BIG BEAR
It hurt her to look at him. Real pain at the center of her chest. Her heartbeat sounded like save him save him save him save him.
He had refused a hospital. He’d told Charlotte to drive them someplace safe, a place to hide. She’d steered them into the mountains, to a place called Big Bear. Evergreens like wooden fortress walls stood on either side of the road. Cold mountain air made Polly shiver. They found a cheapo resort with cabins in the woods. They moved her dad in under cover of darkness, Charlotte and Polly on either side of him to keep him upright. Little noises forced themselves out of his mouth as he moved. She knew how little he wanted her to hear them, so she pretended that she didn’t.
Charlotte went out to find food. Polly washed her dad’s wounds. She was a good nurse. She’d done it before.
“It’s over,” she said, rubbing salve on a cut across his chest. “We can take you to a hospital.”
“Not yet. If I get caught now, I’ll be dead soon. That Boxer fellow seemed all right, but maybe not the type to pay a debt to a dead man. I have to stay hidden until Craig Hollington is dead.”
“Please,” Polly said. “Please. I don’t want you to die.”
“Just take care of me,” he said. “You’re the best at it.”
“And then can we go to Perdido?”
“And then Perdido.”
They lived off white-bread cheese sandwiches and gas station tamales. There was a computer at the lodge. Charlotte went there every day to check the news. Polly’s dad was front page for a while. There was a manhunt. Detective Park was declared a hero. Nate McClusky was a cop killer on the loose. Park did them a favor and didn’t mention Charlotte.
Polly cleaned her dad’s wounds and cut his food. She stuffed cotton in the hole where his eye used to be. He said it didn’t hurt. He was lying, but that was okay.
When it was just the two of them, her dad would talk and talk. Stories she’d never heard before, stories about their family. He told her about his brother Nick, and how he could ride a motorcycle on one wheel, and how he’d knocked out a man in the cage in eight seconds. She told him about fighting the dog, and he clapped his hands, and he took her face in his rough hands and said he was proud, and his one eye watered and then her eyes did too.
They told stories about Perdido. What they would do there. How Polly would turn brown in the sun. How her dad would become a great fisherman. How the bear would learn to surf.
Her dad grew scar tissue. But not all the wounds closed. He burned to the touch. Charlotte bought him two canes so he could walk to the bathroom on his own. Once Polly saw him there, sitting down to pee with his shirt lifted. She saw the stab wounds, how black they were, and she had to look away to stop from going crazy.
Charlotte sewed up the bear. Polly gave him to her dad, who needed him more than she did. The bear and he convalesced together. He learned to work the bear’s movements almost as good as Polly. He held the bear in his hands and made him move. He put the bear’s mouth to his bottle of water and had him drink. The bear’s paws flew to his crotch like I got to pee. Her dad stuck his finger between the bear’s legs so it stuck out the front and had the bear joyfully take a leak off the side of the bed. Polly’s cheeks went red and she laughed until the muscles of her stomach were weak and shaking. He laughed too, even though the laughing tore things open again.
She could feel the fever in him, his body still fighting. Hot purple streaks on the skin around the wound.
Polly woke one night. She saw Charlotte mopping her dad’s brow.
“It’s getting worse,” Charlotte said.
“I’m not going anyplace until the deal’s done.”
Charlotte made a sound, not with her mouth, just her throat. Polly watched her wipe her face.
A few days later Polly sat watching him sleep when Charlotte came through the door.
“He’s dead,” Charlotte said. “They got him.”
The news had just broken. A maximum security murder in Pelican Bay. Blades tied to broom handles had speared Crazy Craig dead in his cell. He bled out overnight. A massive lockdown, statewide, to prevent chaos.
Her dad smiled. He hadn’t been sleeping after all. He opened his one good eye and took Polly’s hand in his and said, “Just one more thing to do. I got to sit down with them.”
“Why?” Polly had a crazy thought that she could swallow him to keep him safe, that it was the only way to do it.
“To let them know I’m still out here. Still dangerous.”
“No,” Polly said. “You can’t. You’re hurt too bad.”
“It’s got to be done,” he said. “So I’m going to do it. After everything you did to save me, you got to let me do this little thing. This last thing.”
“Then Perdido,” she said.
“Then Perdido.”