John Casey - Compass Rose

She stopped five feet away from him. She said, “You shot me.” The man lifted his head. He put his hand on his shotgun. Probably just trying to get to his feet. She didn’t care. She put her ski tip on his wrist. She said, “Don’t touch your gun.” She moved her ski. “Just get up.”

“All right, all right. Jesus.”

Her hat was leaking melted snow down her face. She took it off.

He said, “You’re a girl.”

“It gets better,” she said. “I’m a Natural Resources officer. That’s game warden to you.” She opened her jacket to show the badge on her shirt.

“I didn’t mean to … I saw deer.”

“Deer season’s over. I’m taking you in.” Where was this B-movie dialogue coming from?

He said, “Are you hurt? Where’d you get hit? Maybe you should get to a hospital.”

She picked up his shotgun. Pump-action. She ejected two rounds. Double-aught buckshot. When she picked them out of the snow she felt woozy. She rubbed snow on her face. She said, “You got a car? Where’s it at?” He pointed back along the trail of his boot prints. She said, “Any more shells? Turn your pockets inside out.” He held out a handful of shells. “Drop them.” He hesitated. She said, “Now.” She put her hand on her holster.

“Jesus, lady. I’m peaceful. I’m going peaceful.”

She gave him his empty shotgun and pointed with her ski pole.

It was slow going. Even stepping in his boot prints, he was slogging. She was barely keeping up. When they reached his pickup she told him to put the gun in the bed. She put her skis in, and one pole. She used the other pole to limp to the passenger door. The door was locked. She felt dizzy again, leaned her forehead on the window.

The next thing she knew she was blinking at the sky. She lifted her head. She wondered why she had a ski pole in her hand. Oh, yeah .

The truck was gone. She lay flat again until she felt how cold she was.

Elsie limped to the hardtop in the tracks of the guy’s pickup. She was wet from the snow she’d lain in and melted. No cars for a long time. Then a pickup. Relief. Then fear that it was the guy coming back. She checked her holster. But maybe he’d gone for help. What color was his pickup? She couldn’t remember, she was useless, she hadn’t even asked for the guy’s ID. And the son of a bitch stole her skis.

It wasn’t the guy. This pickup had an ATV strapped down in the bed. It was the retired navy CPO and his two buddies, shoulder to shoulder in the cab. She asked if he would drive her to her car. He asked what happened. “I got shot in the hip.”

“Then we’ll go to the hospital. You guys ride in the bed. First we help her in.”

When they got to South County Hospital he draped her arm around his shoulder and walked her to the front desk. He said, “Gunshot wound. Where do I put her?” He waved away a wheelchair. “She can’t sit down; look where she’s hit, for God’s sake. And get her warm.”

The front-desk nurse looked cross. Elsie said, “Hey, he’s been great.”

He said, “I’ll phone Natural Resources. Your boss’ll be wondering. I’ll give him my number so you can let me know how it goes.”

“Thanks, chief.”

The nurse took her ski pole and helped her to an examination room. Elsie felt light-headed but this time with an odd lilt of cheerfulness. She said, “He’s retired navy, used to giving orders. Something to be said for those old guys with their big solid bellies. Shall I take my pants off?”

“Wait for the doctor. Just lay down on your front. It’ll just be a minute.”

“Wait,” Elsie said. “Could you call my sister? Ask her to pick up Rose. Don’t say I’ve been shot. Just a little accident. Rose gets frantic about now and Mary gets too busy. Wait. I know I’m babbling. Okay. My sister Sally. Sally Aldrich. I’ll write her number on your clipboard.” The nurse looked cross again. Elsie said, “I’m sorry. Okay. There is one other thing. Please ask Sally not to tell Jack.”

“Jack Aldrich?”

“Yes,” Elsie said. “He’s the one not to tell. Sally’s the one to tell.”

“I’ll call Mrs. Aldrich for you.”

“Thank you, thank you. Jack gets into everything.”

“We see something of Mr. Aldrich here,” the nurse said, sounding much more sympathetic. “He’s on our hospital board.”

The doctor came in with a different nurse, who helped Elsie get her wet clothes off. “Not the pants,” the doctor said. “I’ll cut the pants. Looks like there’s some shreds in the wounds.” He began to cut her pants away, saying to himself, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay.” He ran warm water onto her buttocks. It felt good for a second, then stung. She winced. “Saline solution,” he said. “Clean things up so I can see.” He gave her a shot. There was a series of wheelings here and there, perhaps another shot, or was he just poking? She heard the doctor talking to the nurse or to himself. She heard him say, “… subcutaneous adipose tissue,” and she heard herself say, “That’s fat. Are you saying I have a fat ass?” She laughed to show there were no hard feelings.

She heard a chime. She asked what it was. He said, “I’m dropping the pellets into a bowl. You’re doing great. Not long now.”

She asked or perhaps thought to ask where the navy chief was. She did ask, because the nurse shushed her. She waited for a long time and then asked if Sally had picked Rose up. “Yes,” the nurse said. “Everything’s fine.”

The doctor said, “Just one more. Can you lie real still for one more? I can numb you a bit more if you like.”

“It’s funny,” Elsie said. “It hurts, but the pain is sort of off to the side.” She pointed. “Maybe over there.”

“Good. Now put your hand back where it was, take a deep breath, and relax, and we’ll just …”

The pain came out of the corner and shot from her ass to her right foot, from her ass to her skull.

“Squeeze her hand,” the doctor said. “I’ve almost got it.”

Elsie said, “Oh, fuck!” The nurse said, “Ow!” The doctor said, “There!” He said, “Listen,” and Elsie heard the last pellet chime and then roll into the others. The nurse massaged her own hand.

“Sorry,” the doctor said. “That last one was in there pretty far. Sort of shrink-wrapped. How do you feel now?”

“I’d like some more of that first stuff, whatever it was that put me on cloud nine. But first I want to be sure Sally’s taking care of my daughter. And how soon can I go home?”

“We’ll keep you overnight. I want to keep an eye on you, just a precaution.” He said to the nurse, “Could you go see about a bed?”

When the nurse came back, she said, “Mr. Aldrich has arranged for a private room. He says to tell you he gave Mary Scanlon the night off and that she’s taken Rose home.”

The front-desk nurse came in. She said, “I’m sorry. I called your sister. When I said you were here at the hospital she gave a shriek and then Mr. Aldrich got on the phone.”

Elsie sighed and said, “Oh, God.” Then she said, “Just don’t tell him where I got shot or he’ll make dumb jokes for the next ten years.”

The doctor said, “When he calls again, you can say the hip. Lacerations and contusions to the hip. She’s resting comfortably, but we’re still in a sterile field here. Visitors in the morning. Assure him nothing grave, best of care and so forth. Oh — aware of and grateful for his interest.”

“Thank you,” Elsie said. “I think I’m ready for bed. What about another shot of cloud nine?”

“We’ll see. Your pulse is still too low. That’s why I didn’t put you under.”

“My resting pulse is forty-eight. Because I exercise. Okay … I was a little fuzzy, but I’m all the way back now. I’m not in shock, I’m in pain. My right butt feels like a hamburger in a hot frying pan. It feels like it’s been jumped on by someone wearing track spikes.”