Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [73]
—Dude?
Is he a little closer? I shout.
—I need to think!
I push the window and it lifts up and out.
Sid calls.
—Brah, don’t do this, man, don’t fuck this up. You know, you so know how important this is to me. I’m all, I’m all . . . please, dude.
I let go of the window and springs draw it open. I lever myself up and over the window’s lip, roll out, and drop to the ground. The landing jars my squishy brain and blackness strobes at the edge of my vision, then recedes. I crawl the first few feet, the sand dragging at my clumsy limbs, then get into a low crouch, stumbling away from the bus, trying to keep it between me and them.
—DUUUUUDE!
I hear them behind me, climbing into the bus. I drop flat on the ground, worming around so I’m facing the VW. I hold the pistol out, line up the sights with the open rear window of the bus. Rolf’s dreadlocked head appears in the window. I have a shot. I drop the sights and pull the trigger. The bullet dimples the body of the bus and Rolf disappears.
—Dude! No good, man.
—You guys fuck off right now. It’s over.
—Dude. It is not over.
—Rolf, I got more than a few rounds left. You want to rush me? Wait me out till daylight when anyone can see us? It’s over. Take the bus and get going.
—We had a fucking deal.
—Not anymore.
Silence. Then the front doors shut and the bus’s engine starts. The running lights blip on, the bus moves forward a couple feet, stops, and the passenger door opens. Sid steps out.
I draw a bead on him.
—Get back in, Sid.
He walks to the back of the bus.
—I’m gonna shoot, Sid.
He stops, stands there, bathed in red from the taillights.
—This is wrong, Henry. We should all be, like, working together. We can do things together. It’s no good being alone, dude.
—Get back in the bus or I’m gonna shoot you.
—Dude, so ill.
He turns and shuffles back through the sand, head hung low. He’s climbing back into the bus.
—Sid!
—Dude?
—Try not to hurt any more people. It’s wrong.
—Whatever.
He gets in and slams his door. The bus heads for the highway. At the edge of the blacktop it pauses, the headlights come on, a blinker blinks, signaling a merge onto the empty road, and the Westphalia pulls away, the sound of the Allman Brothers spilling from the open back window. “Whipping Post” trailing into the distance.
I stand there, alone in the desert with two guns.
JUST TWENTY miles to Vegas, and I may not be able to make it.
Walking through loose sand in the dark with a gunshot wound in your left leg, a swelling right ankle, and a concussion, is an ordeal. Thirty minutes into the hike I’m exhausted and I’ve smoked my last two cigarettes. I stumble into an embankment, falling into loose rock, and jarring my head. Again. I wait a moment for my vision to clear.
I remember Russ, remember dragging him around, his head getting knocked over and over after I had already smacked it with a baseball bat. The way his speech started to slur, the way he silently died. I need to stop falling down.
I crawl up the short embankment, and grab onto a steel rail. I’ve tripped over the tracks of the Union Pacific.
I pick my way over the tracks and down the opposite embankment and find a two-lane local road. I look in both directions. The road is long and straight and has a culvert running parallel to it. I walk along the edge of the road, making better time, the aches in my foot and leg easing a bit. I pass a road sign. I’m on the County 6 East, six miles from Sloan. Great. Sloan. Not that I know what I’ll do when I get there.
I’m getting cold. I stuff my hands into the front pocket of the pullover along with the two cold hunks of steel. Then I hear a sound building behind me and look over my shoulder. No headlights, but it sounds like a diesel is back there. I edge down into the culvert and lie on my stomach. I can feel a vibration going through the ground. Oh. I flip over and see the headlight of the locomotive