“You sure this is it?” Brett asked.
“Yeah,” Herman said. “The airstrip is on the other side of town. It’s used for smuggling. Lot of drugs are run from here. The town isn’t much, but it’s what’s out here and it’s reasonably close to the border.”
Herman drove over to the cantina and parked.
“What are you doin’?” Leonard asked.
“I know Bill and Red,” Herman said. “They’re more likely to be here than sitting out at the airplane. I got a feeling Irvin isn’t far different. They aren’t here, it’s a short trip to where the plane’s supposed to be.”
“Make it quick,” Leonard said.
Herman went inside. Leonard adjusted the belt on my leg. “Guess it wasn’t a major artery,” he said. “Stopped bleeding for the most part. I think we can take this off.”
“Yeah,” I said. “All the blood’s on the floor of the jeep.”
“How you feelin’?”
“Not good,” I said. “I had some moments there where I drifted off. Didn’t think I was coming back.”
“I knew you were comin’ back,” Leonard said. “You still gotta get all your shit out of my house.”
I turned my head and looked at Brett. The movement was incredibly draining. “Brett?”
She had her arm around Tillie, who had fallen asleep. Tillie had her thumb stuck in her mouth like a baby.
“I’m all right, hon,” Brett said. “I’m never gonna forget what you two done for me. Never.”
“Ain’t over yet,” Leonard said. “Hand me that shotgun, just in case there’s someone in there got a different plan than the one we made.”
Brett handed him the gun. Leonard reached in the coat draped over me, took out a box of shells, carefully loaded the shotgun.
“One thing is,” Leonard said, “we can’t sit around here. Them people gonna know where we’re goin’. Ain’t no other place to go south other than this. We put a dent in them ’cause we had surprise on our side and they were fucked up. But when they get straight, ain’t gonna be so easy. ’Specially Hap here havin’ holes in him.”
“Can’t believe these shits are hanging out in a saloon,” Brett said.
“Irvin and Bill didn’t think we’d be coming back, that’s why they wanted far away as they could get,” Leonard said. “Red, he didn’t give a shit. I don’t know he cares all that much about Herman, even. I think his mouth could say all kinds of things he doesn’t mean. I may kill all of ’em on general principles.”
“Been enough killing,” I said. “I don’t want no more of it.”
“You don’t always get to choose, Hap.”
Herman came out. He had Bill with him. Herman leaned on the jeep, said, “You won’t be flying out tonight. Irvin is so stoned he’s passed out on the floor next to a jukebox. He got in some kind of fight with a Mexican and got his block knocked off pretty good too.”
“Shit,” Leonard said.
“What about Red?” Brett asked.
“He’s pretty drunk himself,” Bill said.
“I was just hoping he was dead,” Brett said.
“Hap needs a doctor,” Leonard said. “Got any ideas?”
“I can ask around,” Bill said. “I think I can find enough Spanish in my memory to do that.”
“You do that,” Leonard said. “And that doesn’t mean drink more first. I want Hap with a doctor. I want him with one pronto. I don’t hear from you quick, you’re gonna need a doctor. Comprende, amigo?”
“I don’t like to be threatened, black man,” Bill said.
“It ain’t no threat, red man, it’s a promise.”
Herman got in behind the wheel, started up the Jeep. “We’ll be out at the plane,” he said.
I passed out somewhere between the little town and the plane, and when I awoke I was lying across the plane’s seats, stripped down to my underwear. A little Mexican man with a wart on his cheek about the size of a doorknob and a hairdo that looked to be about three-fourths Wesson oil was poking at me with a pair of long bloody tweezers. There was blood all over the tweezers. He was dropping pellets from my side into a coffee can. When he saw I was awake, he nodded, smiled, poked the tweezers into my side, pulled out another pellet.
He carefully rolled me on my back and started probing at my shoulder and thigh wound with his fingertips, which didn’t look all that clean.
“You have to do that?” I said.
“He doesn’t speak English,” Herman said.
I turned my head. Sitting nearby were Leonard, Brett, and Herman. Bill was standing up, smoking a cigarette. I didn’t see Tillie, Red, or Irvin.
The Mexican turned and spoke to Herman. Herman nodded, said to me, “He says you’re not too messed up. Lead went through your shoulder. There’s a piece in your thigh that’ll take more work than he’s willing to do. He’s stuffed some gauze in the wound, and he’s picked out all the buckshot you got in your side. None of it went in straight on. Just the pellets from the shotgun, and you caught the far edge of the spray. Still, you need blood.”
“Then let’s get him some blood,” Leonard said.
