Steller backed off from the Silverado and followed him. “Check it first,” she said to the girl. “He’s probably got a rifle in there.”
Hawley waited while the girl hurried over and opened the driver’s side door. He watched her rummaging and calculated how many hours he had left before he had to make the drop. Once the window was missed, King would contact Jove. And Jove wouldn’t have a choice—it was too much money—he’d have to tell him it was Hawley who had failed to deliver. Then someone would be on their way to Anchor Point.
The girl took his long gun from the dashboard. She checked under the seat and found the Colt. “I think that’s it,” she said.
“Four,” said Steller.
Hawley climbed up. He sat there like a fool with the door open. The sun was just above the horizon, the sky beginning to gray. In another hour, the sun would rise again to a full and bright morning. Back in Anchor Point, Lily was probably still sleeping. But soon she’d be awake. She’d put on her slippers and head to the kitchen and see what there was for breakfast. She’d open their fridge. The light would illuminate her face. And then there would be blood mixed with milk. Pancakes burning on the stove.
He couldn’t leave without the money. He couldn’t take the chance. He got out of the truck and faced the women. “My wife,” said Hawley. “She’s having a baby.”
“Shit,” said the girl.
“Five,” said Steller. And then she shot him.
—
IN THE END it was his father who came. Hawley saw the old man walking toward him across the parking lot in the old brown waders he used to wear surf casting. The waders came up to his chest and had a pair of green suspenders. Whenever he got home from the beach Hawley’s father would shed the rubber like a second skin and hose the waders off in the yard—the legs smelling of mold and fish guts, no matter how often they were rinsed out. Afterward the waders were tied to the clothesline, and whenever a breeze came up and filled the legs with air, it looked like a ghost dancing in the wind.
“Are you all right?” Hawley’s father asked.
“I’ve been shot.” Hawley’s voice came out soft and quiet. He wondered if the man could hear him.
“Shit,” said his father. “How long have you been out here?”
Hawley wasn’t sure. He remembered waking up facedown in the gravel. The way the small rocks stuck to his eyelids when he raised his head. A few of the pebbles were still there, clustered on his cheek like barnacles. He could feel them but he could not lift his arm to brush them off.
His father set down the cooler and the fishing rod he was carrying and pressed a set of fingers against Hawley’s neck. “Who shot you?”
“A woman.” He couldn’t get any air. It felt like he was mouthing the words.
“Isn’t that always the way.” The man was lifting Hawley’s shirt. “You packed the wound pretty good.”
And then Hawley remembered. The women screaming at each other and tossing his guns, the Silverado peeling out of the parking lot. How he’d crawled back to his truck, found a towel and jammed it up inside of himself and even started to tape the mess to his side. But then he couldn’t breathe and got dizzy.
“All right,” said his father. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”
As he waited Hawley looked at the fishing rod his father had been carrying. It wasn’t the old fifteen-foot Kilwell he’d always used. This rod was more delicate, only nine or ten feet. And it had a flywheel, not a spinning wheel. The line was the wrong weight, too. It got Hawley thinking that maybe this man wasn’t his father. But it had been more than fifteen years since Hawley had seen him, and he guessed a fellow could change what kind of fishing tackle he used. And then his father was back, carrying a first-aid kit, and Hawley decided it didn’t matter if the man was his father or not.
“Was that towel clean?”
Hawley nodded.
“Let’s leave that part for now, then,” said his father. He was pulling rolls of bandages and heavy dressing out of a bright-orange box with a red cross on the lid. “I think the bullet might have punctured your lung. That’s why you’re having trouble breathing.” He used some scissors to cut up the back of Hawley’s shirt. He snipped a plastic bag in two, and then he rolled Hawley over, removed some of the packing, cleaned the exit wound, dried it with some bandages and started taping the plastic to his back. He taped three sides and left one side open. Hawley took another breath and suddenly his lungs caught and filled.
“God,” he said.
“Better?” his father asked.
“Yes.” Hawley exhaled and felt the plastic flutter a little.
“What’d she shoot you with?”
“A Ruger.”
“Ah,” Hawley’s father said. “I’ve been thinking about getting one of those.” He reached inside the kit and took out a jar of cayenne pepper. He unscrewed the top. “This is going to sting a little,” he said. And then he lifted the edge of the towel and poured the whole jar into Hawley’s wound. Right away he put the towel back on and pressed down hard. Hawley could feel the pepper burning through the hole inside him. He could taste it in his lungs. Every movement felt like a refrigerator thrown down on top of him.
“Fuck,” Hawley said.
“Nearly there,” said his father. He ripped a couple more bandages open and pressed them on top of the towel. Then he got some cold packs out of his cooler and placed them around Hawley’s midsection. “Hold this,” he said. And as Hawley did, he took some duct tape and wrapped it around everything a few times, looping over Hawley’s chest, keeping it tight.
“Now you should last another forty minutes or so, until we get into town. Unless there’s internal hemorrhaging.”
“I need some water,” said Hawley.
“No water,” said his father. “You’ve lost too much blood. Come on, get under my arm, here. I’ve got to get you back to my car.”
There were so many things Hawley wanted to ask him. But right now he could only lean on the old man and try not to throw up from the pain. His father smelled of chewing tobacco and the rubber of the wading boots and something else, underneath his breath—a faint hint of Ring Dings, the synthetic chocolate cakes wrapped in cellophane and sold in gas stations, which Hawley had secretly loved as a boy. On his eighth birthday, his father had surprised him with a plateful, eight matches stuck in for candles. He’d never forgotten it. The appearance of those individually sealed snack cakes had Hawley believing for at least a month that his father could read his mind.
“My guns,” Hawley said, and gestured to the bushes. He hoped that was enough, and it seemed to be. Once his father managed to get him across the parking lot and leaned him against the Jeep parked there, he went back and poked through the bushes, and it took him only a minute to find Hawley’s shotgun and the Colt. He returned with both and admired the Colt for a moment and then he opened the back of the Jeep and locked the pieces inside the metal gun box that was bolted to the floor.