9

Nothing.

The all-powerful Reverend just lies there, minus most of his head, and deader than dog shit.

“I’ve never in all my years seen so much blood,” Gracie says, and it sounds like a comment that should be followed by tears. But this is Gracie, and I’m willing to put money down that she’s already stressing over the cleanup. “Guess he was just a man after all.”

“I want to go home,” the girl on the bar says, and that pulls us from our trance-like state of expectancy.

“We’ll get you there, honey.” Flo’s hands tremble as she sleeves some of the priest’s blood from her face.

“It’s gonna be all right babe,” Brody soothes, though he’s in too much pain to sound sincere. “We’ll be out of here soon, then it’ll just be you, me and Dino.”

Kyle is still holding the gun out, still pressing it against the ghost of Hill’s temple, and I put a hand on his forearm, urge him to lower it before it goes off and adds someone else to the rapidly rising number of dead. For a moment he resists, then the tension ebbs away.

“It’s okay son.”

“Kyle,” he mutters.

“What?”

“You don’t get to call me ’son’.”

“Okay.”

Wintry is still tending to Cobb. The old man has downed half a bottle of whiskey. I’m sure wherever his mind is, it doesn’t know what just happened, and maybe that’s for the best. Wintry locks gazes with me and in that brief glance, we’re like two old farts trading war stories. What’s happened here tonight won’t ever be forgotten, no more than will the things that led us here, the errors in judgment, the wrong turns, the simple little mistakes that all add up to an express elevator ride right into a nightmare no amount of waking up can cure. But this is a lull, and a welcome one, and I figure everyone (except maybe Brody and the girl) is going to savor it before the next unwelcome development. For however briefly, this is Eddie’s bar, the only functioning water hole in a near-dead town, and right now, for the first time ever, these people truly are my friends.

Wintry goes back to silently consoling the inconsolable Cobb. Gracie heads into the ladies room and emerges with a mop and bucket that are filthier than the floor but don’t, to my knowledge, have human remains on them. Flo tries to get the girl to stand up. It isn’t going to happen.

“We need to take him too,” I tell Kyle with a nod in Brody’s direction.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Yeah,” Brody adds. “Why? If it’s because you shot a perfectly nice guy like me, and don’t know how to apologize…hell…that’s all water under the bridge.” He grins and there is blood on his teeth. “I don’t hold grudges.”

“He’s a murderer,” Kyle says.

I lean in close. “For fuck sake, Kyle. Everyone here is a murderer.”

“Not like him we’re not. He enjoyed it. Did it on purpose.”

His logic makes my head swim, and the only thing I’m really sure of is that I don’t agree with it. “Listen, you have to–”

“Leave him,” Cobb says dreamily, as if our banter has woken him from a doze.

Everyone looks in his direction. He, however, does not look at us.

“Cobb…”

“Leave him. I’ll take care of him.”

I can’t be blamed for taking that like it sounds. Sure, Cobb can heal folks, but considering we’re talking about the man who just killed his wife, I don’t imagine healing has anything to do with it.

“Take care of him how?”

“Fix him up, Sheriff. What else?” His eyes are swollen from crying, his face almost as pale as Brody’s.

“Any number of things,” I reply. “He can die on his own if that’s what you’re figuring to help him with.”

“I said I’ll fix him up. Weren’t like he killed Ellie on purpose.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No. I don’t.” He takes another slug of whiskey. “But why are we here?”

I don’t know how to answer that. Seems no one does. But for the low whimpering of the girl, the room’s awful quiet.

“We come here to try to make peace when there ain’t none to be had. We come here to be forgiven. Way I figure it, Sheriff, is if I don’t do what every ounce of me wants to do to this kid, and instead I fix him up, like I want to be fixed up myself, like I can never be fixed up, then maybe it’ll count for somethin’ in this great goddamn plan we’re all so fuckin’ tangled up in. What do you think?”

I consider that for a moment because it’s worth considering. Then: “I think you may be onto something,” I tell him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I look at the girl. “What about her?”

“Nothing I can do for her. Maybe Hendricks can pull a miracle out of his hat, but not me.” He glances down at Brody. “She’s too far gone.”

Brody sighs shakily, tries to stand and fails. Although Cobb has agreed to help the kid, I figure we’ve just seen his revenge. Telling the kid his girl is going to die is about the only weapon he has left to use, I guess. Hurt him as much as possible before he heals him.

“All right.”

Cobb nods, and goes back to his drink. “Don’t leave Ellie out there on the road, Tom. She deserves better.”

“I’ll see to it.”

“You’re leaving me here with him?” Brody asks, appalled.

“It’s the one good option in a dump truck full of bad ones,” I remind him. “Take it or leave it.”

Gracie comes around the bar, flips that lock of hair out of her face and sets the mop and bucket down by the priest’s body. “Think we should burn him?” she asks, as casually as she might inquire about the weather. “Bury the ashes and salt the earth?”

I understand her concern completely. No one wants to see that son of a bitch get back up. “If he was anything as dangerous as he led us to believe he was, he’d already have done something. And if he still plans to, then I don’t reckon cooking him or seasoning the mud’s going to do us a whole lot of good.”

She sighs, and it’s the most human I’ve ever seen her look. There’s the urge again, to hold her, but this time I know it’s because I need it, not her. So again, I restrain myself.

“Why didn’t we do this three years ago?”

It’s a good question, but I leave it unanswered.

I walk to the center of the room, Cobb and Wintry’s table to my right, Cadaver still lost in the shadows by the door to my left.

“You okay, Cadaver?”

“Just countin’ what’s left,” the electronic voice from the dark replies, followed by that familiar clink of pennies.

“Let’s get this done,” Kyle says behind me, and I’m glad to hear it. It means two things to me: First, he’s still in control. The shock of shooting two men in the space of twenty minutes hasn’t yet reduced him to the wreck it makes of others, and eventually will make of him when he least expects it, and second, it represents action, movement, right when my bones are threatening to turn to jelly and leave me a quivering, sobbing mess on the floor.

We move.

I’m stronger than Kyle, so I slip my hands beneath the girl’s arms; he takes her feet.

“Hurry, for God’s sake,” Brody moans. “Don’t let her die.”

We carefully time the move, and with Flo ahead of us, we’re out the door and loading Carla into the back seat of my truck before the second hand of the clock has made a full sweep.

We leave a trail of pinkish blood behind us.

***

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