I DIDN’T KILL WOLFMAN. HE’S alive. How alive, it’s hard to tell. The feel of his skin disgusts me, but I reach down and try to feel his pulse. He’s a big, thick man, a hairy man, and it’s not easy to find his jugular. When I do, it takes a lot of pressure to feel the beat of his heart. It’s moving blood around his body, but not with a lot of gusto.
Before I can pull my fingers away, his head slides off the rock he landed on. It’s not a smooth slide, but instead strange and catching, and I wonder if there’s a skull fracture. Maybe the bullet didn’t do anything but knock him down. Maybe the rock is the source of the real injury. Up on the balls of my feet, I tip backward onto my rear without meaning to. Holding my face in my hands, I want to cry, but I’m already all cried out.
“What do I do?” I say it out loud, but there’s no one to answer me. Only birds and trees and sky and fallen leaves hear me.
His holstered handgun is right by my knee. I could truly end this right now. There’s a logical part of me that says this is the best answer. The logical part of me wants to launch into an argument about why this is smart. But I won’t hear it. Knowing I’d killed him, for that handful of minutes, was terrible in a way I didn’t know terrible could be.
If I leave him here, facedown in the dirt, he might die. Of brain trauma. Of exposure, possibly, or who knows what.
After a few seconds I decide this is okay with me. I will do my best to make my way to civilization, and I will tell people he is unconscious in the woods. They will look for him and maybe save his life. In the end, considering everything, this is more than generous.
I take another second and think about his potential recovery. That bullet didn’t go into him. I don’t know how much damage the rock did. Why his pulse is so faint, I don’t know, but there might not be very much wrong with Wolfman at all. He is tough. He is a woodsman. He is a tracker and a hunter and a killer. He does these things extremely well and should never be underestimated.
Wrestling off his handgun and holster is far more difficult than I would have guessed. My right arm is pretty angry about this, but my left arm, the one with the bullet slice, seems a bit improved. The pushing and shoving makes his body roll over. There’s a bruise blooming on the side of his head where he hit the rock, but no blood.
When I go to belt the holster around my own waist, I have to wrap it around two times to get it to fit. Wolfman is literally twice my size. His .45 is lighter than my now-empty and useless Colt Python, but even that small amount of weight feels like a lot. At least the holster puts the weight on my hips, not my arms.
I struggle to pull off the Kevlar jacket, and it’s heavy and stiff. It’s like trying to undress a dead man. There are long stretches of wrestling with him where I can’t see him breathe at all, and I wonder if he is dead. By the time it’s off him, I’m panting hard and feeling light-headed. Sinking to the ground, I go through the vest. It’s strangely exhausting, just searching pockets. Zip ties, chloroform, a small knife. For a change of pace there are handcuffs and duct tape. More disturbingly, there are sunglasses and a wig. He came prepared.
But he didn’t bring his truck keys.
I wanted those keys. I also wanted to keep this vest, but now I know it weighs too much. Weight that would rest on my injured shoulders. Weight I can’t afford to lug around. I take the knife, zip ties, and duct tape, and cut the disguise into bits before tossing it into the woods.
There’s nothing left to do.
The thought is dangerously draining. Searching the scene, I hit upon his shoelaces. Rope is useful. It takes a while, but I free the laces and tie his wrists and ankles. I give myself a chance to breathe. This has all been very hard work.
Now there’s really nothing left to do.
Kneeling in the dirt, I shift my gaze from his motionless form to the forest. It has never looked so vast, so daunting. How to navigate to civilization? How to make this broken body of mine keep going? Instead of the usual fistful of energy in me there’s a void. My fight wants to leave me. It’s the one thing I’ve got going for me, my endless fight, my desire for victory. It can’t leave me now, because it would leave me with nothing.
It’s strange. Having a living, hunting Wolfman motivated me. Having a limp, lifeless Wolfman leaves me empty, without strength. Maybe it’s not rational, but the forest is harder to face than Wolfman. He left no room for anything but instinct and action. The forest is nothing but space. It allows me to think, to feel, to ponder, but it is cold and uncaring. It makes no difference to the forest whether I live or die, whether I suffer. It will not force me forward, but it will hold me back.
Time to take a big breath.
Time to get to my feet.
Left foot first, then right, I pull myself up. My hearing dulls, my head hums, and something swervy happens.
Bark. Against my cheek. Under my fingers. Blinking, I orient myself. I must have passed out, but I’m not all the way down. Instead, I’m clutching my leaning tree.
“C’mon, now,” I order myself. “Come on.”
I stagger off toward the road.