'weird.' '
'Weird?'
'You don't know about Joe? No, I guess you wouldn't. He crashed into a tree---an aspen, just off Route 5. That was about three years back. Martha was with him. His wife Martha. She got killed in the crash. Joe was in real bad shape himself, and Dr. Mills didn't give him much chance. But he pulled through. His face got so broken up that he doesn't look quite right, and he lost the use of an eye.
His left eye, not his aiming eye. He wears a patch over it, you know. And sometimes, when he gets feeling good, he lifts up the patch and gives us all a peek underneath.'
'You can just stop that,' the woman warned me.
'He lost a leg, too.'
'I don't want to hear about it.'
'Yes ma'am. I'm sorry. It's just that . . . I thought I should warn you. Everyone who crashes into a tree doesn't die.'
'I will.'
'You can't be sure. Maybe you'll just end up like Joe, hobbling around half blind on a wooden leg, with your face so scarred up that your best friends will hardly know you.'
'Shut up, Wes.'
She pointed the revolver toward my face, so I slowed down and said quietly, 'I just mean, you'd better think twice before you go off and try to get yourself killed. You just never know how---'
'Keep your mouth shut!'
I shut my mouth. I shrugged. I wiped some blood off my chin. And then I heard footsteps outside---the slow, unsteady noise of boots dragging slowly across the porch.
Elsie grinned at me. Her jaw worked faster on the chewing gum. Her squinting eyes twinkled behind her glasses as the footsteps got louder.
Through the window, I saw the man's mussy gray hair and his scarred face with the patch on his left eye. He saw me looking. He smiled and waved.
I glanced at Lester, who was holding a napkin to his arm.
The woman aimed the revolver at me one last time. 'Don't move,' she warned me.
The screen door swung open.
She spun on her stool.
'DUCK, JOE!' I shouted.
He didn't duck. He just stood there looking confused as the woman jumped off the stool, crouched, and fired. The first bullet missed him high and to the left and shattered the window. The second bullet knocked his leg out from under him. He flopped onto the floor. The woman took careful aim at his head.
I was in midair, leaping off the counter. I slammed against her back as she fired. The bullet tore a hole in the floor. Then the two of us hit the hard floor and rolled. She swung the revolver at my face, but this time I blocked the blow. I knocked the gun from her hand.
They say you're not supposed to punch women. But right then, I wasn't about to let that worry me.
My hand still stung from the punch. The woman lay on the floor, out cold.
Lester was on the phone, calling for an ambulance.
I was down on my knees, making sure that the frightened man was OK. I hadn't bothered tending to his leg---the woman's bullet had passed through it clean, taking out nothing but splinters. She had hit the wooden one.
I looked up when the screen door squeaked open.
The big man stared down at us. His mouth dropped open. 'What the . . . !' He rushed forward and fell to the floor beside us. 'Gimpy!' he said to the man on the floor. 'Are you all right, old pal? What happened?'
'Some crazy old woman shot me,' Gimpy said. He squinted his one eye and looked confused.
'Elsie Thompson,' I said and nodded toward where the woman lay.
Joe Lowry stared at her. 'Name rings a bell, but . . .'
'It should,' I said. 'You left her for Mom. She came in here to kill you, Dad.'
