THE BUTLER

by Bill WENHAM

  The bite was on my ankle and I knew I always tended to put my foot in my mouth figuratively and quite frequently. In actuality, though, I was no longer flexible enough any more for my mouth to reach anywhere near my foot or my ankle. I think that I’d been about three months old the last time I’d been able to do that.

  Somehow I had to do something and I had to do it fast since I wasn’t quite sure how long it would take for the snake’s poison to kill me.

  What was I saying? Not quite sure. I had absolutely no bloody idea how long it took! It could be seconds, minutes, hours or even days for all I knew. I didn’t even know what kind of snake it was for sure, except that it was a big one, a rattler with a distinct diamond pattern, and it had been pretty pissed when I had run the wheel of the bike over it.

  I had no medical supplies at all with me and certainly no anti-snake bite serum. I knew that, from what I had seen in the movies, a snake bite was cut open by whatever Good Samaritan happened to be on hand so he could suck the venom out.

  I didn’t even have a goddamned knife with me. The nearest knife or blade of any kind would be back at the cabin and I knew I couldn’t make it that far. Even if I was able to ride the bike, which I’d already found to be pretty near impossible in this terrain, the pedaling action would increase my blood flow and speed up the circulation of the venom.

  I was sweating and my head was already buzzing but I hoped it was more from fright than anything else. I pulled my belt out from my shorts and tied it as tightly as I could around my leg, just above the knee. I hoped the venom hadn’t yet reached that far.

  I knew I couldn’t just lie down and wait to die but what options did I have? I looked at the fallen bike. Did it have anything I could pull off it that would be sharp enough to cut open my ankle?

  Then I noticed the small leather bag attached to the back of the saddle. I remembered these bags usually contained a repair kit for punctured tires and in those kits was a very thin round serrated disk to rough up the inner tube rubber a little before applying the patch. I crawled over to the bike, fumbled the bag open and pried open the repair kit.

  There were patches of all sizes but no disk!

  Then I noticed something else in the bag along with the assorted bike wrenches. It was a very small pair of wire cutters, the kind you can get at a dollar store for a buck.

  I pulled them out eagerly, wiped them on my shirt, pressed the pointed ends hard into the twin holes made by the snake bite and snipped. Blood gushed readily out of my ankle but I had to do more than that. I still couldn’t suck the venom out. My mouth still couldn’t reach my goddamned ankle, bloody or not.

  Its funny, the flashbacks you get at times like this. Suddenly, thinking of sucking, I remembered drawing water up into our bike pumps out of puddles when we were kids and spraying each other with it. If a bike pump would suck up water, maybe it would also suck out venom. What other chance did I have anyway? Thankfully I’d chosen the bike with a pump on it.

  I could see it was an old one, and very dirty from years of use, but I hoped desperately it would work. I snatched it out of its retaining clips on the bike’s frame. Then I paused for a moment even knowing I didn’t have much time. I realized I wanted the pump to suck rather than blow, as we had done as kids. I unscrewed the end cap on the pump’s barrel as quickly as I could and withdrew the inner stem. On the end of it was a soft washer of some kind set into a shallow cup. It was held in place by a screw which I was able to remove using the end of the wire cutters. I reversed the washer and replaced it, fumbling badly in my blind panic. The sweat was pouring down my face as I finally managed to get the stem back inside the barrel and the end cap screwed back on.

  If I was right in my thinking, the pump should now suck rather than blow. If I was wrong, I was dead. It was as simple as that. My life could depend on what I’d be able to do next.

  I took a firm grip on the pump and pressed the open end of it over the bloodied mess on my ankle. Then, praying that it would work, I pulled out the handle.

  I kept it as tight as I could over the wound and when the handle was fully extended, I pointed it away towards some rocks and pushed the handle in hard. A small spray of blood squirted out of the end of it and splattered on to the rocks. It seemed to be working and I did it several more times at both of the fang’s entry points just to be on the safe side, or as safe as I could make myself.

  I don’t how much blood or venom I was actually able to withdraw or how much I needed to remove, but it seemed to me to be as good as anything I’d ever seen on the movies. I seemed to feel okay still, a little lightheaded perhaps, but like before; I put it down to the panic that had gripped me.

  My ankle was still bleeding profusely and was very painful, more from the cuts I’d made in it than anything else. The next thing I did was probably dumb too, but I couldn’t recall anyone ever dying of rubber poisoning.

  I took the largest repair patch out of the kit, smeared some rubber cement from the kit on it, wiped my ankle on the tail of my shirt pulled out from my shorts and stuck the patch over the snake bite.

  It stuck remarkably well but for good measure I snipped a strip off my shirt with the wire clippers and tied it around my ankle over the patch. Hopefully it would stay in place long enough and wouldn’t poison me any more than I was being already. For all I knew, rubber cement could even be an antidote! Next, I released my belt from above my knee, threaded it back into the loops of my shorts and did up the buckle.

  Then I sat down on a nearby stump and surveyed my handiwork. I knew I’d done about all I could possibly do to save my own life. Now only time would tell. I wanted to sleep but I told myself it wouldn’t be a smart idea, and I didn’t think a lot of movement would be too good for me right now either.

  My ankle was extremely sore but it still seemed to be more from the cuts I’d made than from the snake bite and my head seemed to be clearing a bit now. I wasn’t hallucinating and my ankle didn’t seem to be swelling yet, so I thought perhaps I’d been lucky. Then of course, there was that other perhaps. Perhaps the goddamned snake wasn’t even poisonous. That was a possibility too. But surely all rattlers are, aren’t they?

  I must have sat there for about an hour or so, still in a state of near panic but when I awoke, I realized two things. One was that I’d fallen asleep, had slid down off the stump and was now lying on the ground. Two, I wasn’t dead either and by the looks of it, I wasn’t likely to be.

  Not yet at least, but I also knew the Butler had other ideas about that.

  I was just feeling rather pleased with myself when I realized I was hallucinating after all.

  I’d rolled myself over and upright so I was now sitting on the ground with my back to the stump. I could see, running towards me, the figure of Ellie but I knew this was a hallucination because she couldn’t be here, could she?

  Then suddenly the hallucination was kneeling in front of me, hugging me around the neck and crying.

  “Oh, Sandy, Sandy, baby, what have you done to yourself.”

  Her red rimmed eyes looked huge in her face as she looked at me.

  “Din’ do it,” I mumbled, through what felt like a mouthful of cotton wool. “Snake bid me. Rattler.”

  “Oh, my God, no!” she cried.

  “S’all righ’, I thin’,” I tried to say but my mouth was too dry.

  “Here, Babe, drink this,” Ellie said, pulling a can of beer out of the bag she was carrying and popping the cap. She held it up to my mouth and I tried to drink but dribbled most of it down my chin.

  I looked over Ellie’s shoulder and hoped our Jeep wasn’t a hallucination. The old man from the cabins was just getting out from the driver’s side and was walking slowly and carefully towards us.

  He was scanning the ground in front of him as he approached. As he reached me, he looked down at my wrapped ankle and looked worried.

  “Rattler got ya, huh?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “How long ago?”

  “Don�
�� know,” I said.

  “You’ve been gone for hours, Babe. Do you know when it happened?”

  “Half hour,” I said, “After I left, p’raps a bit more. Not much more.”

  The old man had removed my makeshift ‘bandage’ and was examining my ankle, then he looked up at my face.

  “Yer either damned lucky or damned smart, young fella,” he said, “Must be lucky ‘cos no one but a damned fool would go out walkin’ around down here if he ain’t got no cause to. How come ya got your ankle cut like that? Snake din’t do that, son, so yer musta done it yersel’. Good job ya did or I wouldn’t be talkin’ at ya right now. Yer’d be stiffer’n a board be now.”

  “Lover, I’ve been out of my goddamned mind, worrying about you. I didn’t know where you’d gone. Which way on the road, so we went both ways. The second time up this way, I spotted the bike tracks and we followed you in as far as we could. But, man, you scared the hell out of me, when I saw you sitting there like that”

  “Looks like yer safe enough, son. Don’t know what it was ya done but ya sure done it right.”

  “Oh, Babe, I’m not letting you out of my sight in future.”

  “Kin you walk a bit, ya reckon?” the old man asked, “Jest as fer as yer car?”

  Ellie and the old man helped me to my feet and I felt my head begin to spin. A wave of blackness entered my peripheral vision for a second and then receded again. A moment later I felt okay. Between them, Ellie and the old man helped me back to the Jeep.

  “Jus’ a minute,” I said, and they both stopped.

  “What is it, Hon? You okay?” Ellie asked anxiously.

  “Bike” I croaked. “Left it behin’.”

  “Don’t ya worry yer head none about that, son,” the old man said, “I’ll come back down fer it later. Let’s get ya home first.”

  They helped me into the passenger’s seat of the Jeep and now she knew the way, Ellie drove us back. Before we’d gotten into the Jeep, Ellie had given me another can of beer. I managed to get most of that one down my throat and by the time we reached the cabin, my mouth and tongue seemed as though they belonged to me again.

  My ankle was extremely sore and as we dropped the old man off he said he’d come by with some antiseptic cream and some Tylenol. Ellie thanked him and got me inside our cabin where she sat me down at the kitchen table. Then she got one of her clean white tee shirts and cut it into strips to bandage my ankle. As she finished the old man, who Ellie told me was called Tom Ward, knocked on the door and came on in with the medications. He watched Ellie bathe and bandage my ankle.

  “Ya gonna live, ya reckon?” he asked me, “I kin fitch a doc over here if needs t’ be, but it’s up to yer, son. But me, I don’t reckon ya needs one. Yer missus there seems to have the job pretty well in hand now, don’t she though?”

  I was sorely tempted to say, “Yep, she sure do, don’t she,” but I thought better of it. Now able to fashion words reasonably intelligibly, I thanked him profusely for his help.

  “T’was nuthin’, son,” he said, “Glad to be of help.”

  Just at that moment there was another knock on the door and Tom went to open it as though he’d been expecting it. “Took the liberty of saving your dinner for you, honey. Seemed to be a shame for it to spoil after all the time you spent on it,” Mary Ward said as she came bustling through the doorway carrying a heavily laden tray. “Threw a couple bits of apple pie on there as well. You two get yourselfs stuck into that and then both get yourselfs some bed rest and you’ll be right as rain in the morning. You mark my words. Seen it all before, ain’t we, Tom?”

  “She’s right,” Tom said, “Ain’t nuthin needs doin’ that cain’t wait ‘til mornin’.”

  With those little bits of country wisdom, they said their goodbyes and left us to ourselves.

  “Are you feeling better, Hon?” Ellie asked.

  “I am now,” I said, “And you know something, its weird, but I’m starving.”

  “Well that’s a good sign. At least, it should be but you’re always starving. You’ll be telling me you want to wrestle next.”

  “Don’t need two good ankles for that, Sweetie. Surely you know that.”

  “I think that snake bite has addled your brain and I don’t know what to do with you,” she said, leaning over to hug me, “But I’m so glad to have you back in one piece, I’ll try to think of something appropriate. I need to make the most of you if you are going to be going around doing dumb things like that.”

  She reached over again and I thought I was going to get another hug. Instead she gave me a hard punch on the arm.

  “Ow!” I said, “What was that for.”

  “That was because you’re an idiot, because you frightened the life out of me and because I love you, that’s why. Now eat this dinner I made you and you’d better tell me you love it or I’ll really thump you.”

  The Butler was absolutely furious. Raphael had never ever seen him like this before, not even when they were kids. He was behaving like a small and petulant child whose favorite toy had been broken, or whose ball had been taken away, by another child. He had lost control of the game. That was the problem.

  Even as a trainee at Delta Force, he’d always been an independent unit unto himself, calm, efficient, dependent upon nobody else and completely ruthless. As a mercenary, he’d been exactly the same, perhaps even more so.

  His credo was that he always won, but today Spicer had beaten him at his own game and he couldn’t handle that. He’d been forced to run! Nothing like this had ever happened since the vendetta had begun. To not win was completely unthinkable to him.

  Raphael glanced at his brother’s angry face as they drove. It was best to keep silent and keep his distance, he thought as he drove.

  One thing Raphael knew for certain, before this day was finished someone would die and they would die very, very badly. And it would have nothing to do with the vendetta. It would be purely from spite.

  It would be like a small petulant child again, kicking at the cat or pulling the legs off of live frogs just to show he was in charge. And heaven help anyone who stood in his way.

  Even though Emilio was his brother and the day was blazing hot, Raphael fear a cold shiver of fear run right down his spine as they drove on in silence.

  Chapter Twenty

  When I woke up the following morning, Ellie’s arm was draped across my chest and she was snoring gently into my neck and ear.

  I eased her arm off of me and she snuffled a little and turned over, still asleep. Very carefully, so as not to wake her, I sat up slowly and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

  Not the best idea I’ve ever had. My sitting up was obviously the signal for the nasty little guy inside my skull to start up with the jackhammer. When I stood up groggily, he must have gotten several more of his buddies to start up with theirs as well. I staggered as quietly as I could into the bathroom where I gulped down a couple of Tom Ward’s Tylenols.

  Then I looked in the mirror and was shocked. My normally stubbly and bleary eyed face looked gaunt and pale. My eyes squinted back at me from deep black holes. I put my right foot up on to the toilet lid and carefully touched my injured ankle. Apart from feeling a little numb it wasn’t overly sore.

  So I put my foot back down on the floor and started rummaging through the bathroom drawers and cabinet. Finally, I found a package of Band-Aids, real ones this time. I put my foot back up on to the toilet lid and took off Ellie’s tee shirt bandage. Cleaned up and with the antiseptic cream applied to it, my little bit of do it yourself surgery didn’t look too bad. What the hell, I thought, I survived, didn’t I? I was about to apply a Band-Aid to the wound when Ellie’s voice startled me.

  “Caught any elephants in here, Babe?” she asked as she stood in the bathroom doorway.

  “What?” I said.

  “Elephants,” she said. “From the racket you were making I thought there must be a herd of them stomping around in here. Anyway, you can do that in the kitchen
. I need to use that thing you’ve got your foot in.”

  “On, not in, Hon,” I corrected her.

  “Yeah, right and it’s pardon not what. I’ve already told you that too. Either way, get the hell out of here before I have myself a problem, okay?” she said.

  “I’m fine this morning, didn’t die during the night,” I said. “And thank you for asking.”

  “I can see that. Now move your butt,” she said as she eased me out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

  I had just told her I was fine and apart from the slight numbness in my right foot, I really was fine. Tom had told me last night, from what I had described to him, if it was a snake with a diamond pattern on it, it was probably an Eastern Rattler.

  “Damned nasty critters, them things is. Ya wanna stay right clear of ‘em in future, son,” he’d said. I wondered, after what I had just been through, why he’d found it necessary to tell me that. I looked over at the woodstove in the cabin. It was almost like saying, “Better not put yer head in that there fire, son, it’ll burn yer hair off.” He wouldn’t need to tell me that, either.

  I guess old folks always wanted to pass on their little gems of wisdom, whether anyone wanted to hear them or not.

  After what seemed to me like two eternities, Ellie finally came out of the bathroom. I deliberately stood in front of her with my legs tightly crossed and with a pained expression on my face.

  “Bathroom’s free now, Lover,” she said. “You can go in now, but don’t be too long because I still want to take a shower yet.”

  A shower, I thought. What the hell had she been doing in there all that time then, painting and decorating it, maybe?

  I’d already put a large Band-Aid over my cut, together with another liberal coating of the antiseptic cream. I didn’t want to get it wet or to use up all the hot water if Ellie wanted a shower. Using up all the water wouldn’t be a particularly good way to earn brownie points with her, I thought. So I just had a quick strip wash and a shave instead.