Don Winslow: While Drowning in the Desert

I guess I screamed when my shoulder popped out of its socket.

I guess it was me. It might have been Karen, it might have been Hope, it could even have been Sami.

As I tried to get up I saw Sami grab the gun and hold it on Karen. I tried to push up with my feet but the ground was rolling around and the air was pressing down on my shoulders. It didn’t help that I could see my shoulder muscle sitting like a lump in the vicinity of my elbow.

I aimed a punch at where I thought Heinz might be.

The next thing I saw was the flash of his boot in front of my face, and then the world went black.

When I started to come to, heinz was carrying me on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Which aptly described me: I was lumpy, bumpy, beat, whipped, mashed, and about as useful in a fight.

So I was looking at the world upside-down and backward as we headed up the dirt road up and behind the opposite knoll.

I didn’t much care, though. I was sick, dizzy and hurting in body and soul. I was a miserable failure who couldn’t protect myself, the people I was supposed to look out for, or the person I loved more than anyone in the world.

Why Heinz hadn’t done me the favor of just shooting me back by the shack, I didn’t know.

I was going to find out, because a few minutes later he stopped and dropped me to the ground.

It took all of what little I had left to swallow the scream.

“Ja, this will do,” I heard Heinz say.

He grabbed me under the arms and picked me up like a rag doll.

He stuck his face into my mine and said casually, “Sorry to do this, but I have only so many bullets, ja? And you made me waste two, so…”

A revolver. Six bullets; two fired, leaving four. Nathan, Hope, Sami and Karen.

“What…”

“Mine shaft,” he said. “Boring hole. Fifty feet deep, perhaps. So you won’t suffer long. And soon you have the company of your friends, ja?”

And he dropped me.

I slid down some dirt and then felt myself in open air. I fell and fell and waited for the smack at the bottom that should end this.

I didn’t exactly smack.

I splashed.

I plunged feet-first underwater, didn’t hit bottom, then struggled with my one good arm to the surface.

A circle of light tantalized about thirty feet up. The hole was about ten feet in circumference and God only knows how many scant desert rains it had taken to leave this much water.

I tried to grab the side and my hand slipped. I tried again. Same thing. I couldn’t even feel my left hand, never mind raise it or grab anything. All I could do was tread water, and that just barely.

So there it is, I thought. There’s no way out, no way to help the others, and nothing to do but tread water with one arm until I wear out. Nathan and Hope were beyond help, Karen would die, and I was drowning in the middle of the desert.

A while later, when I heard the distant, hollow thump of the shots, I decided that drowning wasn’t so bad.

My ribs hurt like hell and my heart ached worse. As I watched Heinz-57 carry Neal away I knew I was never going to see him again.

Neal, I mean.

And yes, I started to cry. This time my heart really was broken and I didn’t care that some little Arab midget was pointing a gun at me, and I didn’t even care if he pulled the trigger.

My life was over anyway.

So when little… Sami, I guess his name was, herded Nathan and Hope out of what was left of the shack and sat us down in the sun to bake until Heinz-57 came to shoot us, I didn’t much care.

That’s the downside to loving someone. When they go they take so much of your life with them.

Anyway, old Heinz-57 came striding back a while later like he was King Shit, you know.

“What did you do to Neal?” I asked.

“Disposed of him,” he said.

Then I really started crying. I didn’t care that the son of a bitch was enjoying it. My damn heart was broken.

Heinz kept moving, fiddled with the Land Rover, and managed to back it out of the shack. Then he said to Sami, “You carry the old man’s body, I carry this bitch. Then we come back. It will take both of us to carry the old lady.”

“I beg your pardon!” Hope said.

“Okay,” said Sami. “I-”

He stopped in his tracks. His mouth gaped as he looked over Heinz’s shoulder. I looked too.

A Jeep was barreling in on us. The driver braked, the Jeep fishtailed and threw up a cloud of dust. When it cleared I saw an older, silver-haired man in an immaculate gray pinstripe suit climb easily out of the passenger side. The driver, a barrel-chested man in his early thirties, got out his own side.

Sami dropped his gun in the dirt. I could see Heinz holding his behind his back.

The silver-haired man said, “Hello, Mr. Silver.”

Nathan said, “Good morning, Mr. C.”

Mr. C turned to Heinz and said, “It’s not polite to keep people sitting out in the sun like this. Particularly older people.”

“What business is this of yours?” Heinz asked.

“Where’s Neal Carey?”

I couldn’t see Heinz-57’s face, but I knew it had that arrogant smirk on it as he said, “The same place you’ll-”

He swung out the gun and went into a macho-man combat crouch.

I swear that Mr. C didn’t move, flinch, or even blink as his driver pulled his own gun and shot Heinz-57 four times in the chest before Heinz could even raise his pistol. Mr. C just turned his gaze to Sami and asked, “Where’s Neal Carey?”

Sami’s hand shook as he pointed toward the opposite hill.

I got up and ran.

I don’t know how long it was before I heard the footsteps.

At first they seemed far off and muffled and I didn’t yell because it didn’t matter anymore. I figured that it was Heinz and Sami and that they were about to drop the bodies down the shaft. I didn’t want to see that anyway so I closed my eyes and tried to drown.

Then I heard someone say, “I don’t know, ma’am. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

And Karen say, “Then I want to find his body!”

Karen? “His body”?

“Down here!” I yelled. “I’m down here!”

I could hear the footsteps shuffling around.

“Down here! I’m down here!”

“Neal?!”

“Down here! Down here!”

I saw Karen’s face peek out from the circle of blue sky.

“Hold on, babe!” she shouted. “They’re bringing a rope!”

“Are you okay?!”

“I think I have a cracked rib! Are you okay!?”

“Well, I’m alive!”

“Well I guess that beats the alternative!” she hollered. “I love you!”

“I love you, too!”

“Nathan?!” I asked.

“He’s okay!”

“Hope?!”

“Fine!” she yelled. “Everyone’s fine except for Heinz-57! I don’t think he’s going to make it!”

Actually, I didn’t care if Heinz made it or not.

“You hang in there, babe!” Karen yelled. “They’re coming!”

They came a few minutes later. I saw the rope come down and managed to grab the end with my right hand. Then I saw the barrel-chested guy from the Sands peer over the edge.

“Can you loop that around yourself and tie it off?” he asked.

I didn’t want to say that I probably couldn’t do that standing on dry ground with two good arms, so I yelled, “I can try!”

“Trying won’t cut it!” he yelled. He pulled the rope back up. “Hold on.”

A few minutes later he was in the water with me. He looped the rope around both of us and yelled, “Take her up!”

I could hear the Jeep moaning in the sand. A minute later we were in daylight.

At first the sun blinded me so I couldn’t see Karen. I could feel her, though, as she put her arms around me. When I was able to see her face, there were tears on her cheeks.