Something of a Kind

chapter 18 | NOAH

Noah stared into the shadows of the tree canopies. With ache crawling up his spine, it felt like they had been hiding forever, though he knew it couldn’t have been more than an hour. They were both still alert, but his nerves had calmed enough to hear things besides his own heartbeat. He could feel her shaking in his arms. They didn’t speak, but Aly clutched his shirt like her life depended on it.

On the land of humanized territory, he felt secure enough to try to put her at ease. As an arm rose with the intent to brush her cheek, he hissed, a gasp of pain sucked in through his teeth. Aly jumped as he clutched his shoulder. Panicked, she blurted, “Did that thing hurt you?”

Before he could protest, she was edging his jacket down his arm. Pulling his free arm through one hole, she removed his tee shirt with as much clearance to the wound as possible. Aside from peppered scrapes and a torn sleeve, it wasn’t bleeding. The relief was momentary.

A faint yellowed line stretched from his ribs to his neck, dark violet pooling around the clavicle and across his shoulder. It was visibly deformed, the ball of the joint protruding from a sickening angle. It had swollen, generally red and puffy, edges ending in discolored splotches. His neck tingled, the area beyond his elbow numb, even his hand feeling like deadweight. In between, intense pain seemed to shoot in every direction, dense and pounding in the center. The sight was nauseating, triggering a painful shutter. Noah stuttered, “I-I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Aly whispered, eyes wide. Though she sounded horrified, her voice held no accusation. “I guess,” he paused, queasy and baffled, “I don’t think I noticed.”

Miraculously, she managed to wedge more concern into her expression. “Noah, your shoulder looks completely dislocated. You don’t just not noticesomething like that.”

“I’ll be fine,” he sighed, aware his perplexed inflection was unconvincing.

She offered an incredulous stare. “You need to see a doctor.”

He hesitated, evaluating the discomfort before nodding. Noah watched as she stood, careful not to bump him. Aly stared at her hands, as if seeing the camera for the first time, and muttered something about a dying battery. Shoving it into the bag at her side, she retrieved her phone, holding it into the air for a signal. Reluctant, she ran down the steps, looking back and forth for persons unknown. Having recovered nothing, she disappeared around the sides, possibly looking for a way into the building.

When she resurfaced, Noah said, “I think we’re only a little ways down the road from my truck. We don’t have a hospital or anything, but there’s a clinic in town. They can reset it, I guess. The only thing I can think of is that wewere so freaked…”

With a loose arm around his waist, Aly helped him to the curb. From there, she grabbed his keys and disappeared down the road. He waited, eyes closed, until she drove his truck up.

“Yeah,” Aly agreed, “It must have been shock or something.”

~

Noah had offered various directions to the clinic. It wasn’t until they reached one of the few four-ways in Ashland that he decided to brave the main road, directly through town. Neither spoke under the pressure of tension, but her silence never felt aggressive. He often felt her blue eyes fleeting to the side, analyzing with concern.

The pain came and went, intense on both ends. Despite arduous efforts to appear alert and otherwise unscathed, Noah found himself distracted. He had difficulty concentrating on one thing or another. Though indecipherable, his thoughts raced. Worst-case scenarios and panic plagued his subconscious. He didn’t even want to know what Aly would expect him to testify for or against over whatever that thing was they saw – or worse, how Lee or Greg could prevent them from ever seeing each other again, nonetheless be together.

Images erected beneath his eyelids every time he blinked – of Lee’s inevitable freak out, Sarah’s guilt trip, the repercussions of disobeying the elders. The price of medical care was an entire other issue, but he couldn’t bring himself to think about the damage done to his arm. It pulsed, his discomforting getting worse with the wait, but he felt detached.

As they passed Yazzie’s, Noah expected to see Lee standing outside with the look of death on his face. It was like the man had a radar that specialized in always being in the wrong place at the worst time. He was always over Noah’s shoulder, waiting for the slightest antagonism for all hell to break loose.

The flashing attachment on the public safety officer’s Ford, he didn’t anticipate. From what Noah could remember, there’d never been so many locals mulling around the area. They looked on to a scene he couldn’t see. With sobered expressions, they crossed their arms as though it was ten degrees below zero.

Did he seriously call the police because I wasn’t home?

No, he realized, it would be because he wasn’t home and he was with Aly. From the assembly though, it seemed like something more serious than boy meets girl, boy takes girl hiking for wood beast, boy shames family. There was a fear that Lee’s drinking once again caught up to his heart. The thought that Mary-Agnes crippled from a diabetes complication was sickening.

A faint hope flitted that his brothers were lost at sea, rather than a gathering ready to humiliate him. With a glance across the docks, he knew it wasn’t the case. Otherwise, there’d be a hoard of orange- vested locals boasting the self-appointed titles of volunteer search and rescue. The boat of a sea warden was nowhere in sight.

Noah hadn’t seen anything like it since he was ten, when Vega Kelley-Young tried to hide Luke in her car to leave his stepfather. Sam grabbed the stocky woman by her frizzy hair, dragging her from the seat and into the road. When Luke jumped out, running to his mother’s side, Sam yanked him to the ground by the shoulder.

The sight, especially as a kid watching from his yard, was frightening. Noah had run into the street, asking his friend if he wanted to come inside until the fighting was over or stay the night. Sam hauled Luke into the car, pinned against the steering wheel, slamming the door shut at the boy’s feet. When he stalked back, he slapped Noah across the face, spewing profanity and making threats over what he called ‘his damned property’. Already sprinting to break it up, Lee decked Sam Young so hard he rolled under his car after hitting the cement, as though he slipped on ice.

After consoling Vega and senselessly sending her home to reconcile her marriage to an oppressor she believed needed for a home and a paycheck, Lee did something Noah never saw again: he asked his wife if she loved him. She offered a ‘yes-I-do-and-howcould-you-doubtit’ reply. Afterwards, Lee took Mary-Agnes in his arms, burrowing into her chubby sides with the embrace, gave her a loud kiss, and helped her toddle to the hallway, disappearing in the bathroom.

Luke did end up staying the night. In old blankets and lump cot pads dragged from the closet, they slept in front of the television – a rare luxury. The boys didn’t talk about it until the next morning, when playing on the widow’s walk in secret.

“Someday one of us is going to kill him,” Luke said, rolling a miniature skateboard over the ledge. Noah didn’t say a word, knowing he’d find the model in the bushes later. “Then he’ll wish he let us go.”

Noah’s eyes widened. “You or me?”

“No, stupid – me or Mom.”

It was no surprise the woman was a hunter, between being too poor to feed her son by traditional means and being an eternal victim with pent-up aggression. What was surprising is why she stayed in the few safe opportunities to leave– like a fishing trip, or his annual boy’s nights out of town.

That and the fact that she operates every big-game rifle legal in the state of Alaska.

Aly slowed, observing the chaos with unanimous confusion. With the focus obviously centered on Yazzie’s, it wasn’t like someone had dropped dead in the other shops. The chances were that it could be anybody, lung collapsing over breakfast, heart attack in a booth, tripping over a forgotten wet floor sign.

But it’s not anybody’s family. It’s mine.

The tape around the road’s bars grabbed his attention as they passed, a multi-purpose tow truck dragging an all too familiar panel van from Yazzie’s side-yard. Something dropped in his stomach, his anxiety arresting. He winced as muscles involuntarily tensed, and blurted, “Aly, pull over. Please.”

“Your arm -” she began, before sneaking a glance at his expression. Swallowing, she nodded slowly, pulling into the grocer’s driveway.

He unbuckled as carefully as panic allowed, awkwardly climbing from the cab. She met him at the back to support the other side of his limp as he crossed the road.

Sarah sat in a chair as the volunteer worked over her, surprisingly not Jacob. A pale cloud of foam covered her neck, her hand gripping the plastic arms as stiches were woven over a seeping skull wound. Suddenly within earshot, little details slammed through his shock. He moved through the small crowd, leaving Aly to blink at the scene, unable to form words.

“They’re saying she packed a bag and booked it.”

“No, seriously, the kid was running away.”

“– was running away…”

“…just ran off.”

“… guess she got lost on the road.”

“Anthony was drivin’ her home, I suppose.” “…bringing her back… drunk and swerving…”

“…couldn’t believe the noise! I came runnin’ and there they were, smoking and all sorts…”

The commentaries went on. Though overwhelming, he realized they were coming from the same two or three loudmouths, the rest staring, the sight shock and awe. Muffled whispers about whiplash and braces explained the white mass around his sister’s head. A free hand gripping his arm, he approached Tony’s chair in a near-limp, seething.

He spat, “My sister’s in a neck brace, you a*shole.”

“Language,” Tony warned, his voice irritated. “I was trying to help her. She was five miles out of town, walking towards nothin’ for thirty. It’s real’ good we were close to home. Didn’t curb ‘til I got to Lee’s.”

“Nothing about this is good, Tony.” He released his shoulder to raise a hand in frustration.

“It’s all how you look at it.”

“I’m looking at the fact that my sister could have died!” Noah insisted, leaning above him. He pointed angrily at the surf, his good arm jerking as he mined the horrific images slamming through his thought. “Two feet, and you would have been off that dock. She could have drowned. She could have been crushed. You could have passed out. She’s fifteen, Tony. What the hell would she do with an unconscious old man and a moving vehicle? What would she do belted to a warped truck twenty feet under water that you can’t even see through?”

“She was fine!” Tony hollered, pushing himself up in his seat before sinking back into a dazed stare. Noah swallowed, backing away as he simmered.

“I am the only person, the only person in this entire town, who has ever stuck up for you. I tell everyone, ‘Tony’s a good guy. He’s just rough on the edges. He’s more responsible that he looks.’ I defended you, I trusted you, but you’re an idiot. You’re just a drunk, just like everyone else.”

“I’m not like them,” Tony muttered, fumbling in his shirt pockets for a cigarette.

“You should have called me!” Noah yelled, red crawling across his neck. He balled the available hand into a fist, stomach churning, chest pounding.

He knew even if Tony had, he wouldn’t have known. He was too far out of town, and even then the cell towers were shifty. He hadn’t been there for his sister. If Tony hadn’t found her, when would they have known she was gone? She could have gotten lost in the woods, run in with a bear, spent the night on the road, dragged into the vehicle of a stranger with nauseating intentions. He didn’t even know she had considered leaving.

But Sarah was in a neck brace because Tony picked her up fully knowing he was intoxicated.

Even though he could have hurt her. Even though he did.

Noah watched him struggle to weasel a lighter from his pocket, the man wheezing so heavily you’d think he’d be seeking an inhaler. He smelled like booze and cigarettes. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing tattoos and scars. A scarred belly rose between the open flaps. The long ponytail was pulled away from his receding hairline, mangled. He sported the same stained clothes he wore the last time Noah had seen him.From the dirt running over his skin like a girl’s makeup after tears and blackened palms, it certainly looked like he hadn’t showered in longer.

Sickened, Noah’s shoulder throbbed under his hand.

“You know what, Tony? I need to get to the clinic. I have to go. I can’t even look at you right now.”

“Yeah, yes. The arm. It looks busted. Looks, looks… Look, boy, I’m just a bit skunked. I’ll be fine in the morning. I’ll ‘pologize then, alright? I need you out of my face, now.”

“It’s ten in the morning,” Noah m uttered, feeling disgusted as he gave him a last glance. Between the burning pulsation of his wounded limb and the crushing disappointment, he needed an escape. “I’m so done.”

“I said I was sorry, man,” Tony began, the wide circles of his dazed eyes rolling from behind heavy wrinkles to meet Noah’s gaze, instead finding his back as he walked away. “I’m sorry! Don’t leave, boy. I’m sorry! Rob! Rob!”

Noah stopped in his tracks, turning in time to catch Tony fall from his seat and look up from the ground.

Rob was his adopted son, a teenage white boy found in a slum with a nasty addiction, the same that ran off the day he turned eighteen. He disappeared with Noah’s aunt, Lee’s little sister Maria, and never looked back.

There were rumors of drug addictions, but according to Lee, they didn’t hear another word until Sarah was born. That was supposedly vague and brief.

The old man’s finally lost it.

He continued to walk and ignored Henry Davis’s concerned stare at his makeshift sling as they traded places. The sandy-haired, middle-aged volunteer paramedic applied antiseptic and butterfly stitches the cuts across Tony Gabriel’s forehead.

At his back, he could hear drunken curses at the sting of cleanser. To his right, Sarah whimpered as Lee and Mark carefully lifted her at the elbows from the chair they had dragged to the sidewalk. Noah gave her a look that spoke for him, informing his sister of the talk they would have later. It also conveyed the thousand silent apologies churning in his chest.

Aly murmured a few more words to Sarah, a reddish white spreading across her pale knuckles as their hands squeezed upon parting. She looked back and forth between Noah and Henry as she approached, meeting him mid-stride to the car.

“Did you still want to go to the clinic?”

“I think it’s a good idea. This thing is killing me, and everyone’s stretched pretty thin here.”

“Okay,” She responded slowly, nibbling her lip as she glanced at the car. “I’ve still got a few weeks to transfer my license to Alaska, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

“It’s an emergency anyway, hardly questionable.” He smiled through a wince, brushing her cheek with a free hand.

I can’t take this out on her. This is all my fault.

She blinked, shaking her head. “You’re right – let’s get that looked at.”