John Hart - Iron House

“You came…”

Her fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt. Her voice fell off, and Michael smeared tears from his face with the back of his hand.

When Abigail returned, she said, “I got you a room in the back.”

“We need a doctor.”

“Is it bad?”

Michael ground his teeth. “Pretty bad.”

She moved the car, opened the room and got them out when no one was around. They were a pitiful sight, all broken and cut and gunshot. Michael’s leg worked, but barely. No bones broken, no arteries hit.

Elena cried out when he put her on the bed.

Michael got her water, while Abigail brought things in from the car. She put a first-aid kit on the table. “From the trunk,” she said, then laid out Michael’s pistols and Jessup’s thirty-eight. She brought in the duffel bag, which held the Hemingway and the cash. She looked at Elena, at the sodden cloth tied around Michael’s leg. “I should hurry.”

Michael caught her at the door. His face was ashen, the pain a devil in his leg. “I need to thank you.” She stammered something, and for the first time since it went down, Michael really looked at her face. She was shell-shocked, her eyes bruised-looking and scared.

She shook her head, seemed for the first time to be doubt-filled and old. “Don’t-”

“I would have lost her without you.” He took her hand, felt bones that were light and small. “Do you understand what that means to me?”

“I mean it, Michael. Don’t.”

“Look at me, Abigail.”

“I don’t remember.”

That stopped him. “What do you mean?”

Her eyes darted to Elena, the guns, the door: everywhere but Michael’s face. “I remember being kicked and being hurt.” She touched her temple, which was wine-dark and swollen. “I remember the feel of sharp metal in my fingers.”

“The sickle-”

“I remember rage, and I remember driving.”

Michael took her head gently in his hands and tilted it so light touched on the place she’d been kicked. Jimmy had struck her in the right temple. The swelling was considerable, skin dark and stretched. “Painful?”

“Extremely.”

“Is your vision blurred?”

“No.”

“Nausea?”

“No.”

“Can you drive?”

“I feel okay to drive.”

He released her, but put one hand on the door. “You saved Elena’s life,” he said. “That means you saved mine. Things like that matter to me. I won’t forget it.”

“That’s funny.”

“What?”

She managed a decent smile. “It seems I already have.”

The mood lightened as much as it could, but Michael kept his hand on the door. “Listen, I know a thing or two about situations like this. Don’t let people see blood in the car. Don’t tell anyone what happened.”

“I won’t.”

“Not Jessup or the senator.”

“Okay.”

“Doctors are required by law to report gunshot wounds-”

“I’m not an idiot.”

He grimaced, desperate to lie down. “I’ll take care of Elena, and then I’ll take care of the bodies. Don’t go back there. Okay? It has to be done right. This can still come back on us.”

“I understand.”

He took his hand off the door, swayed a little and caught himself. “Abigail…”

She reached for the handle, looked up.

“You did good.”

Michael collapsed on the bed and felt the world gray out. When color returned, he dug Tylenol from the first-aid kit, got three down Elena’s throat and then swallowed three himself. His eyes moved to her ankle. It was mottled and swollen, still at a painful angle. “I need to look at your foot.”

She stared at the ceiling, lungs filling shallow and fast. “It hurts.”

“I don’t know how long the doctor will be…”

“Just do it.”

She was crying when she said it, head turned against the pillow. He lifted her leg, touched the foot gently; she screamed so loudly he had to smother the sound with his palm. Her face was hard and hot. She fought him. When she finally settled, he removed his hand.

“I’m sorry.” She was crying. “I’m sorry…”

“Shhh…”

“It hurts, it hurts…”

“Okay. I’m sorry.” He lowered her leg gently. Tending to the ankle would require massive painkillers, so he draped it with a towel and left it alone. Same thing with the broken toes, the finger. The rest of her injuries were superficial lacerations, and he handled them as if she were an injured child.

She took his hand once, held it to her chest and squeezed tightly. “I’ve never been so happy to see you as when you came through that barn door.” Her eyes were filling up again. “I thought I was going to die. I thought the baby…”

Her voice broke.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“But you came.” She squeezed harder.

“That’s not enough, I know.”

“It is for now,” she said.

And that was all the talking they did. There was too much, and it was too fresh. The doctor came two hours later, and both, by that time, had reached whole new levels of agony. Cloverdale put his medical bag on the bed, frowned. Michael said, “Do her first.”

He examined her foot, and then lifted the sopping bandage on Michael’s leg. “Your injury is more severe.”

“Ladies first.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

Cloverdale waited for the punch line, then shrugged and got to work with a swab and needle. When the leg was numbed and Elena barely there, Cloverdale lifted the towel and got to work. “I’ll set this as best I can, but it’ll be a temporary fix. There’s tendon damage. Nerve damage, probably. Bones that need to be pinned. She’ll need surgery soon. Wait too long and she’ll never walk right.”

“Can she go a few days?”

“No longer than that.”

“Just get her so she can travel.”

The doctor did Michael next. He sewed up damaged vessels, sutured muscle and skin. When he finished, everything looked fine under a bandage that had not yet stained. “You’re a very lucky man. An inch to the right and the bullet would have shattered the bone.” Cloverdale pulled an orange pill bottle from his bag. “The pain will get worse before it gets better. These are very strong. Don’t kill yourself with them.”

He held out the bottle and Michael caught his wrist. “No one can know about this.”

The doctor looked at Michael’s hand until the fingers let go. “Mrs. Vane has already stressed that point.”

“I fear she’s not stressed it enough.”

Cloverdale frowned and packed instruments into his bag. When he turned around, Michael was holding twenty thousand dollars in cash. “Not the senator. Not anybody.” Michael held out the money. “This is for you.”

Cloverdale looked at Abigail, who shrugged. He shrugged, too, and took the money.

“That’s the carrot.” Michael waited for the doctor to meet his eyes. “Don’t make me bring the stick.”

“Are you serious?”

Michael let some killer show. “Don’t ask me that question again.”

The doctor left with an angry step. Elena was out, her breath a light rattle. Michael wanted to join her, needed blackness and stillness and drugs in his veins. But he couldn’t do it yet.

“I need one more thing,” he said to Abigail.

“What?”

He told her.

“Are you sure?”

“Just do it, please.”

When Abigail came back, she had the key to another room. “Is this really necessary?” She gestured at Elena. “Look at her. Jesus, look at yourself.”

Michael swung his legs off the bed, hissed in pain. “Where’s the room?”

“Across the way.” She gestured through the window. The motel was U-shaped, the parking lot in the center. “Number twenty-seven.”