“He’s going to be fine,” Walt answered. “Just fine.”
Kevin felt his uncle’s arms around him. He felt a sense of peace he had not known in a long time. And then the world went dark.
88
Using a first-aid kit, Walt cleaned Kevin’s wound and wrapped his arm-the through shot that was no longer bleeding too badly-before boarding Garman’s four-seater. Garman had transferred the cell repeater, which was about the size of a briefcase, to the plane’s small cargo hold, allowing Summer to occupy the front passenger’s seat while Walt sat with Kevin in the back. Walt held Kevin’s upper arm firmly, keeping the compress on the wound. Despite the pain, Kevin didn’t complain.
The FBI was reportedly on their way in a helicopter to Morgan Creek Ranch to “establish supervision.” A Life Flight chopper out of Boise was coming for Salvo. While Cantell was dead, Salvo was critically wounded and needed medical attention. But who had decided the evacuation of Kevin and Summer took precedence over Salvo.
Summer, now wearing a headset, listened to radio traffic and communicated with Garman. She checked over her shoulder every few minutes to assure herself that Kevin was still there. She seemed to be in surprisingly good spirits.
“What on earth possessed you to just… stand up like that?” Walt asked Kevin, raising his voice to be heard.
“I don’t know,” Kevin answered.
“You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“I guess.”
“John said the plan was for you to fire a couple shots, create a distraction.”
“Did he?”
“Was that your idea of a distraction?”
Kevin shrugged, then winced with pain. He wouldn’t be shrugging again anytime soon. “Plans change,” he said.
“You were lucky it was John. Not many like him.”
“Do you know him?” Kevin asked, thinking it sounded like he did.
“I know him professionally. He’s a good guy who got himself in a bad situation maybe eight or nine years ago. Two men dead. In Lemhi County, not my case. Way I heard it, it was self-defense. That’s the way the judge saw it too. Trial was in Hailey, to get a fair jury. John couldn’t seem to get it right after that, even though he was acquitted. He took to drinking, got himself in more trouble. Then there were these men in Challis and Salmon, relatives and drinking buddies of the two who were killed, and they’ll never see it the way the law sees it. It’ll never be safe up there for John. So he just dried up, went to work on Mitchum’s Ranch, and has been a hermit ever since.”
“Without him-” Kevin started, his throat constricting. He hung his head, not wanting Walt to see.
Walt tousled the boy’s hair with his free hand, an intimate, fatherly, forgiving gesture that Kevin couldn’t remember anyone doing for years.
“Listen, he said the same thing about you. Said how you saved his life back there at the river.”
That gave Kevin another reason to keep his head down. He didn’t want Summer to see him. After a minute, he dragged his left arm across his eyes.
“Don’t hold that stuff in,” Walt said. “You’ve got to just let it out. We’ll get you and Summer some help, some counseling. It’ll get better, you’ll see.”
“Grandpa was ticked he couldn’t come with us in the plane.”
“Grandpa,” Walt said, “has issues.”
Kevin laughed out loud. Summer somehow heard him through her headset and turned to make connection once more.
Walt wasn’t about to wander farther into those waters and held his tongue. He noticed that the wound had stopped bleeding. He eased his grip on Kevin’s arm.
But Kevin immediately reached up and covered his uncle’s hand with his own, reapplying his own pressure. Then the fingers of his bad arm twitched, and they sought out and joined the fingers of Walt’s free hand.
The two rode out the rest of the flight hand in hand. Nothing more was said. And just before Garman circled the Hailey field to land, Kevin’s head slid onto Walt’s shoulder and he fell into a deep sleep.
89
It was such a Jerry thing to do: organize a family dinner on the same night his grandson was rescued from the backcountry. He was obsessed with the public’s impression of his family. Walt believed Jerry’s neurosis could be traced back to Robert’s death. Jerry had to show everyone that the Flemings were okay, that they could rebound from adversity with the best of them. If Norman Rockwell had been alive, Jerry would have commissioned a family portrait.
Things were already getting back to normal.
Jerry’s bad timing was matched by his choice of bad location. He’d insisted on the Pioneer, all the way up in Ketchum, rather than any one of the good eateries in Hailey. But the Pioneer was Kevin’s favorite. And Kevin wasn’t about to fight it. Not now, anyway.
Kevin was stitched up at St. Luke’s and moved to a private room, where he slept six hours before being discharged to his mother’s care. Myra had been uncommonly quiet throughout the ordeal. It had taken Walt several hours to realize she’d been praying.
For his part, Walt spent most of Sunday on the telephone and in meetings. Dog tired, he finally called a joint press conference with the FBI, emphasizing the success resulting from cooperation between his office and their agency. In a strange, almost surreal, twist, the FBI fielded nearly all of the questions. In the end, according to the wording of the official statement, it was a “well-choreographed, jointly operated raid that had resulted in the safe recovery of assets.” By assets, he meant the two teenagers.
The dinner itself was painful. Forced but enthusiastic conversation through the salad course when Myra, fueled by white wine with ice, made a reference to Bobby that had silenced the table.
“I am so done with that,” Kevin said.
Walt didn’t know if it was his nephew or the painkillers talking.
“Excuse me?” Jerry said.
“My dad, the family’s inability to get past his death and remember his life. I don’t want to remember that day, I want to remember all the days that came before it. I mean, come on, people.”
Kevin caught his grandpa’s startled expression and turned his attention to a baked potato the size of a football. But then something happened that Walt definitely attributed to the painkillers: Kevin lifted his head and bravely entered into a staring contest with the senior Fleming.
“The thing is,” Kevin said, “I was the one that found him… suicide or no suicide-”
At this, Jerry rose several inches in his chair.
“Oh, yeah, I know all about that,” Kevin said. “But I don’t care how he died, I care how he lived. He was a good dad. Maybe not as smart as Uncle Walt or as brave as you, but that only made him different, not bad.”
Myra had buried her face in her napkin and her shoulders were shaking. Walt reached over and placed his hand on her back, and she sagged toward him.
“And I’m sick of no one ever talking about him. You all act like he never existed, and that’s just not going to work for me. He was there with me today.”
He stabbed at the potato, then set down the fork.
“I dropped that gun because of him, and I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But I’m not pretending anymore that he never existed.” Kevin looked around at each of them. “So all of you had better get used to it.”
Definitely, it was the painkillers, because his statement was followed by a devilish grin that he fought to conceal but couldn’t. And then, inexplicably, he began to laugh-a small laugh, at first, a chuckle. But it grew inside him and then spread like a virus around the table until everyone, including Jerry, was laughing. The uncontrolled group laugh drew the attention of the crowded restaurant. They were laughing about a dead man and everybody was watching them, noticing them. It was a laugh that made Jerry proud.