I closed the car door and stood for a moment in the alley.
The sky was clear and the sun was low and well toward the west and glowed red against the upper edges of the alley walls. In the couple hours I’d been inside the theater the expected weather front had begun to move across the desert and toward Rockmuse. The trifling spray of flakes didn’t come from the cloudless sky but instead blew off the high stone lips of the mesa two thousand feet above and then filtered downward into town through the crisp air. I didn’t need to see the top of the mesa to know that one hell of a snowstorm was already raging on the plateau and in an hour or maybe less it would descend to the desert floor with an icy vengeance.
Somewhere in the back of my head I’d been thinking that Conway’s injuries were the result of birth defects or disease or an accident of some kind. Without knowing exactly why, I didn’t think that anymore. There was an almost diabolic pattern to them that suggested they were the consequence of a grim purpose. I now knew with an unexplainable certainty that whatever misfortune had befallen Rupert Conway, MD, it hadn’t been any goddamned accident. It was difficult to imagine what manner of black-hearted demon would do such terrible deeds to another human being that would result in the kind of physical damage and suffering for which he was a walking billboard, the product of a blind God or an indifferent one.
I didn’t say it, but I thought it: You poor son of a bitch. And I thanked him again for what hadn’t been just a favor but an act of death-defying courage.
The big V-8 caught on the first try and the exhaust pipe crackled with power. I goosed the accelerator a few times just to hear the roar and then let the RPMs drop into a civilized growl before idling down the alley and out into the empty street. As I turned the corner Conway’s head slumped against my shoulder and I just left it there as I drove to the front of the theater. The Willys was still at the curb but the crowd was gone and no one was on the street. I touched the horn to alert Lenny, who I hoped was still around. I needed a ride back to my truck. The blast startled me and bounced off the storefronts from one end of Main Street to the other.
Lenny poked his head out of the theater entrance. I pointed at Conway next to me. He gave me a thumbs-up. I drove the two miles back to the doctor’s place as slowly as I could, savoring the ride despite the circumstances.
Out of respect I parked the DeSoto where I had seen it earlier. The tarp was folded and tucked under the hitch of the trailer. The inside of the car was warm and the cold wind ate at the hairline spaces between the side windows and the canvas top. The high squealing sound of the wind unnerved me a little. The engine popped as it cooled.
Conway’s eyes were closed and I gently righted him on the seat. “You’re home,” I said.
His breathing was regular if not easy and it seemed a shame to wake him and carry him into the little aluminum cave where he lived, not that I could imagine what he had in there was much of a life.
I got out and stretched and stared back down the gravel road to see if there was any sign of Lenny. There wasn’t. It was darkening fast and a few distant lights in town flickered, dimmed, and disappeared beneath the approaching clouds to the north. Tilting my head back I stared up at the mesa cliffs and watched the snow and fog tumble over its face like a creeping waterfall of rose-colored light bringing with it a freezing downdraft that swirled at my feet and crawled up my pant legs like phantom snakes.
If I didn’t get going to Price I might not make it to the junction with US 191 by nightfall—and I still had to pick up Annabelle and the girl. There was a damn good chance I might not make it at all and the very real prospect of being stalled for a day or two somewhere on 117 with two kids in my cab drained what was left of my energy and left me bone tired and not a little concerned about what I should do. A whole day was gone and I had nothing to show for it that might be counted as paying work.
Conway awakened and began to scoot across the long bench seat toward the passenger door. When I opened it he tumbled out into my arms. He pushed me away and demanded to walk on his own. He took a few steps in the direction of the trailer and his knees buckled again. He sat down hard on the cold ground.
“How about now?” I asked.
He shook his head and began to pull himself up by my belt. I let him climb until he was standing. “Don’t fuckin’ carry me.”
With my arm under his we made our way to the trailer door. Once inside he immediately dropped into a surprisingly nice leather recliner. The trailer might have looked like a shithole from the outside but the interior was clean and sparsely furnished to make it seem almost spacious. It was pleasantly cozy and warm—and dark. I switched on a floor lamp near the recliner and it illuminated a pile of books that supported an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s and several pill bottles. No sign of the shotgun, which I found idly reassuring. On the wall behind the recliner were a couple framed photos, one of an old man leaning against the same car, or one like it, parked outside; the other was of a tall young man in a cap and gown.
There was a resemblance between the two men. “Your father?”
“My father,” he confirmed. “The whole time I was growing up he was restoring that DeSoto in our garage.”
“Brother? Son?”
Conway removed his shades and the brown eye and the white eye both stared up at me. “Those saline bags won’t last the preacher too long. If we can’t keep him hydrated his guts and brain will cook. Nothing else will matter. See if you can locate some more.”
“I’m going to try to get back to Price tonight,” I said. “I’ll pick some up and do my damnedest to get back tomorrow. I know you said you didn’t want to be bothered again. If that’s still the way you feel then I respect that and won’t let you know if John’s condition changes. But—”
“Did you give some thought to what I said about how the preacher might feel about going to a hospital?”
I hadn’t, but I didn’t need to think about it too much. “I can’t let him die.”
Conway nodded.
“If you make it back tomorrow—and he’s still alive—come out and get me. We’ll see what kind of shape I’m in.”
I turned to leave. “I appreciate everything.”
“Me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I appreciate you. What you did was a bigger favor than I realized.”
He sighed. “The young man in the photo you thought was my brother or son…”
“Which is it?”
“I just told you.” He let his answer sink in for a moment. “Now, leave me alone.” As I opened the door he added, “Replace that car cover. Please?”
“Planned on it,” I said, and left.
Lenny pulled up in his aunt and uncle’s old Ford pickup just as I secured the last bungee strap on the car cover. Even as tight as I could stretch the cover the rising wind was tearing at it and flapping the few loose wrinkles in the soft canvas. Before I got inside the pickup I looked back at the small trailer and the covered car huddled at the shadowed foot of the mesa. The trailer’s power came from a utility box mounted on a four-by-four fence post. There were several other junction boxes dotting the landscape around me and I realized the area had once been an RV or trailer court years ago, a remnant of temporary housing for workers at the coal mine. Something in me wanted to do something else. There was nothing I could do.