by T. F. Torrey
“How do you know they’ll come downriver looking for us?” Erica was saying as I returned.
“I don’t know,” John said. “I just feel like I’m in tune with their minds.”
“The same as with that rattlesnake that Sharon scared?” Macy asked.
“Kind of,” John said.
“Cool,” Macy said reverently.
John went over the plan one more time. Macy would hide on the bluff. John would wait alone by the river. I’d be close by. John would say the rest of us were already at Horseshoe Lake. The poachers would then go away. If they didn’t, John would give Macy the signal to shoot. Macy would then shoot one, and John and I would jump the other one. Either way, we’d be safe then to go on to Sheep Bridge and Horseshoe Lake.
Simple. And all without anger. Except mine.
Erica had a question. “What if they just shoot you as soon as they see you?” she asked. “What if they don’t even give you a chance to talk or give the signal, or what if Macy can’t shoot because he can’t see them or you’re in the way or something?”
“If anything goes drastically wrong,” John said, “you’ll have to run.”
“Just leave you there?” Erica said.
“You’ll have to,” John insisted. “Because then Macy would only be able to shoot one of them before they knew he was there. And if I was shot again I wouldn’t be able to jump on the other one. He’d be able to shoot you all, one by one. He has a bigger gun.”
“I don’t like that,” Erica said.
“It’s the only choice if I get shot again,” John insisted. “Otherwise you or anyone else could get shot in the gunfight. And if Macy with the gun got shot you’d really be stuck.”
They talked more about it, but John was right. If they shot him, we’d really have no choice. We’d have to run.
“One more thing,” Macy said. “What is the signal for me to shoot one?”
“Simple,” John said. “I’ll start with my hat tipped down to my eyebrows. If they aren’t going to just go away, I’ll tip my hat way back on my head.”
Macy nodded. “Okay.”
That left everyone more or less satisfied.
“So that’s it, then?” I asked. “We just wait for daybreak and Macy goes and you go and we wait again?”
John looked up at me for a moment. “No, Jack, there’s one more thing first.”
“What?” I asked.
“Give me my hat back.”
***
The very instant that the first gray speckle of dawn appeared in the east, John sent Macy across the river to the bluff. Macy gave Sharon a quick kiss for luck at the water’s edge, then waded slowly and silently across the river, holding the rifle up to keep it dry. The water never went above his waist. When he reached the other side, he moved upriver till he found a wash in the face of the bluff. Turning back to us, he gave us a quick thumbs-up, then disappeared into the moonlight shadows of the wash.
“It’s time for me to get into position, too,” John said after Macy had gone.
“Do you really think they’ll come so early?” Erica asked.
“Yes, I do,” John said.
Erica sighed. “I’m scared,” she said.
John smiled. “Don’t be scared. Everything will be okay.”
“Really?” Tears lined her eyes.
“Really,” John said tenderly. They kissed. If luck indeed existed, John’s should have been overflowing when they finally separated.
John insisted that Erica and Sharon stay in the clearing. He and I went upriver a short distance to find positions for our last stand. Because John was weak from being shot and losing blood, he sat with his back to a tree by the water, facing north, upriver. I found a depression in the rocks between the clearing and John’s tree and hid in it. At about forty feet away, I could get to him in a hurry, but the poachers didn’t stand a chance of spotting me. I’d be too far away, however, to be able to hear what was said between John and the poachers.
We waited.
In the east, the stars over the bluff began to disappear as the sky grew slowly brighter. The morning birds struck up their songs. The cacti and bushes became black silhouettes against the pale sky.
I heard a faint rustling behind me, and suddenly Erica knelt quickly beside me in the depression.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“If something goes wrong, I’m not going to be in the clearing where I can’t see or help,” she whispered back. “I’m going to be here where I can do something.”
“No,” I said. “If something goes wrong, you need to be as far away as possible. I’ll let you—”
“Shh!” she hissed.
We heard it then. Interlopers pushing through the underbrush, trampling over the rocks.
John stood up. Even with his right arm hanging limp, with his hand tucked into his vest pocket for support, he still had that air of calm control. Erica and I ducked low at the edge of the depression.
The poachers, their rifles held at their hips, emerged from the bushes and approached John on the riverbank. They had already spotted him. Smiling, they kept their rifles pointed at him.
Today they wore no sunglasses. Even with their hats on, this time I recognized their skulls. One had a smile about a mile wide, the other’s face looked scrunched too small. Wide-face and Squash, the Mexican tag team duo.
I don’t think John recognized them.
Squash spoke first, still smiling.
John spoke a long time in return, gesturing with his left hand.
The poachers’ smiles faded. They said a few things to each other, then Squash shook his head.
John said something else, again gesturing softly with his left hand.
Squash replied with a sneer and again shook his head.
An electric chill ran through my limbs as John reached up and pushed his brown outback hat way back on his head.
Erica drew her breath in sharply.
The signal!
I stopped breathing. All my muscles flexed hard and tense as I prepared to rush forward when Macy fired. Time stretched longer. I still couldn’t hear what John was saying.
Wide-face shook his head again. He was not smiling at all now.
I looked off to the right, past Erica, scanning the bluff for Macy.
Squash stepped closer to John and poked at his ribs with the rifle. I knew that if John had been healthy he would have used that mistake to separate Squash from his weapon.
Instead, a trace of a wince flickered across John’s face. He pushed his outback hat back again, so far that I thought it would fall right off his head.
Still nothing.
Where was Macy?
The poachers stepped back away from John. They looked serious now. They were all done playing around.
Where the fuck was Macy?
There he was! I saw him as he rose to one knee among the cacti on the bluff. My heart stopped beating when I saw him shake the rifle and begin striking it with the palm of his hand.
The rifle had jammed.
Just as I looked back to John I saw Squash’s rifle kick back into his hip.
The thunder of the gunshot rolled over us like a nuclear blast.
John Lupo staggered backward and collapsed into a pile on the sand. His hat flopped off his head and rolled away a few feet on its brim.
I had to tear my eyes off John to look at Macy. He’d stopped beating on his rifle, but he wasn’t aiming it. He gazed on the scene with shock and dismay and disbelief all over his face.
Even if he shot one of them now, the other would get us.
I looked back at John. He wasn’t moving at all.
Our only chance now was to run, as John had said. We couldn’t take them out. We couldn’t save John. We could only run.
They had won.
I took one last look at John. He didn’t budge.
Ducking low, I started to move back toward the clearing, to link up with Sharon and Macy and start running.
E
rica was moving, too.
Only she was going the wrong way. Before I realized what she was doing she had climbed out of the depression. She wasn’t running. She was walking, slowly, calmly, deliberately, toward the poachers.
“Erica!” I whispered, and ducked.
The poachers had already spotted her.
I wanted to run; I wanted to hide.
But I couldn’t let her go alone, unarmed.
I climbed out of the depression and caught up to her as she approached the poachers.
Wide-face looked at her, and at me, and smiled. “Well, you don’t seem to have gone away after all,” he said.
***
Squash had cocked his rifle again. They both kept their guns pointed at Erica and me. Wide-face nodded toward where John lay on the sand and rocks and smiled. “Your boyfriend seems to have had another accident,” he said to Erica.
Erica stopped a few feet from the poachers. I stopped at her left side. “He—he isn’t my boyfriend,” she said quietly.
I was so shocked I almost keeled over.
“What?” Squash asked, his smile gone.
“I said he isn’t my boyfriend,” Erica said.
I gaped at her in wonder and astonishment.
“Then why,” Squash asked, “are you here?”
“I—I wanted to be with you,” she said.
“Erica!” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up, you,” Wide-face snarled at me.
“You’re lying,” Squash said.
“No, it’s true,” Erica insisted. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Suddenly I realized what Erica was doing. She was stalling them.
“You’re a fool,” Squash said, not believing her at all. “You know we can’t let you go now.”
Suddenly I started laughing. Nothing was really funny. Nothing had changed at all, except my mind. I could feel the triumph welling up inside me. So there I was, laughing my guts out.
“What are you laughing at?” Squash demanded.
“I’m laughing at you, you stupid fuck,” I said. “You’re the fool.”
Squash squinted at me foolishly. “What are you talking about?”
“You aren’t the ones who could let us go,” I said. “We could let you go.”
“You could let us go?” he asked.
“We could, but we’re not going to,” I said. I stopped laughing. I stopped smiling. “You’re going to die here.”
“You’re full of shit,” he said.
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck this,” he said. He took a step toward me, swinging his rifle up so fast I barely saw it coming. I flinched, but it wasn’t enough. The butt caught me just above my left temple and snapped my head back.
The world blacked away for a second as I fell. I tried to keep my feet under me, but they worked too slowly. My vision came back as I fell on my elbow on a rock on the ground.
That’s when the gun fired.
The gunshot noise wasn’t the thunderous clap and boom of a menacing cannon, but the deep, strong, beautiful bass note of an orchestra.
It was Macy’s gun.
Wide-face’s hat flipped off his head. In almost slow motion, his head rotated to his right, revealing a tiny pink hole just above his left ear. His eyes turned gray and his face took on a purple hue as his body, probably already dead, toppled backward onto the rocks and sand.
I think it caught Erica off guard.
Squash reacted immediately. He stepped forward and grabbed Erica, spinning her around and pulling her back against his chest. His arm slipped under her throat, holding her tightly in front of him as a shield.
Erica grabbed his arm with her hands, but she was no match for his size and strength. Squash stepped back away, eyes scanning the hillside where Macy was, looking for whoever had shot his buddy.
I got to my feet. I felt dizzy. I could feel blood running down my cheek. “I told you,” I said. “I told you we wouldn’t let you go.”
“I’m gonna fucking blow you away,” he said, spinning to point the gun at me again.
“Go ahead,” I said. “You’ll have to let your shield go to cock your gun, and my friend will take you out like he took out your buddy. Turn you off like a switch.”
His eyes locked with mine. He thought about it for a second.
“Fuck you,” he said, and twisted back looking for Macy.
Erica let go of his arm with her right hand. He didn’t notice. She reached her hand into her back pocket.
And I realized that we had won. John Lupo had saved the day, by being prepared, three nights ago.
Erica took her hand from her back pocket, holding the birthday present John had given her. The silver tipped ends of the white handled folding knife gleamed like fire in the first morning sunlight.
Squash still hadn’t noticed.
With smooth grace, she flipped the blade open with one hand.
“It’s over,” I said.
The shining blade disappeared into the flesh of Squash’s thigh.
He screamed in pain and let go of Erica.
She pulled the knife out of his leg and spun around, facing him.
He stepped toward her, and instead of stepping back she stepped into him, surprising him.
The blade disappeared into his throat.
She let go and stepped away quickly.
The rifle fell from his hand and clattered away on the rocks.
He pulled the knife from his neck and a torrent of blood sprayed out in bursts, drenching his chest and splattering on the rocks and sand.
As he swayed and slumped to his knees, I heard myself say it again. “It’s over.”
His body dumped face-first onto the ground.
Chapter 23
John Lupo wasn’t dead. Even as the last poacher was falling to his knees, Erica and I were running to John’s side. He was unconscious. He lay on his side with his face and shoulders turned to the ground. The bald eagle tattoo on his upper left arm screamed up at us. We rolled him onto his back.
He was a mess.
The poacher’s shot had hit him squarely in the left breast. Erica opened his fishing vest to look at the wound. It was big and ugly and bleeding all over, with pink bits of flesh hanging out of it. As he fought for breath we could hear the air rushing into and out of his chest through the wound.
I looked at Erica expectantly. She was already going to work. Biting her lower lip, she covered the hole with her palm as she checked the other damage.
“Is he … going to make it?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “He has to. He can’t die now.”
There was so much blood. I could only wonder.
I heard Macy running, skidding down the wash, splashing back across the river, then he and Sharon came running up together. “Oh, God,” Sharon said, paling.
“Is he hurt bad?” Macy asked.
Erica nodded, lost in concentration.
“What about the poachers?” Macy asked. “Are they dead?”
“Who cares?” Erica said without looking up.
Macy looked over at where the poachers lay on the rocks. “I’ll check,” he said. He hustled over to them, kneeling by each only for a few moments to check for a pulse.
“Stone cold dead,” he said as he ran back to us. “What do we do now?”
I knew. “Search their pockets,” I said to Macy, nodding at the poachers. “One of them must have the keys to their truck. Their truck must still be up the river where we saw it last.” I turned to Erica. “Can we move John in the truck?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not without causing more damage. We need a helicopter.”
I turned back to Macy. “Drive as fast as you can to the park ranger station at Horseshoe Lake. Tell them we need a helicopter out here ASAP.”
“How will they find you?” Macy asked.
“I’ll build a signal fire.”
“What about Sharon?”
“Take her with you.”
; Macy took a last look at John, then they were gone. Macy quickly found the poachers’ keys and he and Sharon took off, running upstream to find the truck. A few minutes later we heard the engine roaring as Macy found the trail and raced off to Horseshoe Lake.
Then silence returned.
By now the sun had risen and it rapidly heated up the morning. Erica and I moved John to the ample shade of a cottonwood tree a bit downriver. I took John’s hat, got his matches from under the head band, and built a huge signal fire on the riverbank. For lack of a better place, I put John’s outback hat on my own head.
I gave Erica my shirt to help bandage John with, and she did her best to try to stabilize him. The damage was so extensive, though, that the best she could do was not enough. John’s pulse grew weaker and weaker as we waited.
Though I was no more certain of anything than I had ever been before, I prayed silently that help would arrive in time. If there was a higher power anywhere, this was something worth talking about.
After Erica had patched the wounds as well as she could, she sat cross-legged with John’s head in her lap. Tears slid softly down her cheeks as she whispered, “You are my boyfriend, John. You are. Please don’t leave me.”
Sitting close by, I watched the horizon for the rescue helicopter. High away in the distance, three birds circled in the air currents. I wondered what kind of birds they were, until one flew close over top of us, looking proudly down. The snowy white head left no doubt. It was a bald eagle.
The wait turned into hours. The sun pierced through the shade of the cottonwood and burned my bare back. I didn’t mind.
Finally we heard the distant whirling chop of helicopter blades. The medical rescue helicopter had arrived.
But they were too late.
There, in the shade of the willowy cottonwood, beside the bubbling river teeming with catfish, in the arms of the woman he loved, in the heart of the raw and powerful desert he lived for, John Lupo had died.
Chapter 24
Of course the police agreed it was justifiable homicide. On our part, not theirs. We spent several hours answering questions, especially Macy and Erica, but in the end they didn’t even charge Erica with possessing an illegal knife. Maybe they weren’t illegal after all.
If either of the poachers had survived, he would have been charged with the murder of John Lupo, the attempted murder of the rest of us, poaching, and a slew of related charges.
