Jonathan Nasaw - When She Was Bad

Slowing as she reached the first switchback, Lily listened for pursuing footsteps and heard none. Leaning back, brushing her hand against the ground for balance, she half-skidded down the slope, regained her feet, and broke into her steady, downhill trot again, until she reached the next switchback. Then it was ease up, lean back, skid down, stand up, jog on to the next switchback, and the next, achieving an easy, comfortable rhythm, stopping only when she rounded the fourth or fifth turn and spotted a bulky, shadowy figure, like a bear in a baseball cap, sitting up with its back to the cliff wall.

“Uncle Pen?” She stooped by his side.

He turned his head slowly. “Lily?”

“What happened? Are you all right?”

“Ticker. Turns out the…doctors were…right. Imagine my…surprise.”

“Where’s Dr. Irene?”

“Gone for help. On foot.” The corners of his mouth twitched; if it was a grin, it was a ghastly one. “She forgot…her keys.”

“Can you walk?”

“Where’s Maxwell?”

“Up-” Up there, Lily started to say. Then she heard footsteps above her, and falling pebbles. “Please get up, Uncle Pen-here, I’ll help.”

But before he could get his feet underneath him, she saw a small figure limping down the road toward them. “Where’s the gun?” she whispered frantically. “Do you still have your gun?”

He glanced around, dopey and confused by the pain; she followed his eyes and saw the wooden-handled pistol lying in the road only a few yards away, its blue-steel barrel glinting in the moonlight. She darted over to it, snatched it up, brought it back to Pender. “The safety,” he said. “Right there…on red…dead red. Two hands for…beginners. Aim for his chest. When he gets closer. Then squeeze…the trigger and…hold on.”

The gun felt surprisingly comfortable in Lily’s hands, considering she’d never held one before. But Lilith had, she reminded herself. With this same hand.

Maxwell was twenty yards away, hunched under the weight of the canvas knapsack and dragging his right leg; the black object in his hand was probably his gun. Fifteen yards.

“Any…time,” whispered Pender.

Ten yards-and he saw them. But instead of raising his pistol, he stuffed it into his waistband, then staggered forward with both hands out in front of him like the return of the Prodigal Son. “Lily!” he said in a high, piping voice. “Lily, you’re okay! I was so scared he’d done something to you.”

“Lyssy?”

“Shoot him,” said Pender, slumping sideways, feeling the darkness stealing over him again. “For God’s sake, shoot him now!”

Lily tucked Pender’s gun into her waistband and ran to meet Lyssy; their hardware clanked together as they embraced. “I beat him,” piped the voice Lily thought she’d never hear again. “I was in cocon, and I stopped him from hurting you, and we had like a mind war, and-” In a tone of astonished wonder: “I won!” Then, as if he’d just noticed the slumping figure propped up against the side of the cliff: “Holy cow, isn’t that the guy I tied up last night? What happened to him?”

“I think he’s having a heart attack-we have to get him some help.”

“Are you kidding? What we have to do is get out of here before-What? You’re looking at me all funny.”

“I’m not going with you, Lyssy.”

“But I thought…you and me, I thought….”

Lily put her hand on his cheek. She felt as if she were the older and more experienced of the two, and was enjoying, on a barely conscious level, the drama and adolescent romanticism of the moment. “I’m glad we had…before,” she said. “But even if I thought we had a chance of getting away, how could I ever go to sleep at night, knowing that when I wake up, you might have turned into that…that monster?”

“But I can handle Max now.”

“That’s what you said before.”

“Okay, what about the woman Lilith killed in Oregon?”

“Me and Lilith, we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it-us and a shitload of expensive lawyers.”

“But this morning you said-”

“This morning was a million years ago.” Lily drew back from him. “I’m sorry, Lyssy, I don’t have time to stand here arguing with you. I’m going to go back up to the ridge and get the mule. I’d really appreciate it if you’d stick around to help me get him ”-she jerked her head in Pender’s direction-“loaded onto it, but if you want to book it on out of here, I’ll understand, no hard feelings.”

“I’m here for as long as you need me,” he replied, tears welling, lower lip quivering.

Pender opened his eyes, turned his head, saw Maxwell sitting next to him, leaning back against the cliff wall. “God damn !” said Pender. “I told her to…shoot you.”

“Shoot me? Lily loves me-why should she shoot me?” The other man turned his head toward Pender. “How’re you feeling?”

Pender ignored the question. “Where is she?”

“She went to get the mule.” Then, earnestly: “Don’t worry, it’s not a real mule. It’s more like a wagon with an engine-they just call it that.”

Pender felt the tyrannosaur tightening its jaws again. Maxwell’s face swam in and out of focus. Pender heard his pulse pounding jaggedly in his ears. When that stops, he thought, I’m dead. Then, over the ragged drumbeat, as Pender’s head slumped forward onto his chest, knocking his baseball cap onto his lap, he heard a faint, hopeful-sounding pocketapocketapocketa.

“Here she comes,” called Maxwell, picking up the cap, examining it as though he were trying to decide how it would look on him. Then he lifted the now-unconscious Pender’s head by the chin, put the cap back on him, and spun it around backward. “Whazzzzup?” he said, grinning, his eyebrows peaking devilishly.

Lily drove the mule past Pender, backed up until the tailgate was only a few feet from him, shifted into neutral, tugged the hand brake upright until it locked, then hopped down. “How is he?”

“Hanging in there. He’s in a lot of pain, though.”

“Thanks for sticking around. Here, help me get him into the back.” Lily squatted next to Pender and draped his left arm around her shoulders. Lyssy-or at any rate, the man she assumed was Lyssy-took Pender’s other arm. Lily counted, “One, two, three, lift !” and they hauled him up onto his feet, the one-legged man grunting as he rose with all his weight on his real leg, his artificial leg stretched out in front of him like a Cossack dancer.

Together they walked Pender over to the mule, Weekend at Bernie’s style, gently toppled him forward onto the platform, then lifted his legs up after him.

“Thanks,” said Lily.

“For what?”

“For staying-for helping.”

“Well, actually, I’ve been kind of thinking it over, and I decided you were right. I can’t take the chance on Max killing who knows how many more people, just to buy myself a few more days-’ specially if you’re not coming with me.”

“Are you going to turn yourself in?”

“Unh-hunh,” he said, climbing into the back of the mule and snapping the plastic webbing into place. “And I’m also going to tell them that I killed Patty, so you don’t have to worry about that anymore.” He crawled up to the front of the flatbed, facing rearward, and cushioned the semiconscious Pender’s big head on his lap.

“And I’ll tell everybody how you stayed behind to help me save Uncle Pen, instead of trying to get away,” Lily reassured him, as she climbed up to the driver’s seat.

Yeah, that’ll help, he thought as she released the hand brake. They’ll probably give me an extra Jell-O with my last meal.