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Choices I didn’t go right home. Or back to the station. I drove around a while, trying to figure it. Trying to come up with a reason why a woman like Lois would put up with that kinda treatment. Even if you got a secret to hide, would it be worse to have people find out about it, or to let that bastard paw you in public? But it wasn’t just about her. Just like all the rest of us, it had to do with somebody else. Except maybe Arbutus. And Roberta. And they both told “Bill” to take a running jump. Which is what I’d do if I could. I’d help him jump. Off a tall building, maybe. I’d waited because Lynn asked me to. I was letting her take care of it herself. Same with Arbutus. So Lois was asking me to wait now. Ok. Maybe I could wait for a little while longer. Not too long. That kiss kept me thinking a while, too. Not sure I wanted to go home to Lynn with the taste of it on my lips. Felt like she’d know, even though I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see myself, rubbed the smear of lipstick off. I figured I’d tell her about it…..but not yet. Not till I understood it, till I knew what to say about it. Might take longer than a few hours driving around Bisbee to get to that place. Like I said, I figured it out too late. Still thinking the next day. Lynn and Patty got up early, and left with the kids in Patty’s car. They told me where they were going, but after all this time, I can’t remember what they said. I took Lynn’s car out to Ron’s, out by the highway, to get the tires changed, instead of going to the station first thing. Spent the hour or so it took standing in the sun, leaning against the tractor tire half buried in the sand to the north of the building, eyes shut, letting the sweat run down my face and into my shirt collar. “Gonna be a hot one today,” Ron said. “You want those old tires? I could bring ‘em around later this afternoon. I changed out your old spare with one of ‘em, but the other three would still work for you in a pinch.” I opened my eyes. “Say, you alright? You better come in outta the sun and have a cold one.” “I’m ok.” “I got some ginger ale in the cooler. Or a Coke, if you want. I don’t drink it myself, I just keep it around to soak dirty carburetors in, but I do have one in the cooler.” Took him up on the ginger ale when I went in to pay the bill. Sat down inside the stucco building, thought I’d cool off before going to work, but I just kept sweating. Let Ron’s chatter bounce off me, the words like wads a’ paper a kid might throw at you, just to get your attention. Might be annoying if you let it be, but it didn’t mean nothing. My hair held the sweat; I ran my hand over the side of my head, and it came away wet. Getting too long. “You know anybody could use those tires?” “Sure,” Ron said. “There’s always people needing tires that can’t afford new ones. And ladies wanting ‘em for flower beds. Don’t know that I’d want tires in my yard myself; but my sister-in-law’s got seven of ‘em back of her house. ‘Course she likes the bigger ones better. Women are like that, I guess.” “If somebody needs those tires, you just give ‘em away. OK?” “Sure, Bud. Whatever you say.” New fella cutting hair at the barber shop. Fred. Young fella, shook my hand and said he was happy to meet me. Ansel, who always cut my hair, was busy with somebody else, so I sat down in Fred’s chair and shut my eyes again. “Ummm…you want a shave?” Fred asked. “A haircut.” “Well….. it looks like your length’s ok……what do you want me to do to it?” “I want it shorter.” Ansel left his customer and explained it to him, told him where to set the blade on the clippers. He was quick enough. Another chatterer, though. He asked me some questions, I can’t remember now what they were. Less important than Ron’s. I thought I was being polite, saying Yeah or No when the situation called for it, but then Ansel said, “Bud doesn’t talk much, Fred. Don’t worry about it.” So then the young fella shut up. I appreciated that. Still sweating when he was done, my shirt was wet. Thought I better go home and change before I went to the station. Stood in the shower and let the cool water run over me for a long time. And by the time I got out to the car, it was about lunchtime. I took my time at Roberta’s. Flirty little Pam was there, and blushed when I looked at her. She waited on me ok, but didn’t have much to say. Fine with me. I hadn’t heard from Arbutus except for the phone call a couple days before. Wondered where she was last night at Charles’ school program, I thought she promised him she’d be there, but otherwise……we were pretty much leaving each other alone. Don’t know if “Bill” meant to do it, but he was pulling us apart little bit by little bit, some way I didn’t understand. Once he’d left town, things would probably go back to normal…..but that morning, I didn’t have any reason to wonder where Arbutus was, or why I hadn’t heard from her. And I know it wasn’t my fault. There wasn’t any way I could have known what was going on out at her place while I was driving around Bisbee in the dark the night before. That didn’t make me feel any better. Old Mrs. Logan found her. She went out to Arbutus’s place once a week to get eggs. Same day, same time, every week. They’d have coffee and maybe some muffins and gossip before Mrs. Logan headed home with her eggs. Every week, rain or shine, except the week that Donny died. This week was different. Arbutus’s car was parked right where it was parked every week, but she didn’t answer the knock. So Mrs. Logan, God bless her, went looking. All through the house, she said later, and then the barn, and the machine shed, and then back of the house toward the ravine. She struggled back to the house as fast as she could with her cane, and dialed “O”; and Virginia’s sister, Velma, working the switchboard that day, did the rest. Rang us, and the chief of the volunteer fire department, and the hospital, too; and I was in my car roaring toward Arbutus’s place about the time the emergency siren started wailing. Pulled in the drive, in a cloud of dust, slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car. Couldn’t see ‘em. I heard a thin, “Back here! Back here!”, and followed the sound. About 100 yards down the slope from the house, Mrs. Logan was sitting on the ground next to her…… She looked small, laying there on the ground. What I noticed was her apron; it was twisted around her waist, it looked uncomfortable…..and her hair had come out of the braid and pins, and was in snarls around her neck. It was hard to take the last few steps up to her…….I was afraid…… “It took you long enough,” Mrs. Logan said. “Where’s the stretcher?” “It’s coming,” I said. Arbutus was sprawled on her stomach, one arm under her, and I touched the other, curled my fingers around it, meant to use it to turn her over……and she swore at me. It was weak, and not very loud, but I‘ve never heard anything better, unless it was my daughter’s first cry. I sat down, too, on her other side. Had to catch my breath. “That arm seems to be sore,” Mrs. Logan said. “I think maybe it’s broken, but I’m not sure. Not sure about her leg, either. There’s blood all over it. She says it’s alright, but you can’t be too careful about these things.” Mrs. Logan had evidently pulled her dress down so she’d be decent……I reached toward the hem, just to look at her leg--I wasn’t going to look at anything I shouldn’t, I sure didn’t have any indecent intentions--but Mrs. Logan whacked me with her cane just the same. “You keep your hands to yourself, young man. Last I heard, you were a policeman, not a doctor.” A tiny, breathy chuckle from Arbutus…..turned into a groan. “Oh God, Bud.” “Just lay still. Ed’s gonna be here soon with the ambulance.” “Don’t you let them……ham-handed morons…..drag me around….Opal said they like ta killed her……just getting her in the van…..when she broke her hip.” “Opal was unconscious when we found her, and she stayed that way all the way to the hospital. I think Ed’ll be careful.” “You watch ‘em……It hurts like hell laying still…….It hurts to breathe……I don’t know how I’m gonna stand it…….for them to pick me up.” I brushed her hair back from her face. Her eyes were shut. She had a jagged bloody cut from her ear down to her jawbone; and a lump on her brow. “What happened?” She didn’t answer right away. I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. Then she said, “I fell.” She didn’t just fall, not with injuries like this. I looked around, saw the drag mark coming out of the ravine and ending at Arbutus’s feet. I looked at the older woman. “Did you drag her up outta the gully?” That seemed pretty unlikely, Mrs. Logan had used a cane for years. “Nope. I found her right here. She drug herself.” The gully behind Arbutus’s house was a natural drainage ditch; made by years and decades of gully washers draining this way during the spring rains. It wasn’t real deep--only about fifteen feet or so--and it wasn’t steep at all, but there were rocks at the bottom, and it was hard to imagine a woman of some years with a broken arm or leg or ribs dragging herself up out of it. “Jesus Christ. How did you do that?” “What the hell else……I s’posed to do?” A good question. A better question was, how did she get down there in the first place? She’d lived on this place for years, knew every rock and every hole. Couldn’t see her just falling in the ravine, no reason. The ambulance siren wailed up the drive. It only took a couple of minutes for the boys to have the stretcher laid out beside Arbutus. Blonde and curly-haired Ed, the football coach at the school, said, “Now, Mrs. McAfee, you just lie still, and we’ll have you in the ambulance in a minute.” She swore at him, too. And said my name. “Don’t, oh don’t…..don’t let ‘em……Bud…..” She was scared. Didn’t know why, but she was. Scared and hurting and depending on me. “It’s ok, baby,” I said. “Don’t worry. It’s gonna be fine. We just gotta get you on the stretcher.” “I can…..do it,” she said, and raised herself a little with the arm that was under her. “You help me. Oh, God, it hurts, Bud……” “I got you.” Got on my knees, put my hand in the armpit of her good arm, supported her; other arm beneath her knees……the tears ran down her face, she gasped…..and nodded. I lifted. I think it hurt me almost as much as it hurt her. Ok, maybe not, but hearing the cry of pain she was trying to keep in tore me up. The boys slid the stretcher under her, Mrs. Logan pulled her dress out from underneath it, Ed did his best to steady her broken arm, and I leaned down, trying to put her on it as gently as I could. She cried out, and then sobbed. “God, I’m sorry, baby. This is the worst of it. It’ll get better now.” “It’s ok.” Her face was wet with tears. “I know you won’t hurt me any more than you can help. I can stand it.” One man on each end of the stretcher, they lifted her up. She reached for me, grabbed my hand. “Don’t let ‘em drop me, Bud. Hang on to me, don’t let me fall.” “Nobody’s gonna drop you.” I turned and looked at Ed, who had the feet end of the stretcher. “Right?” “Right. Mrs. McAfee, I’m gonna be just as careful as if you were my own mother.” That seemed to comfort her. She clung to my hand just the same. Just before they put her in the ambulance, she said, “Don’t leave me.” I looked at Ed, and he shrugged. “We can’t give her any painkillers until they look at her head, and unless she has a heart attack or something, there’s nothing we have to do except transport her.” “I think if she was gonna have a heart attack, she woulda already had it.” “Probably. Go ahead, ride back here with her if she wants you.” That surprised me. I wasn’t family, and the last time I wanted to ride in an ambulance, I didn’t get to. Ed’s a good guy. We didn’t talk much on the way to the hospital. After we got on the highway, I said, “You know, I’m gonna wanna know about this,” and she sighed, winced, and said, “I know.” And then when we were almost there, I thought maybe she was sleeping, and I brushed the hair off her face again, pulling it loose from the dried blood, pushing it behind her ear. She didn’t open her eyes, but squeezed my hand tighter, held it against her breastbone. “You’re good to me,” she murmured. “Better than anybody else.” The ambulance turned onto the street behind the hospital, where the emergency doors were. I leaned down and kissed her forehead. “We’re just about there. You’ll be ok now.” A whisper. I could hardly hear it. “I was scared.” “I know.” “I thought maybe I was gonna die.” “Yeah?” She opened her eyes, shimmering with new tears. “I don’t wanna die yet.” I had to smile. “Ok. You don’t have to.” A hesitation, just a second, then she tried to chuckle. Turned into a moan. She nodded. “Ok.” I watched ‘em take her into the emergency room, watched until the doors closed and Rowanda told me I might as well sit down, it was gonna be a while. Went out to the pay phone in the waiting room instead and called Betty. “I’m working on finding somebody to bring your car back,” she said, after I told her it looked like Arbutus was gonna be fine. “Nah, just find somebody to give me a ride out there.” “That’ll be easier, but…..don’t you want to stay at the hospital?” “The sooner I get out there to pick up my car, the sooner I can get back here.” “Right.” And in ten minutes or so, Jones pulled up in his truck. He didn’t ask me what I was looking for when I slid down into the gully, just stood at the top and waited for me. I could see from where the drag mark started just where Arbutus had landed. I figured a stone’s throw in any direction from the top of the ravine, marked it in my mind, and started searching. And I found it, thirty yards or so down the ravine to the south. Arbutus’s bat. So she just happened to fall down into a ravine she’s lived beside for years? After throwing her bat as far as she could into that ravine? Yeah, right.
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