They got the stretcher laid out and then carefully placed Jimmy on it.
The two men carried Jimmy out of the cabin and to the chopper.
They made Jimmy as comfortable as possible in the back of the machine.
“Why don’t one of you go along with us?” the trooper shouted as the rotors started moving again.
Richie shrugged. “I’m filthy and I’ve got to get out of these clothes.” He was covered with sweat, dirt, and Jimmy’s blood. “You want to ride along, Amy?”
“Sure. That’s fine.”
The trooper helped Amy climb aboard. There was enough room in the back end for Amy to sit next to Jimmy on his stretcher.
The machine smelled of heat and oil.
She waved to Richie and Susan, who stood side by side waving back.
Maybe after all these years, her brother and Susan would finally be getting together.
She hoped so... for Richie’s sake. He needed a good strong woman like Susan if he was ever to grow up and take control of himself.
The machine started its ascension. For a rickety moment, she felt the chopper engine surge, as if it weren’t quite getting sufficient power. The moment scared her. She wasn’t crazy about flying. Then everything felt fine. The chopper rose above the forest and headed north, back toward town.
Jimmy’s hands were folded on his chest. He would look this way in his coffin.
But that was such a terrible thought.
Jimmy was going to be fine. After all they’d been through, there just wasn’t any way that Jimmy would die.
There just wasn’t any way.
She put her hands on his, closed her eyes, and said a silent prayer.
6
“It’s over,” Susan said.
“Yeah,” Richie said. “Yeah, it is.”
She smiled. “You’re a free man again. How does it feel?”
“I sure owe you one.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” Then, “Well, let’s say you owe a dinner. How’s that?”
“That’s great.”
“I wear my best dress and you wear your best suit and we go in to Iowa City.”
“The new Italian place?”
“I was thinking more of the old steak house.”
“The old steak house it is,” he said.
“And when will this great feast take place?”
He could see how happy she was, and he felt like shit. He was going to hurt her again.
“How about tomorrow night?”
“Fine by me.”
“Then maybe we go back to my place afterward?”
“You have something against my cabin?” He smiled.
“My place is more comfortable.”
“That it is, my lady. That it is.”
He checked his wristwatch. “I guess I’d better get going.”
“Richie.”
“Yeah?”
She looked at him without fear. With great determination. “I want it to happen for us this time.”
“Yeah, I know you do.”
“I want us to be married and have children and the whole nine yards.”
“The whole nine yards,” he said. “That sounds good.”
“Does it? Really? It never sounded good to you before.”
The tenderness of his kiss startled her. Richie was usually after only one thing: sex. But this embrace was very, very different.
“You’ve been damned good to me my whole life, kiddo.”
“I’ll be even better to you after we’re married.”
He held her for a long moment, feeling like a shit all over again.
“It’s going to happen for us this time, isn’t it, Richie?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“I couldn’t take it if you ran away again this time, Richie.”
“I know.”
“I wouldn’t have a life left.” She looked so sad. “I’m supposed to be this strong, independent woman. But I’m not where you’re concerned, Richie. I hate myself for it but I can’t help it. The only man I’ve ever been able to love is you.” She smiled with great melancholy. “So I guess you’ve got me even if you don’t want me.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess it kind of looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Then they set off through the woods to their respective residences.
7
The pilot set the helicopter down in the backyard of Doc Klever’s small brick clinic. Doc Klever and two nurses were waiting to help bring Jimmy inside. Jimmy was taken to the largest of the rooms, where Doc Klever performed a variety of outpatient operations for local people. Klever wanted to examine Jimmy’s wound. If it looked too much for him to handle here, the chopper would fly Jimmy on to Cedar Rapids.
A few minutes after Jimmy was put on a gurney and wheeled into the surgery, Sam came through the front door and sat next to Amy in the reception area.
“Now if Jimmy’s all right,” Amy said, “this’ll all turn out all right.” She shook her head. “Except for Senator Cummings, anyway. I can’t help but feel sorry for him.”
“Our little Darcy wasn’t exactly a saint,” Sam said, and told her some of the things Cummings and his sister had shared over at the police station.
Amy was especially surprised by the blackmail photos. “She was really into games.”
“She sure was,” Sam said. “Dangerous games.”
“Boy, you should’ve seen Richie’s face when we told him that Senator Cummings had confessed.”
“I’ll bet,” Sam said. He took her hand, held it gently. “Take this the right way, all right?”
“I think I know what you’re going to say. You just hope that Richie turns his life around.”
“Right.”
“God, after this experience—”
The surgery door opened. Doc Klever stuck his head out the door. “I’ll be able to take care of this right here.”
“Then it’s not life-threatening?” Amy said. She felt relieved.
“He’s lost a lot of blood but I can get the bullet out clean,” Doc Klever said. “So, no, I wouldn’t say it’s life-threatening.”
The surgery took a little under an hour and a half. Sam read a Luke Short paperback that Klever kept on the magazine table. This was for older men who were raised reading westerns. Amy looked through magazines.
A few times, Jimmy bellowed, sounding in great pain. Every time he did, Doc Klever said, “Ah, hell, Jimmy, if this is the worst thing that ever happens to you, you’ll have led a charmed life.” Doc Klever had never been a past master of bedside manner. He loved telling stories about World War II, when he’d operated on men with no anesthetic but whiskey.
Sam’s cell phone rang several times, mostly Chief Hadley telling him how the whole police station had gone crazy with reporters wanting to know the story about Senator Cummings’s confession.
This was just the first wave of reporters, Hadley told Sam, the local and state boys and girls. Pretty soon, because Cummings was, after all, a United States senator, the national people would be descending on the station.
It wasn’t every day that a United States senator got himself involved in the death of a fifteen-year-old girl. At least, that most folks knew about, anyway.
But, like Amy, Sam wanted to wait here and make sure that Jimmy was all right.
“Plus,” Sam told Amy after the third call, “I sure don’t want to deal with any more reporters than I have to.”
Last summer he’d worked on a very sad case where two elderly people, both ill and both penniless, had made a suicide pact. They’d died, just as they’d hoped, but Sam had never seen the press more vicious or exploitative. They covered the story for nearly a week but never addressed the real issue of two lonely old people unable to survive in the world. Sam wasn’t up for another round of shrieking headlines, though God knew, this story was every tabloid editor’s wet dream.