Robert Wilson - The Harvest

Christ almighty! The last thing he needed was another casualty—and where was all this light coming from?

“Very well,” Tyler was saying. “Tell Mrs. Cushman to take everyone inside that Glendale and close the door.”

Abby said, “I can hear you quite well, Colonel Tyler. For how long?”

“Until further notice.”

“Go on, Abby,” Matt said. “Everything will be fine. I promise.”

She stalked off and herded three sullen figures into the RV: Ganish, Chuck Makepeace, Jacopetti, the last sullen remnant of Buchanan, Oregon. The door closed behind her, and Matt felt suddenly much more alone.

He was about to turn away from the window when his eye tracked a glimmer of moonlight (or whatever peculiar light this was) at the right rear corner of the Glendale. He might be mistaken… but it looked like the barrel of Tom Kindle’s rifle.

Had Tyler seen it?

Apparently Tyler had not. Tyler’s uniform was sodden with blood. He must be weak, Matt thought. He ought to be in shock, by all rights. There was something more than frightening about the Colonel’s calm facade; it was almost supernatural.

“I’ll need bandages,” he said.

“I don’t want you going out there where those people are.”

“I can’t work miracles, Colonel. These wounds need bandages. Your wound, for instance. I need—well, at least, clean cloth.”

“There should be such a thing in the house. I think there’s a linen closet in the upstairs hall.”

“You trust me that far?”

“Don’t be asinine. If you’re not back promptly, I’ll shoot the girl. Or if I see you out that window, I’ll shoot the girl. Get what you need. But hurry.” Tyler’s face was pale and glassy with sweat.

Matt was out of the room for five minutes. He came back with a stack of clean white linen, a box of Kotex from Rosa Connor’s bathroom cupboard, and a plan.

The plan was ugly, and the plan was dangerous, but it was the only way Matt could see into a future that contained both himself and a chance, at least, for Beth.

The room, which had been Vince Connor’s study, was bathed in bright blue light from the window. Matt was conscious of the light but couldn’t spare any thought for it. He had achieved a narrow, intense focus of attention. It reminded him of his days as an intern. There were times, at the end of a long shift, when he would be sleepless and vague and running on empty, and some emergency would arise. And either he would screw it up, maybe threatening somebody’s life, or he would force himself into this condition of unnatural clarity, this bright bubble of concentration.

He concentrated on Tyler and Beth, the angle of his approach to the problem, the geometry of life and death.

He went to Beth first; but Tyler said, again, “Not yet. I’m losing considerable blood. I don’t want to pass out.”

“She’s in worse shape than you are, Colonel.”

“I know that,” Tyler said irritably. “I want you to stop this bleeding from my shoulder. Then you can attend to the girl.”

Matt didn’t argue. Focus, he thought. Any distraction was too much distraction.

Tyler trained his pistol on Beth but allowed Matt close enough to examine his wound. There was enough light to see that the bullet had passed through fairly cleanly. “Joey shot you?”

Tyler nodded. “He found me with the girl.” He watched for Mart’s reaction. “Does that shock you?”

“Not especially.”

“She was—what’s a polite word for it? Loose.”

“Maybe you aren’t too tightly wrapped yourself, Colonel.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Matt took his pulse. It was rapid but not weak. “Are you nauseous? Dizzy?”

“Not particularly.”

“The wound isn’t as bad as it looks.”

“I can’t feel anything in the arm.”

“Damaged a nerve, maybe. Under the circumstances, I can’t do anything about that. You understand?” Tyler nodded.

Matt tore away the shirt and packed a sanitary napkin against the entrance wound and a second behind the shoulder where the bullet had come out. The Kotex was absorbent and wouldn’t stick to the wound. He improvised a broad bandage and wound it around Tyler’s shoulder. Tyler winced. The pain was beginning to break through his defenses.

When the dressing was secure, Matt opened his bag. He took a disposable syringe out of its wrapper and thumbed the plastic protector off the needle.

His attention kept wandering to Tyler’s pistol, aimed almost casually at Beth. How much pressure was necessary to squeeze that trigger? How much awareness to keep it aimed?

He put the hypodermic needle through the rubber seal of a small brown vial and drew up a measured amount of clear liquid.

Tyler was watching him. “What is that?”

“A systemic antibiotic. Bullets aren’t especially clean.”

“Is it necessary?”

“Depends. Do you want to risk gangrene? We’re a long way from a hospital, Colonel.”

Tyler regarded him silently for a time. Oddly, he seemed to be listening. To what voice, Matt wondered. What invisible third party?

“Can you inject it into the bad arm? Because I’m not putting down the pistol. I’m not that stupid.”

“How about the leg,” Matt said. “The thigh.”

“I’m not taking off my pants, either.”

“It’s a broad weave. The needle will pass through the cloth. It isn’t very sanitary, however.”

Tyler shrugged, distracted by his pain.

Matt flushed air from the syringe, flicked away bubbles, then pushed the needle into the meat of Tyler’s leg and forced the plunger down. “May I tend the girl’s wound now?”

“Very well,” Tyler said.

Sissy, Colonel Tyler pleaded. I’m too weak. You’re not, his mother’s ghost insisted. Stay awake! Stay awake! She hovered in the corner and she smelled like stale blood—or perhaps it was the room.

You’re not hurt bad! The doctor said so. You trust him?

He took an oath. They all take an oath. But I’m so tired, Tyler thought.

You have it all, Sissy said. You have all the guns. All the guns are in this room. Joey’s gone, the girl is gone, Tom Kindle is gone, Tim Belanger is gone. The old woman is no threat. You can kill the doctor whenever you like. And there are only four in that trailer, and they’re unarmed, and one of them is a woman, and one of them is an old man. Four would be easy to kill.

All this killing, Tyler thought. He was a little dazed by it.

You must, Sissy scolded him. Or people will know.

Tyler guessed he could do it. Shoot Wheeler. Walk out to the trailer. Walking would be the hard part. Open the door and shoot until everybody was dead.

It wasn’t complicated, but it would be difficult. And he was so very tired. He lifted the pistol, which had drooped away from its target, Beth, but the pistol was oddly heavy—and a new suspicion entered the Colonel’s mind.

The light was much brighter now.

Matt crouched over Beth. He was afraid of the wound, but he forced himself to look at it. He unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it away, exposing her small breasts, her pale skin freckled with blood.

The bullet had penetrated the chest wall and allowed air to flow into the chest cavity. Each time she exhaled, bloody bubbles formed on the wound. Her inhalations were labored, choked, and liquid.

He couldn’t find an exit wound. The bullet was still inside her, might have been deflected by a bone.

He took a carotid pulse. It was weak and irregular. She was clammy and didn’t respond when he raised her eyelid.

He took another sanitary pad from the box and used the plastic wrapping to cover Beth’s chest wound. It was urgent to seal this opening, and the plastic was reasonably clean, reasonably airtight when he fastened it with surgical tape. Then he lifted her into a semisitting position with her body inclined toward the injury, and her breathing seemed to ease a little.