Six Bad Things

My thumb clicks the safety. I’m waving the pistol up and down like a conductor’s baton, trying to track Sid as he flips up my eyeballs over and over.

– Chill.

I pull the trigger and a bullet whangs through the roof of the bus, followed immediately by three or four more. Danny, the incredible asshole, has set the trigger weight at an insanely high sensitivity, and the pistol jumps in my hand, the recoil of each round triggering the next. The blips in my vision roll around once more, and stop as Sid pushes back, tumbling out the door like Rolf did. Time to go.

I crane my head around and reach for the steering wheel to pull myself up, and am just in time to see Rolf’s arm stretched through the open driver’s door, his hand snatching the keys from the ignition.

– No!

I grab at the keys, snag the cuff of his yellow shirt, and press the barrel of the gun against his wrist.

– I’ll blow your fucking hand off, Rolf. Drop the fucking keys.

The bus rocks. Sid again. I turn, bringing the gun around. Rolf pulls free, Sid brings the flat of his shovel down on my right foot and ducks back out of sight before I can get off another shot. This is not working. My little plan of kicking Rolf out of the bus and driving off is not working. I stay low and edge back until I hit the bench seat. The throbbing in my head and left thigh has been joined by one in my right foot.

I peek left and right through the open front doors. No sign of either of them.

– Rolf!

– Dude?

He’s still outside the driver’s side.

– Toss the keys in and then I want you both to walk over in front of the bus where I can see you.

– Dude, no fucking way.

– Rolf, I am going to come out there and just shoot you guys. Now throw in the keys and get where I can see you.

– Dude, you know we have a gun, right?

Uh?

– Like, Sid had to shoot that deputy with something, right, dude?

My stomach drops.

– Bullshit. Why didn’t he just shoot me?

– Dude, because I don’t want to.

Sid, still on the passenger side.

– Bullshit.

BANG!

I duck.

– That wasn’t at you, dude. Just to, like, prove it, you know.

Bad plan, Hank, very bad plan.

– So, dude, toss your piece out and we’ll all chill and get back with the program.

I get on my hands and knees and crawl around the bench seat, into the back of the bus. I find the Anaconda where I stashed it under a loose flap of carpet, and stick it in the pocket of my pullover.

– Dude?

I edge up onto the bed where I hid earlier, staying flat so I can’t be seen through the windows. I grab the handle that opens the rear window, push the little button at its center, and twist.

– 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