“You sure he didn't shoot you with love potion instead of lead?”
He laughed. She could be so damned girlish. Her breasts showed: they were little things but beautiful; he loved their weight, their heft, their round perfection and pink tips and the way they jiggled ever so slightly when she laughed.
“It was steel he shot me with,” he said.
“Steel shot.
Another lucky break. The infection rate on steel is much lower than lead. But that ain't luck at all, compared to having you.”
“You didn't start bleeding.”
“No.”
The bandages held; no telltale red spots marked the opening of the tiny wounds.
“It must have felt like being hugged by a stamp collection,” he said.
“Oh, "Bud, you are so funny! First time I saw you, I thought, oh my, it's John Wayne himself, but then you got me to laughing and I saw how much better you were than John Wayne. Or anybody.”
Her absurdly high vision of him! How could he say no to a woman who thought so highly of him? He came the closest to being the man she thought he was and believed him to be when he was with her; and no other place in his life.
“I wish I could stay here forever,” he said suddenly.
“No, Bud,” she said.
“It ain't good enough. We deserve a house and maybe our own kids. Or to travel. A real life.
We were meant for it. We were supposed to meet, I believe that in my heart.”
“I believe you're right,” he said, exactly what he didn't want to say.
It amazed him: Somehow he always did the exact opposite of what he set out to do. He was turned inside out. But not by her. She was just Holly, as usual. He was turned inside out by It, the thing, the two of them.
“Well, sweetie, ought to be heading back. I'm late.”
“You go. Bud, just promise me. This Lamar thing?
You're not going to let it grow into some huge obsession.
Some mission, where you got to get your revenge? It ain't worth it.
It would just get you killed.”
“It ain't anything like that. I just want to be part of the team that brings him down, that's all. A part of his end, the way I was a part of his beginning.”
The doctor was angry because Bud was so late, and he seemed to wish he could find something seriously wrong with Bud and throw him back in a hospital room out of sheer meanness. But Bud's wounds resolutely refused to break and bleed; it was as if he had sealed himself up again.
“Yqur colonel called. He said he'd tried to reach you at home. I don't think he was happy.”
“Well, I didn't get in any trouble today, so he shouldn't be too angry.”
“What you did. Sergeant, was you got laid.”
Bud looked at him in surprise.
“Sir, I—”
“No, I know it, I can tell it. Physiological signs. I don't know what you've got going, Sergeant, but I wouldn't press it.”
“You ain't going to—”
“No, it's your business. Just don't try and go too far too fast. You could get hurt again. And this time permanently.
Now take your Percodan.”
And when he got home, there was only more trouble. It was Jeff's game night, and Bud had promised he'd go. He was late and Jen had gone on without him. He gobbled a sandwich and almost called Holly, since he was alone in the house and she was back now, too. But he thought the better of it and instead raced across town to the Lawton Cougars field, where the JV team was playing its home Thursday night game under the lights.
Bud found Jen sitting high in the bleachers.
“Hi,” he muttered.
“Where were you? The colonel called and then they called from the hospital and everything.”
“Ah, you know. Got to jawing with that farmer and next thing you knew I was all out of time.”
Her stony, isolated silence was rebuke enough; he knew from the sullen set of her body and the sealed-off look on her face that she was angry and hurt.
“Please don't get so mad. I was late. I'm here. Now how's Jeff? Is he in?”
“No, he's on the bench. He never starts. Bud, you should know that.
Not this year.”
Bud looked and saw his youngest son, appearing small and wan, sitting in the theatrically bright bath of lights, at the end of the bench.
Jeff was an outfielder, who could run down any ball and would even thrust himself brutally against a wall to make a catch if he had to; but his batting was something of a family tragedy. It had just all but disappeared.
He'd hit .432 his freshman year and been a star; and now, as a sophomore, had moved up to varsity. But then the slump had begun; it just sucked the life out of the boy, and the harder he tried, the worse he did. He was stuck on the JV team and couldn't even get into the lineup.
Bud checked the scoreboard: It was seven to two, the Altus Cardinals leading the hapless Cougars, top of the fourth. It seemed that Jeff didn't move; it was as if he were enchanted, in a bubble; the game flowed around him, players ran or swaggered by, yelling and hooting, but Jeff was frozen in some far-off place, as if in another world, lost in concentration.
“How do you feel?” she said.
“It's not bad,” he said.
“You know, at the end of the drug cycle the pain is bad and at the beginning it's okay. It just slides back and forth.”
“I'm sorry I snapped at you. Bud. I just got so scared when they told me you'd been hit. Finally after all these years. And I expect you to be moody. After what you been through, it's a marvel you can even face the world.”
A Cougar got on second and another walked. The few fans, mostly dads and moms, began a desultory clapping.
But the boy on second was thrown out trying to steal, and the next boy hit into a double play.
“Jeff could hit this guy,” Bud said bitterly, "I know he could.”
“You're so angry, Bud,” said Jen.
“I can't say I blame you, what you went through, seeing poor Ted, your own near miss. It's so horrible. But I can't stand to see you eaten up like this. Can't the department get someone for you to talk to?”
“Stop it,” he said brusquely.
“I don't need to talk to nobody. I just need to get back to work. The whole thing will feel better when we get this creep locked up. That's all.”
Now a Cougar dropped a fly, and then another one threw to the wrong base. In a second, the score had jumped to nine to two. But Bud was secretly pleased. It meant that Jeff's chances at hitting were better.
And, indeed, in the eighth, with two down and nobody on, Jeff was sent to the plate. Bud watched the younster unlimber from the bench, stretch and twist, try to shake off the cramps in his neck. Then he placed the batting helmet on his head and went to the batter's box.
Bud tracked him as he went, his face set in the taut mask of a warrior, his eyes squinting as if to crush every last mote of concentration onto his immediate problem. He entered the box, took three almost ritualized hip pivots, dragging the bat through the zone as if to arrange himself like a machine for the proper setting by which to engage the ball.
In the bright fake light, he looked so lean and strong, so poised, so perfect. Bud realized his heart must have been yammering and his knees shaking, but from the distance Jeff could have been a Cal Ripken or a George Brett, a natural hitter.
Oh please let him get a hit, he requested of the universe.
Some mercy for my son. Let him do well, or not so bad. Do not let him fail. I've failed enough for both of us; please show him mercy.