Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [118]
Turning toward Victor, I see him as he reaches the bottom of the steps. There’s a look on his face that, if I make it out of here, I will never forget. It’s a look of malevolence on a scale of which I wouldn’t have thought another human being capable. I pull the gun from my pocket as Victor raises the one in his hand, and I pull the trigger, knowing I want this man dead, knowing I’m firing with malice equal to his.
My shot misses, but Victor’s is true. The bullet enters my much-abused leg; it burrows through the soft tissue and shatters my kneecap. The impact staggers me back against the van, almost blinds me. Shock is a swift worker, so I don’t feel it when another bullet hits me in the chest. I can see a shadow of Victor coming toward me, and as I drop to my knees I level the gun and squeeze the trigger. The kickback sends the piece falling from my fingers, clattering on the stones.
I must black out then, because I open my eyes at some point and Victor has been dead for at least a few minutes, judging by the pool of blood beneath him. A fire burns somewhere deep in my body as I bleed out, as some vital organ succumbs to the second bullet. I cry out as I try to push away from the van. I catch a glimpse of Esperanza, her face pressed against the van door, blood congealing around the wound that killed her. She’s almost within reach, but I find that I can’t move my legs. Although it’s growing harder to draw breath, there’s enough left in me to release the strangled noise that has gathered in my chest.
A wave of grief strikes me, a hot and curdling feeling that wrenches my muscles and makes my stomach roil. I feel as if I’m going to throw up. The bones lie on the ground, somewhere on the stones, but I can’t look away from Espy. All at once I am hit with a range of emotions I cannot hope to decipher, except to understand that the prong of anger is sharpest. I embrace the emotion, let it wash over me, and it shoots to the surface with such force that I know it’s been with me for a long time—an old friend that I’ve known under an assumed name.
Esperanza’s face is ashen white, growing cold. I want to pull her to me but it’s an impotent desire, and for the first time in my adult life I begin to cry. For the immensity of loss. For the anger that is like a second flesh. For never holding on to anything so tightly that it would kill me to lose it.
I did not cry at Will’s funeral. I’ve carried that guilt around with me.
I’m crying not just for Espy but for Will, too. And, to be honest, I’m also crying for myself.
I spot a blur of purple not far away, half under the van between Espy and me, one of the bones poking out from a separation in the cloth. The bundle draws my attention—a magnet for emotions running wild. I field a sudden urge to destroy them, to vent my anger on the ancient, brittle relics. And I feel brave enough, or maybe despondent enough, to recognize that it would be as close to punching God in the nose as I can get. Maybe the reason I accepted this job—this task that could only result in either the proof that He is a figment of human rationalization, or that He truly exists—is because of the opportunity it offered for a moment of reckoning. Either He steps up to the plate, or I am justified in giving Him no thought whatsoever. Or maybe it was so that I could stoke an anger I never thought possible, from which I could rail against a capricious being that revels in the misfortunes of others—who would take first a father, then a brother, then a friend, and now a woman I once loved so much I had to leave her.
My strength is going as I reach for the bones. My fingers brush the fabric and then fall away. I strain again, my pointer finger almost hooking the cloth. When it slips off, a curse leaves my