Bud nodded.
“Bud, it's my great pleasure to tell you that the Department of Public Safety and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has decided to confer on you the highest duty award it is within our power to give, the Medal of Valor.”
Bud swallowed.
“We found six spent cases from your .357, Bud, and your empty speed loader Severely wounded and under fire from two sides by murderous killers, you were able to draw and engage the enemy and even reload. And maybe it was the fear you put in the Pye boys that made ’em release the Stepfords three hours later. Maybe you saved those lives, too. And if your damned partner hadn't done the baby-goo on you, you boys might have even brought the Pyes down.”
“Sir,” Bud said, 'Ted tried his damnedest.”
“I'm sure he did. Bud. But the fact is, you returned fire and he didn't. We found him on his belly with his hands over his head and his legs drawn up like a little baby. He just lay there and they came and shot him. He didn't fire a bullet! Bud, the truth is, we get paid to stand up to boys like that. That's what the people want. Now, Ted's going to get a posthumous award. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol Star of Bravery. His name goes on the big plaque at Department of Public Safety in Oklahoma City. And a funeral! Bud, we're going to have troopers from all over America coming in. Because our community hangs together in times like these.”
“He should get the best medal,” Bud said.
“Not that medals mean a damned thing.”
“Bud, it don't mean much now and I know how you feel.
I lost more than a few wingmen. But in years to come, that medal will mean more and more, especially to your boys. I know. I been there.”
“Yes sir,” said Bud.
“Now what about the Pyes? Did we pick them up yet?”
“Fact is, the damned Pye boys have dropped off the earth. Don't know where they are. We got OSBI and FBI and troopers and sheriffs and MPs all over the state digging for ’em. Even the goddamned media is cooperating, though it's a first. We'll get ’em.”
Bud nodded, but he didn't agree. Lamar might be savage and crazed, but he wasn't dumb. He had that inmate cunning, always had an angle to play.
“Now Bud, you just rest. Take your time in recovering, and I've already talked to Jen. You just let yourself mend.
You don't never have to go back in a cruiser again. If you want that lieutenancy that you turned down so many times, it's yours. You could get paid for the job you already do, which is running a troop, if Captain James is telling the truth. Bud, you'd get a captaincy eventually, and your own troop. Or, we could bring you up to headquarters to run the firearms training section. You'd like that, wouldn't you Bud? Be a fine cap on a fine career!”
Bud smiled meekly, knowing he didn't have to say a thing.
The next time he came awake, it was the pain that awakened him. The drugs had worn off. How he stung! He felt like a horde of bees had worked him over. Every little twist and jiggle and the bees got back to work. This wasn't going to be no piece of cake.
He was desperately thirsty. Jen poured him a glass of water, and he drank it greedily. He had the sense it was another day or so later, and that it was night.
“How's Holly?” he finally said.
“Oh, that girl's taking it fine. Sometimes it doesn't hit them for a bit. She'll have some rough days ahead. I was over there last night.
Donna James and Sally Mcginley and a few of the others had brought hot dishes. It was very nice.
She seemed all right, I suppose. She was very happy for all the support and everyone agreed it was best she hadn't had kids yet. She'll remarry, there'll be plenty of time for that.
They're going to give Ted a medal, one of the highest. The funeral will be something very special.”
“How was she… toward you?”
“Toward me? Why, Bud, whatever do you mean?”
“I got her husband killed, that's what I mean. I like to have shot that boy myself from the way I handled things.”
“You stop that. Bud. No one has said such a thing, or even thought it, I would know. You-all ran into pure black evil, that's all there is to it.”
But Bud didn't think so. What percentage of his awareness had he lost in his little snit about almost getting caught? It came back to him; that's what he'd been thinking about on the drive from the road to the farmhouse. Had he missed something? Car tracks, signs of disturbance, any of the little things, the signals a policeman has to be aware of, that might keep him alive? Had he gone out back, where they must have stashed Willard Jones's stolen car? No, not Bud. Goddamn Bud was just sawing away on some other bullshit, about getting himself caught with his pants down.
Open the door, and let in Mr. Lamar Pye, thank you very much. And Lamar did what Lamar would do, because that was Lamar: you only had to look at those glaring eyes or read the Jacket about the long list of felonies and killings to know what Lamar was about.
A black vapor seemed to blow through his mind.
“I want to go to the funeral,” he finally said.
“I have to do something for Ted.”
“Bud, they say—”
“I WANT TO GO!” he yelled in a violent husband's voice that meant he wanted no discussion.
“It's tomorrow,” Jen said.
“Go get a doctor, goddammit, Jen, do it!”
“Bud!”
“I have to go to that thing. It's the last and only chance I'll have to do right by him. That's all there is to it.”
It was sunny, a fabulous day in April, and the oaks looked full and majestic against the flat and dusty plains of the Lawton Veteran's Cemetery. The breeze rattled the leaves—so much shimmering green, all of it stirred by the persistent wind, that Oklahoma wind that seemed to wash over everything—amid the gray stones that stood over men who’d died because a bitch called duty had said so. Far off to the northwest stood Mount Scott, hardly a mountain but still the commanding elevation in the Wichitas: It was an ancient, dry old hill, bleak and stony.
Bud was so sunk into himself now he could hardly focus.
The beauty of the place and the death of the place; he responded to it in an especially bitter way. Maybe it was the drugs. They had to keep him stoked to the gills or the pain would begin to build. But Bud was the sort of man, as Jen would tell you, who, when he sets his mind on a thing, that thing comes to pass. So Bud sat in the wheelchair as Jen pushed him along. He wore his dress hat, his dress uniform, and Ray-Bans because his eyes were hollow and blood rimmed seven small bandages were visible on his face and neck; under his shirt a single huge wrapping protected his hundreds of wounds, and on his legs still more of the smaller patches. He could walk if he had to, a slow step at a time, but for now this was all right.
What he felt more than anything was fatigue. Not pain, not anger, not regret: a ton of liquid lethargy. The air weighed too heavily upon his body. He wanted to sleep but he couldn't sleep. He had no words for anybody. The glasses, sealing his eyes off, helped, but he had the enormous urge to just lie down and go to sleep. Nothing seemed worth two cents anywhere in the world.
But he knew he had to be here somehow.
Jen and Jeff pushed him across the flatness. Up ahead, they could see a little draw where the last ceremony was beginning. Troopers from all fifty states and police representatives from nearly as many cities around the country had arrived. When these things happened it was amazing how many cops wanted to be part of it, to come by and say, there, brother, it's all right. It could just as easily have been me.
You did your best.
“Bud, you all right?” Jen asked.
He'd snapped at her twice as they were getting him dressed. He knew he was behaving badly in front of his son.
