Chapter 31
EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
I moved forward on my stomach, put my head on the bow, and dug my hands in the water as if piloting a surfboard. Phhhfffftttt. Thunk… Bang! A bullet hit the side of the canoe. “Paddle, boys. We gotta get outta—” Phhhfffftttt! Thump! “Uhhhhh, shi…”
“Pops is hit!”
I turned. Pops was slumped forward, a spreading bloom of red on his upper left chest. He was coughing, a dribble of blood on his lips. I moved to him.
“Get the fuckin paddle! We gotta get outta here!” Buzzy yelled.
“I need to help Pops,” I screamed.
“Then paddle, mutherfucker!”
Pops lay back in the canoe, his head on Buzzy’s lap, face ashen, eyes focused on a point somewhere in the sky.
Phhhfffftttt. Thunk… Bang! Splinters flew.
I stood to go to Pops and almost toppled the canoe.
“Paddle, mutherfucker!”
I grabbed the paddle and thrust it hard into the water. “Go!” Buzzy yelled. We dug deep in unison, sending the ponderous boat forward. Three more shots sounded, but they fell short as we moved out of range.
“Come on! We gotta get him to camp,” I yelled.
“I’m comin on,” he yelled back.
We worked the paddles in a frantic rhythm and in two minutes came to the beach. I splashed out and pulled the canoe to shore.
We laid Pops in the bottom of the dugout. His breathing was thin, eyes fluttering. I bit on my knuckle until blood. Buzzy ripped open Pops’ shirt; buttons flew. The exit wound in his chest was bleeding and bubbling on every exhale. Buzzy lifted up his shoulder to check the smooth entrance wound and the blood pooling in the bottom of the canoe.
“Boys, I—”
“Don’t talk, Pops,” Buzzy said softly.
I stood and wrapped my arms around myself, jumping up and down as if to counter a chill.
Buzzy hovered over him like an emergency room doctor. He took Pops’ bowie knife from his hip sheath and cut shirt strips. He balled them up and plugged the entrance and exit holes.
“What are we gonna do? We can’t let him die up here!” More jumping and stamping. Tears flooded, bile burned in my throat.
Phhhfffftttt. Bmmmmmp. A splash of sand. Bang!
I jumped on the sound, then dove onto Pops to protect him. Buzzy ducked behind the canoe.
Phhhfffftttt. Thunk. Splinters at Buzzy’s head. Bang!
“Muthafucker!”
The shooter had moved from the cliff to directly across the lake. Buzzy ran up to camp and hid behind one of the big rocks. I lay on top of Pops, felt his breath on my cheek. I closed my eyes, expecting the queen bee wing and the bang and the impact of a bullet. A strange peace came over me as I shielded him from the sniper. It was as if a hit on me instead of Pops would somehow bleed out any lingering pain of Josh.
The gun went silent. After a minute, I picked my head up and saw movement across the lake. I looked back to camp. Buzzy was peeking from around the rock. “We gotta get him out of the boat,” I yelled. “Help me lift him.”
He nodded and ran toward us, bent low. Halfway across, the ground at his feet exploded and a rifle report echoed off the mountains. He dove down into the sand, spraying some of it into the canoe. He grabbed Pops’ legs and I looped my hands under Pops’ armpits and we lifted him out. He grunted in pain, blood pool smeared in a swath across the boat bottom.
He was lighter than I imagined; his warm blood soaked through my shirt. “Go!” I urged. Just as we took off, the sand in front of Buzzy jumped.
Bang!
We sprinted toward camp and made it just as the next round ricocheted off the rock. “Fuck. Shit! What are we gonna do?”
Buzzy said nothing. He just peered above the rock at a space across the lake. “I think he’s shootin from those rocks across there, but I don’t see nobody.”
“He’s gonna move again. We gotta get out of here. If we just get away from his pot field, he’ll stop shooting.”
“We can’t go nowhere til we plug up them holes. You stay here an start packin. Take the tent, sleepin bags, rope, anythin else you think’ll be useful. Leave everythin else. Also get a fire goin an some water boilin.”
“What if he comes?”
“Shoot him with the crossbow.”
He took up the big knife.
“Where are you going?”
“We gotta make a poultice to plug them holes. Gonna try an find some cranesbill an alumroot; maybe goldenseal an boxberry. My granma used to pack our cuts with it when we was kids. Stops bleedin and infections.” He ran off.
I crawled to the tent and found Buzzy’s crossbow pistol, which gave me little comfort. I rolled up the sleeping bags, removed some dirty clothes, and quickly collapsed the tent, stuffing it in its carry bag. I revived the fire with pinecones and sticks from the courtesy pile. The canteens were nearly empty, so I grabbed the cooking pot and ran down to the lake, zigzagging to avoid the bullets, but there were no shots. I ran back to the fire and set the pot to boil, then moved to Pops, who was lying on a bed of pine needles behind the safety of a large boulder. His lips were gray, his face white. His breathing was lean, and the hole in his chest bubbled and whistled on every exhale. The blue shirt pieces were soaked red. Dirt had collected above his eyebrow. I gently brushed it away. His eyes fluttered, then opened. “Bastard shot me,” he said, then licked his lips. “Canteen, son.”
I put my hand behind his head and gently raised it to bring his dried lips to the canteen. He took several large gulps. “Not much left. I’m boiling more now.”
“Thanks, Kevin.”
I opened his shirt to check the wound. Blood had coagulated in dark clumps around the hole, but the core remained raw and bleeding.
“You and Buzzy get the hell outta here,” he breathed, then coughed. “Go get help.”
“No way I’m leaving you up here with that psycho.”
“You need to get to safety, son.”
“I’m not leaving you. It’s decided.”
Pops closed his eyes, shook his head, and coughed again.
I brought the packs to the protection of the rock and laid the contents out in front of me. I grouped all the unnecessary items to the side—bathing suits, extra underwear, some books, extra shirts and shorts—and packed one change of clothes for Buzzy and me, several for Pops. All the camp hardware—ropes, lines, hatchet, saw, extra crossbow arrows, waterproof matches, rain gear, flashlights, leftover turkey and rabbit, lighter, pocket knives—went into the side pockets of Pops’ backpack. The water came to a boil and I filled the canteens, then went back to the lake for more.
I heard footsteps in the woods and raised the crossbow. Buzzy stepped from behind a tree and rushed to me, hunched over.
“Did you see him anywhere?”
He shook his head. “You?”
“No. What did you find?”
He unwrapped a T-shirt and placed a pile of roots and leaves on a rock. “These two are the goldenseal; they’ll help keep infection out. This one here is the cranesbill, which is for bleedin. The other is alumroot, which is also for bleedin. I couldn’t find no boxberry.”
“Your grandma taught you well,” Pops said weakly. “Cranesbill and alumroot work better when used…” He coughed. “… together.”
Buzzy had washed the dirt from the roots in a spring on the mountain and began peeling the outside layer with the bowie knife. I did the same with the pocket knife. We diced the roots and put them in the boiling water. “Jus til they’re soft; then we mash em into a poultice an plug up them holes.”
“Feel like I been hit by a dump truck,” Pops whispered.
“Don’t be talkin. You’re lung shot. Save your breath for breathin.”
“Why would they be shooting at us anyway? It’s just a pot crop.”
“It ain’t the pot guy,” Buzzy said.
“How do you know? Did you see him?”
“No, but it wasn’t enough pot to shoot us over.”
“What about the booby trap?”
“It was for animals, not humans; that’s why he set it so low. If it was the pot guy, he woulda jus scared us off an missed. This mutha is tryin to kill us.”
“Buzzy’s right,” Pops breathed. “It isn’t the pot guy.”
“Pops, don’t be talkin.”
Pops brought up a shaky hand and waved Buzzy’s comment away.
“Who was it, then?” I asked.
“No earthly idea.”
Buzzy tested one of the root cubes and pronounced it ready. He emptied most of the water into another pot and began mashing the roots with a fork.
“Take that extra water an clean out the wound. Make sure you get all the dirt out. Especially out the back where he’s been layin in it. Put a clean shirt down there or somethin.”
I opened Pops’ shirt. He looked at me with a wan smile. I poured a little bit of the hot liquid into the wound. He jumped at the pain, grabbing my arm and squeezing.
“It’s hurting him too much. I can’t do it.”