Ghost Road Blues

they were nose to nose, only inches apart. “Now you listen to me, Boyd. I said that I wasn’t going to hurt you, and I’m not going to. I got no reason to lie to you. If I wanted you dead, I’d cap you now and say-la-vee, but as it happens, I need your sorry ass. I can’t carry all that stuff myself, and even if I could, you have better connections for getting us out of the country than I do. I need you, Boyd, and that means you stay alive. You don’t have to believe me. In fact, I don’t give a rat’s ass either way, but there it is. I ain’t doing this out of brotherly love, so don’t think I’ve gone all soft on you. Keeping you alive will help keep me alive and out of the slam. Simple as that. No sentiment, no after-school special heartwarming stories, you dig? I need you, and you need me. Case closed. Now, I’m going to lug you over to the fence, right by that scarecrow. That way I’ll be able to find you again. I’ll set your leg best I can and you can snort all the girl you want to take the edge off the pain, and then I’m going on alone for a little while…but I will be back.” He jerked Boyd’s head on the point of his finger. “Do you have all that? Are we clear?”

Boyd searched Ruger’s eyes for the lie, for the cruel joke, but he found nothing more than the unemotional determination of a predator looking out for its own hide. He believed him. “Okay…okay, man.”

Ruger smiled that slithery smile of his.

“That’s my man. That’s my main man!” He winked and then reached for the buckle of Boyd’s pack. “Let’s lighten the load a little first.” That done, he stood and moved around behind Boyd, crouched, and caught him under the armpits. Before he lifted, he leaned so close that his lips brushed Boyd’s ear as he spoke. “I’m going to lift you out of that hole. If you dare scream, man, I’ll rip your throat out. Do you think I’m joking?”

“N…no…” Boyd whispered.

“Good. It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker. Just take it, man. Just take it and screw that pain like you’d screw a little tight-snatch bitch. You hear me? Just screw the hell out of it.”

“Okay….”

“Okay. Here we go, buddy-boy.”

He hoisted Boyd up out of the hole.

Boyd didn’t scream. He almost did…Christ knows he wanted to, but instead he bit into his lip so hard that blood burst from it and ran hot and salty down his chin. The world took a sick and dizzying stagger and there was a dull roaring in Boyd’s ears as if he were standing too near to a raging waterfall. Nausea punched him in the pit of the stomach and slapped tears from his eyes. Ruger wasn’t gentle about it. He lifted the big, heavy Boyd as best he could, arms wrapped like iron bands around his thick chest, and dragged him to the fence. He squatted and lowered Boyd to the ground and more or less shoved him up against the rough wooden slats of the fence. He even tried to position him so that he had a modicum of comfort. The whole process, as Boyd saw it, took about a thousand years.

“Jesus Christ, man, how much do you friggin’ weigh?” Ruger said, sucking in great gulps of air. He walked around in a small circle, arching his back and stretching his arms over his head. Finally he walked away and returned lugging both backpacks. He crossed his ankles and lowered himself slowly to the ground, sitting Indian fashion in front of Boyd.

“G…gimme a cigarette,” Boyd wheezed, licking the blood from his lips. “Christ, I need a cigarette.”

Ruger slapped his pockets until he found his pack of Pall Malls, kissed one out of the pack, lighted it, and handed it to Boyd, who sucked it greedily. Boyd’s face was the color of sour milk and it glistened with greasy sweat.

“Ruger, my leg…”

“Yeah, yeah, your leg. Wait a minute. Here, toot some of this. Better than Novocain.” He held up one of the bulky Ziploc bags and a rolled-up ten-dollar bill. Boyd took the tube and bent toward the proffered coke; his inhalation was long and deep. “Ride ’em, cowboy!” said Ruger in real appreciation as Boyd took a second snort, and then a third.

“Oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man…” Boyd sighed, closing his eyes and leaning back against the fence.

Ruger beamed at him like a country doctor watching a kid swallow a spoonful of tonic and honey. “The breakfast of champions, m’man.”

“Oh man, that feels so much better.”

“Think so? Good, ’cause now I gotta set your leg.”

Boyd half shrugged. “With enough of this shit, you could cut the fucker right off.”

Grinning, Ruger fished in his pocket for a knife, found it, and flicked it open, a bone-handled Buck with a three-inch locking blade that was always sharp and well oiled. The keen edge sliced almost arrogantly through the tough black fabric of Boyd’s double-knits, gliding silently from cuff to midthigh. Ruger cut the pant-leg off and then tore the cloth into long strips, which he then set aside. Using his lighter he inspected the break. Both shinbones had broken a few inches below the knee, and they had broken in an ugly way. There were small mounds where the ends of the broken bones tented the skin, and the whole area was livid and swollen.

“Mm,” Ruger said. “Cute.”

“How’s it look?”

“Like shit.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I can set it, but I think you’re gonna need a doctor. You broke the hell out of it, Boyd. Man, when you break something, you break the ass off it.” He flicked off his lighter.

“I can’t feel it too bad. Just hurts a little.”

“Not for long. Go on, take another toot,” Ruger said, lightly grasping Boyd’s shin with both hands and placing his foot against Boyd’s chest.

“Gimme a sec…” Boyd said, diving nose-first into the bag of coke. Between toots he said, “Just let me know when you’re gonna do it, okay?”

Ruger did it right then. He shoved with his foot and threw all his weight back and away. The leg stretched in its tube of skin and muscle, the bones shifted, the ends scything through meat and muscle, and then he let it snap back into place.

“Now,” Ruger said, but Boyd had passed out. His eyes had rolled up in their sockets, his mouth dropped open in the beginnings of a scream, and then he fell over on his side. “You’re welcome,” Ruger said with a mean smile.

Ruger sat and finished his cigarette, then stubbed it out on the ground, watching with quiet amusement as Boyd slowly drifted back up out of the pool of painless sleep into the real world. He searched for that exact moment when the pain sensors in Boyd’s brain came online and connected his muzzy thoughts with all the jumbled stimuli from his leg. When Boyd’s eyes suddenly flared wide and he drew in a sharp, high hiss of agony, Ruger closed his eyes for a second, savoring that little moment. Rather tasty.

“Oh…Christ!” Boyd wailed, clawing at his leg with his good hand. His scrabbling fingers encountered strangeness in the form of wooden slats bound to the leg with strips of torn denim.

“Hi, Boyd,” Ruger said, “have a nice nap?”

“My leg…?”

“…Is set. More or less. Still have to get your ass to a doctor, but it’ll do for now, I guess. I splinted it, so you should be okay for a little while. I waited until you woke up before I took off to find Farmer John, or whoever owns all this friggin’ corn.”

“Man, you can’t just leave me—”

“Hey…hey! We’ve been through all that. I’m leaving you here, but I will be back. Just so you see that I’m not shitting you, I’m leaving all the stuff here. Cash, coke — the works. Now, you know I’m coming back for that, am I right?”

Boyd gave him a long, uncertain look, but finally he nodded.

Ruger popped a stick of Juicy-Fruit into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully for several seconds, his dark eyes ranging over Boyd’s face. “Okay then. End of discussion. You stay here and talk to Mr. Scarecrow, and I’ll go see what I can see. Maybe I’ll get a wheelbarrow or something. Wheel your ugly butt right the hell out of here. If we’re lucky I’ll find a nice nondescript set of wheels. Pickup or four-by-four…something we can use to go off-road to stay away from our buddies in blue.”

“Hurry, man.”

Ruger smiled disarmingly, white teeth gleaming. “Back before you even know it.” He stood up, stretched his