Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

“No telling.”

“I heard about a blind man back home left a bar with his girlfriend. Somebody tried to rob him in the parking lot. He pulled a pistol and started firing. Shot the robber. Shot his girlfriend. Shot himself in the foot.”

Frank laughed. “Where’d this happen?”

Joe didn’t answer. He was from. Montana now. He had a private graveyard and he was building history. For the first time in six months, he didn’t feel alone.

The track left the fire road for gravel. The rattle of objects dulled to a steady murmur of metal and wood. Joe closed his eyes. He heard Frank’s voice moving through the dimness in the truck.

“Breathe in long and slow,” he said. “Take it deep in your body. Send the clean air to your leg. Now breathe out slowly. Take the bad air out. Bring the good air back. Long breaths slow.”

The truck was roiling on blacktop now, and Joe was getting cold. He wanted to sleep. The truck jolted to a stop and Owen opened the rear door. Light spread through the interior, washing shadows, glinting on metal. Briefly, Joe thought he was in Kentucky, camping with Boyd. He lifted his head and saw his leg glistening in the sun. It hurt. He lay back.

Owen brought a tall man who looked inside and shook his head.

“Not in the office,” he said. “The old lady’s in there. Go around to the barn and I’ll bring a bag. This is fucked, by the way.”

“I know it,” Frank said. “But it’s where we’re at right now.”

Owen and Frank helped Joe outside. He was very weak. His leg felt like a heavy weight. They walked him across a barn’s dirt floor and laid him on a makeshift examining table. The tall man entered, carrying a satchel. He snipped away the bandages on Joe’s leg, administered a local anesthetic, and cleaned the wound. He checked Joe’s temperature and listened to his chest.

“He’s lost plenty of blood,” he said. “But it looks worse than it is. He’s not in shock yet.”

“What about the bullet?” Frank said.

“I’ll have to probe but it’s close to the bone, I can tell you that right now,”

The tall man leaned to Joe’s face.

“I’m Rodney,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Joe Tiller. This is where I live,”

“Sure, Joe. I’m going to look inside the wound. It’s going to hurt, but not much. Mainly you’ll feel the instruments. If it hurts too bad, we’ll give you more anesthetic.”

Joe felt the instrument pushing his flesh, and bursts of pain that were dull and distant. He smelled hay and horse manure, a comforting scent. The rafters overhead were bare.

“Hell’s fire,” Rodney said, stepping away from Joe.

“What,” Owen said.

“The bullet’s right against the bone.”

“So.”

“I can’t get it out.”

“You have to.”

“I’ve done what I can,” Rodney said. “He’s stable. There’s no danger of infection for twelve hours. It needs to be X-rayed and removed at the hospital.”

“He doesn’t want to go.”

“He doesn’t, or you don’t want him to,”

“Both.”

Rodney switched his attention to Joe.

“Joe, this bullet’s hung up in there, and I’m not able to get it out.”

Joe remained silent.

“Do you hear what I’m saying,” Rodney said.

“Help me sit,” Joe said.

Rodney lifted him into a sitting position. Joe slipped his hand into his coat pocket. The small.32 was cold to his touch. He swiveled his body until he was able to dangle his bad leg off the table. It didn’t hurt so bad. He pulled the pistol from his pocket and everyone became still. He gestured to Rodney.

“Back away a little.”

Rodney moved to the wall. He was calm and slow, and Joe knew that he was probably very good with animals. He waved the gun at the knot of men.

“Son of a bitch,” Owen said. “At least now we know he ain’t no Fed.”

“What do you mean?” Johnny said.

“Look at that little gun,” Owen said. “Our sister carries a bigger one than that.”

“You can’t shoot us all before we get you,” Frank said.

“Hush now,” Joe said.

He was having trouble thinking clearly. Owen and Frank were the chief threats. He aimed the pistol at Johnny.

“Owen, you and Frank get out of here.”

“He’s bluffing,” Owen said.

“I don’t think so,” Frank said. “Me and him had quite the talk in back. He don’t much give a shit right now. I don’t blame you either, Joe. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you two out. Then Rodney. Then Johnny.”

Owen moved sideways to the doorway and stepped through it, Frank followed him.

“Stay where I can see you,” Joe said. “Now you, Rodney.”

Rodney slowly joined the men in the barn. Johnny’s forehead was wet with sweat. His camouflage pants quivered at the knees.

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Joe said. “Just back on out there with them.”

Johnny didn’t move. His eyes were wide and his face was very white. He moved his mouth but couldn’t talk.

“Help him, Rodney,” Joe said. “But do it easy.”

Rodney took Johnny’s arm in a gentle grasp and tugged him backwards.

“Everything’s got to go real slow,” Joe said.

Owen glanced at a pitchfork and Joe shook his head.

“No,” Joe said. “It’s not what you think. I can’t go to a hospital. None of us want the law involved. I’m sorry about scaring your brother.”

Joe gathered a deep breath. He lowered the pistol to his bad leg and pressed the barrel into the wound. It felt the same as when Rodney had probed. He held the gun at an angle that matched the entry channel. He caught a sweet scent on the breeze and wondered what grass the horses had been eating.

“Rodney,” Joe said. “I have to trust you to help me afterwards.”

He took another breath. He began a long slow exhalation, and at the end, just as he’d been taught by his father, he slowly squeezed the trigger. There was a terrible roar in the small space. He felt as if someone had struck his leg with a crowbar. He was briefly aware of falling from the table when his perception grew dark at the edges and closed in on itself.

He felt nothing. His mind and body were gone, leaving only the faintest sense of space and time. A light was a speck in the vast darkness. Joe willed himself toward it. The light became bright and turned into a rectangle, its edges shimmering. He strained to see it and as weakness took him, he understood that it was a window holding sunlight within its frame.

Later he became aware of a coolness on his face, of someone near him. His leg hurt. He was thirsty.

Joe’s eyes were open and he was staring at a plaster ceiling that had cracked into a network of fine lines. A bare bulb dangled from a ceramic fixture. It was not the ceiling of the cabin. He shifted his weight and an eruption of pain jolted his leg and he remembered with an exhausting suddenness the events on the side of the mountain.

Through the window and many miles away, the sky held crescents of cloud like spilt ashes. A cow scratched its throat on a fence post and Joe wondered if his leg was still attached to his body. When he leaned forward an unthinkable pain took his breath. Sweat spread a sheen across his face. He lay back panting, his body weak.

A woman blocked light as she entered the room.

“Lay still,” she said. “You got healing up to do yet.”

She tugged the blankets to his chin and blotted the perspiration from his forehead. Her touch was firm, the fingers tight with muscle. She held a glass of water to his lips.

“You’d best not move your leg at all.”

He was silent, watching her face. It was very smooth, with large eyes and thick black hair. She was close to his age. Fatigue settled over him.