scene Friday, continuing the investigation into the cause.

  There was a picture. It didn’t show the hillside or trucks or Them in yellow slickers. It was like looking into the stove.

  “You know computers?” asks Captain Nichols, looking at me.

  “Yeah, we both know,” I say.

  “But he ain’t much use. Can’t bang on the keyboard with that.” The Captain points at the blunt wad of bandage Bo is holding near his chest. I should change the gauze. It’s been a while since he had pills, and it must have hurt while he was driving.