“You have the guns. You’re in charge of all this.” Buck waved an arm toward the living room. “But here,” he nodded toward Dennie, “I’m in charge. You do what I say, when I say it, or he dies. That clear?”
Dalton smiled. “And if you let my brother die, I’ll kill you in flash. Is that clear?”
“Crystal. You just do what I tell you and we’ll muddle through.”
Dalton hesitated a beat and then nodded.
Buck placed an oral airway into Dennie’s mouth, sliding it over his tongue to keep it out of the way. Dennie gagged, weakly, the drugs having taken effect. He strapped the face mask around Dennie’s head, seating the mask over his mouth and nose. He attached the Ambu bag to the mask. He showed Dalton how to slowly and rhythmically squeeze it, indicating that the rise and fall of Dennie’s chest meant all was working. Dennie sputtered a pair of feeble coughs.
“What’s wrong?” Dalton asked.
“Nothing. He’s reacting normally to having air forced into his lungs. You ready?”
“I guess.”
Buck injected another ten milligrams of morphine and three of Versed through the IV. Dennie went completely limp. He knew this wasn’t truly general anesthesia, only that Dennie was in a deep coma, and might still react and try to withdraw, even fight him. He could only hope it would be enough.
Buck stripped off his now-contaminated gloves and tugged on a fresh pair.
The big test would be the initial incision. If Dennie reacted to the pain, Buck would have to use more anesthesia, and with Dennie’s blood pressure already low, that could cause him to crash. Buck took a breath and drew the scalpel blade through the skin just left of the midline. No reaction. So far so good. He quickly extended and deepened the incision until he was in the abdomen. He tugged Dennie’s flaccid abdominal wall open.
“Here,” Buck said to Jessie. “Slide your fingers in here and pull his belly wall toward you.”
“Put my hands inside him?” Jessie said.
“I need space to work,” Buck said. “And I can’t do both.”
Jessie hesitated but did as he was told.
“Wider,” Buck said. “You aren’t going to hurt him.”
Jessie did. Dennie’s abdomen opened before them.
“Jesus,” Jessie said. Sweat dotted his forehead.
“Take a couple of breaths,” Buck said. “It’ll be okay.”
Inside, Buck found wads of clotted blood and scooped them away, lifting the dark mahogany clots out and dropping them in the wastebasket near his feet. Jessie paled. Sweat now covered his face.
“Hang in there,” Buck said.
“I ain’t never seen anything like this,” Jessie said. “It’s gross and then some.”
“You’re doing fine.”
And Jessie was. He did everything Buck asked of him, which fortunately wasn’t much more than holding Dennie’s belly open with one hand and with the other handing him scissors, hemostats, sutures, and gauze whenever Buck asked. Buck found that Dennie’s bowel was intact. Very good news. If the bowel had been breached and its contents released into the abdomen, Dennie’s chance of avoiding a serious and potentially lethal infection would be nil. As it was, the only real damage was the completely trashed left kidney.
“Okay,” Buck said. “This isn’t as bad as it could be. But this kidney is history.”
“What does that mean?” Dalton asked.
“It means it’s coming out.”
“What? You’re going to take out his kidney?”
“He’s got another one.” He looked at Dalton. “Don’t try to tell me what to do. Clear?”
Dalton’s eyes narrowed, his jaw flexed, but he gave a nod.
Buck cross-clamped the renal artery and vein, freed and removed the kidney, and then tied off the vessels. He found the bullet embedded in the back of the abdominal wall in the cavity where the kidney had been. He extracted it with a hemostat and held it up.
“Here’s the culprit.”
After Buck made sure the bleeding was under control, he closed everything up.
As Buck stripped off his gloves, he said, “The hard part’s done. Now he’ll need a little luck.” He looked at Jessie. “Good job.”
“I ain’t so hungry now,” Jessie said.
“I’m starving,” Buck said. “I’ll hang another liter of IV fluids and run that in while we eat something.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Dalton said. “Keep squeezing this bag?”
Dalton had done a good job, too. He had kept a steady rhythm to the Ambu bag the entire time, breathing for the unconscious Dennie. Buck considered leaving him there, ventilating Dennie, just to piss him off. But, did he really want Dalton pissed? Besides, Dalton would probably pass that task on to him.
“I’ll give a little Narcan,” Buck said. “It’ll counteract the morphine and he should wake up enough to breathe on his own.”
“Good. My hands are cramping.”
“Least you didn’t have to get no blood on you,” Jessie said. “Or stick your hands inside Dennie.”
CHAPTER 15
PRESENT
A steady drizzle had accompanied Cain and Harper as they traveled east on I-40. By the time they veered north off the interstate onto the two-lane blacktop that would carry them to Tanner’s Crossroads, it became a steady rain. Cain slowed, following the wet curves that ascended into the Appalachian foothills.
Throughout the two-plus hour trip, Harper had worked her iPad, researching the town, and the surrounding area. She related to Cain what she had uncovered.
Tanner’s Crossroads, ninety miles from anything one might reasonably call a city, got its name from Tanner’s General Store, which was now down to the fourth generation of Tanner ownership. For eighty years it had staked out one corner of the intersection of two county highways; 43 running north and south, 57 east and west. The Crossroads, as locals called it. That more or less marked the western edge of town. Beyond lay deep forested hills and patches of farmland.
Two major streams tumbled out of the hills and joined a half mile west of The Crossroads. The townsfolk apparently referring to it as The Confluence. The river they formed continued tumbling toward Chattanooga.
Population
