I take the gun away from his temple, struck by his answer. I have memories of riding horses from age two. Mom would put me in the saddle with her. I remember the spots on the neck of the Appaloosa she had; I remember wanting to go faster, always wanting to go faster. I remember the breeze in my hair and the joy of it, the joy of sitting in the saddle with my mother.
How strange to have your first memory come so late, so strange to have that first memory be so dark. My feeling is his mother abused him. Did the abuse make him strange? Or did his strangeness shape his memory of his mother? I don’t know. The only thing that is clear is that he fell into that dark hole right away; maybe he was even born there. Either way, having gotten such an early start, he’s had a lifetime to dig himself all the way down to hell.
I don’t want to dig down. I want to crawl out.
I want to get to that town over there, drop Wolfman off at the police station, and go to a hospital. I want to be done with him, done with all of this.
The peanut butter helped some, but my injuries have taken their toll. They’ve almost—but not quite—killed my desire to ride to glorious victory. I don’t think anything can kill that innate thing within me, that thing that wants to win. It’s what makes me want to bring Wolfman to justice, to stop him forever. I want to be a hero. Then I look at this rapist-killer tied up before me and think, I am a freaking hero.
But there are some things I need to do before launching Operation Bring Jerry T. Balls to Justice.
Although Wolfman may have gone to the bathroom in his pants, I need to go too, and I won’t be following suit. It scares me, the idea of leaving him unattended. When I get to my feet, they scream out in pain. My feet are damn near unusable at this point.
After cutting two more lengths of electrical cord from a couple of unlucky lamps, I double-tie his arms and legs to the chair. I test the knots, and they seem tight and secure. But it’s hard to trust the knots, even though I’ve been tying ropes around the ranch since I was a toddler. A loose horse is bad; a loose Wolfman is infinitely worse.
I stop three times on the way to the master bathroom to return and recheck my knots before I finally commit to the plan. Once in the bathroom I keep my eyes away from the mirror. There’s no toilet paper. Rummaging around, I find some under the counter, as well as a first-aid kit with a big bottle of hydrogen peroxide. It seems like a smart idea to treat my wounds, try to fight the infection.
After I flush the toilet, it starts to run. The noise bothers me; it’s covering up any sound Wolfman might be making. I go back and check on his knots, hobbling every step of the way. He hasn’t moved, and the knots look good. Back to the bathroom, to clean these wounds.
The damn toilet’s still running. Jiggling the handle doesn’t help, and I give up trying to make it stop.
Even though my gun is empty, I keep it right by the sink, as though it could magically protect me if I needed it to. Opening up the first-aid kit, I find it’s a good one. Gauze, tape, antibacterial ointment. I find Tylenol and take four, then pocket the bottle.
I want to stay in the moonlight. Flipping the switch will mean looking at myself and knowing the truth about what’s happened to me. But darkness isn’t practical for wound care. Time to be brave.
I turn on the light.
Someone I don’t know looks back at me from the mirror. A tremble vibrates through my fingers as I take off the camo jacket. My head is stop number one. It’s a significant laceration, one that would’ve required many, many stitches to close. The first step is to wash with good ol’ soap and water. For a brief moment I contemplate the shower. That would be easiest. But loud. Wolfman would hear it, know what I was doing, know I was vulnerable. No, no shower for me. I’ll use the sink instead.
I have to curl my head down to get under the faucet, and prop my arms up on the counter to deal with it. It’s the only way to get my hands high enough.
It hurts like hell when I scrub, so I decide it’s not a part of me. This is a wound on a cow or a horse, something to be dealt with firmly but gently. Just a matter-of-fact part of life on a ranch. This make-believe helps, and so I dive down deep into the disassociation, so deep I actually say “Whoa” out loud to myself when the pain gets intense. Once clean of mud, there’s the flush of hydrogen peroxide. It bubbles like a witch’s cauldron. There are a lot of wounds to get to, so I try to be sparing with it.
Before I tackle my bullet slice I head back to the dining room. My feet hurt so bad, it takes a force of will to make the trip. I peek around the corner. Wolfman is sitting perfectly still.