Chapter 39
THE CROSSBOW BOLT
The crossbow bolt had entered Tilroy Budget’s throat below his Adam’s apple in the hard-cut cleft above his breastbone.
His eyes, or what was left of them, were half-open, and his mouth was slack-jawed. He had fallen back against a rock and died in a sitting position, with one leg straight in front and the other bent back like he was stretching before a run.
A rifle with a black scope was at his side, finger curled around the trigger. A single dark line of blood ran from the entry wound to the neck of his black Def Leppard T-shirt.
I was transfixed on the dead boy, stunned that Tilroy was the shooter. He had taken Mr. Paul’s life in senseless rage, but what he did to Pops and Buzzy was calculated.
A chill took me as I stared at him—stared at his empty eye sockets, his bloated body, and the still-curled trigger finger. The buzzard-plucked sockets and the bloat made him seem like a giant discarded rag doll, rejected, abused, and thrown down from above. I felt a stark lack of empathy as I gaped at his distended body, and it scared me. I quickly looked around for Buzzy, but the trail was empty.
The deputies and paramedics fanned out, hunting signs. “I got blood,” one of them called. The others went over, careful of where they stepped. “It’s pooled here, then looks like he dragged himself into the bushes there.” The deputy hounded the blood trail through the mountain laurel and holly. I followed.
I recognized the rippled black soles of his old army surplus boots through the hanging willow branches that screened him like hippy beads dangling from an open door. I ran forward, pushing down the urge to vomit.
Buzzy had pulled himself through the brush to a shaded spot under a large willow tree. He was propped against the trunk as he would be if lazing under the tree after a river swim. His eyes were closed in soft sleep, and his mouth was turned up slightly on its ends as if he was entertaining a dream.
The bullet had hit him in the left thigh and traveled out his side. He had slit his shorts with a pocket knife and had stuffed the wounds with leftover poultice, then bandaged them with strips of T-shirt. I stood and felt bile choke out my throat.
Wayson Skill leaned into him, put a hand on his chest. “I got a heartbeat,” he yelled. “Ain’t much of one, but it’s there.”
I started toward him, but Deputy Marker held me back. “Let em do their job.”
“I’ll do Ringer’s, you do BP.”
Kimp Silkwater pulled a plastic bag out of the rucksack, unwound the tubing, and handed the needle to Wayson Skill. He turned Buzzy’s forearm up, slapped it to raise a vein, then slid the needle into him. He opened a knife and cut away Buzzy’s shorts. “He’s got all kinds a crap in here,” Wayson said, examining the packed wound.
“That’s a poultice he made for my grandfather when he got shot.”
“Let’s truss him with it in. I don’t want to start him bleeding down here.”
He turned to Deputy Marker. “Tell the sheriff to call for the medevac.”
The deputy pulled the walkie-talkie from his holster and brought it to his mouth. “Sheriff Binner?”
Crackle. “Binner.”
“Fly the bird, we got us a live one.” Crackle.
“Who is it?”
“Fink boy.”
“Roger that. Best bring him up here. Canopy’s too thick down there.”
“Ten-four.”
The deputies broke out the stretcher, unfolded the aluminum poles, and locked the crosspieces in place.
“Is he gonna make it?” I asked.
They ignored me and kept working on Buzzy, wrapping the wound for the trip to the top of Old Blue.
“Let’s get him on and go. Bird’ll be here in a half hour.”
They lifted Buzzy onto the carrier and tied him in with five straps that rolled out from the left side of the stretcher and clipped into the right side. The paramedics each took an end and pushed through the underbrush to the trail where Tilroy Budget lay. They ran past him without notice, but I paused and stood over the boy. I wanted to feel something—wanted to find some understanding in his actions; some empathy in his upbringing; at least a fragment of sympathy for the secret he carried.
I stayed for just a moment more and thought about my own father, how I still wanted his approval, still craved his love, still drank up drops of attention. I considered the shell of Tilroy one last time and pondered the certainty of rearing; the inevitability of desire; and the turn life takes when the two are set hard against. I turned back to the trail and ran to catch the paramedics and Buzzy Fink.
The far-off beating of the blades came to us just as we left the switchbacks and started on the steep. The paramedics easily handled Buzzy’s weight up the incline. The drum of the helicopter came closer as each minute passed. By the time we reached the top it was circling overhead.
The men lifted him to the summit and slid the stretcher onto the rock ledge, then climbed after him. Sheriff Binner pulled Buzzy free of the edge.
“Nowhere to land up here so they’re gonna send a basket down. How is he?”
“Lost a lotta blood. Surprised he lasted this long out here. Seems like a tough kid. Filled up the wound with a poultice he made for Dr. Peebles. That probably saved him.”
The helicopter downdraft created a dust storm that sent dirt scurrying away in rivulets that turned back on themselves into miniature tornados. A large basket big enough for two lowered from the side. Sheriff Binner reached up and guided it to the ground. They quickly unstrapped Buzzy and moved him to the carrier. The basket wasn’t long enough to lay him out so they sat him up against the wall, legs splayed to the other side. Wayson Skill jumped in with him and his partner gave an up thumb to the pilot.
The basket lifted off the ground and did a slow pirouette in the air as it rose. A man leaned out of the helicopter with a hand on the winch line, guiding it up into the bay door. He swung the basket into the bird and closed the hatch. After a few moments it banked away from us, the immaculate blue of the sky replacing the crisp shadow of the undercarriage.