“Goddamn it, Ag, give me a hand! He’s fucking heavy and I got this cut arm,” Sol says, trying to get his shoulder under Oliver’s armpit.
“I’m trying, Sol! Move out of the way!” Ag elbows his brother aside, looking to fit his lanky frame under Oliver’s other arm and lever him up.
“Quit it, you two,” Oliver mumbles, once they have him seated, back against a wall. “Just leave me alone.”
“We got to get out of here, Oliver,” Sol says.
“Law will be coming, what with the gunshots,” Ag adds.
Oliver looks at Ag, trying to focus. “What are you even doing here, boy?” he says, muzzily. “Thought you left.”
Ag shrugs, looking away, embarrassed. “Came back, I guess.”
“You don’t leave family,” Sol says.
Oliver shakes his head. He looks at Elizabeth, who stands there, wild-eyed. “You all right, miss?”
Elizabeth just shakes her own head, and then nods, still angry, although the emotion is bleeding and swirling off inside her into some other volatile mix. It doesn’t matter what she’s been through; it’s too much to think about; she’s afraid that if she opens her mouth, she’ll start yelling or crying or cursing or all three at once.
Oliver seems to understand. “You all need to get out of here. Law’s coming, like Ag said. Go on, now.”
The brothers look at each other. “What about you?” Sol says. “Just get up. You ain’t hurt that bad.” He nods in what he hopes is an encouraging manner.
“Come on, we got to go. We’ll help you,” Ag says.
Oliver shakes his head again. “Gonna take Alexander and go out the cellar way. We should split up, anyway.”
Sol has a momentary flash of guilt, forgetting Dr Potter as he has. “He all right? Dr Potter?”
“He’ll be fine,” Oliver says. “Help me up, now.” With a heave, the brothers lurch him to his feet, where he stands, swaying, for a moment. “All right then, go on.”
“Where should we meet?” Ag asks.
Oliver thinks for a minute, trying to keep his face expressionless. He won’t see Sol and Ag and Elizabeth again, not if he can help it. They deserve a chance of their own, whatever that might be. “You know that hotel we stayed at, after the train?” he asks Sol. “One with the good breakfast?” Sol nods. “We’ll see you there tomorrow morning. If we’re not there tomorrow, be the next day. Order me up some extra bacon.” He sticks out his left hand, the one that isn’t broken. “See you then. You be safe, hear?” He awkwardly shakes hands with Ag and Sol, surprised when Elizabeth gives him a quick, tight hug, kissing his cheek. Thank you, she whispers in his ear.
“Go on, then,” he says, turning towards Dr Potter and limping over.
Elizabeth and Ag go through the door, heading up the stairs. Before he leaves, Sol turns, looking back. The last time he sees the Black Hercules, Oliver Wilson is awkwardly kneeling in front of Dr Potter, holding his hand.
“We done it, old man,” Oliver says, sinking to a seated position next to Alexander. He isn’t sure if he’s going to be able to get up again.
“You did it,” Dr Potter murmurs, eyes closed. “I didn’t do shit. I couldn’t get up. I fucking tried, but I couldn’t even stand up. Waited too long, Oliver. Nothing left in me.”
Oliver laughs one soft bark of a laugh. “Bullshit, Alex. You got us here, didn’t you? Plus you killed Lyman that one time.”
“Man takes some killing.” Dr Potter opens his eyes, as best he can, looking around. “Happened to him, Lyman?”
“Sol said Ag shot him in the face with a damn scattergun, coupla feet away. You believe that boy? Guess that 10-gauge didn’t leave much left of ol’ Lyman. Don’t reckon we be seeing him again, this time.”
Alexander gives what sounds like a laugh. “Huh. Thought Ag left. Man takes some killing, though, Lyman. Hell of a thing. Takes some killing…” he repeats, trailing off.
“Hell of a thing, old man.” Oliver pauses, fishing around his pocket. “How you feel?”
“I’m done.”
“Nah, you’re not. Here.” Oliver tries to hand him one of the small bottles that Castle had given him.
“Don’t want it, Oliver,” Dr Potter mumbles, closing his eyes.
“Not the Sagwa, old man. It’s the real thing. They found it, they really did. Here.” He tries again to push the bottle into Dr Potter’s hands.
Alexander shakes his head. “I know what it is, Oliver. Don’t want it.”
Oliver stops, not entirely surprised, he realizes, although he can feel his eyes filling nonetheless. He puts the bottle back in his pocket. For a time they’re quiet. “What should I do about all this?” he eventually says, gesturing with his good arm.
Dr Potter is silent for so long that Oliver is afraid he’s already gone; he isn’t coughing and his breath is still. Finally, Alexander murmurs something that Oliver has to lean close to hear: “Burn this fucking place to the ground, Oliver. Burn it.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that, Alex,” he replies in a thick voice, when he can. A minute or two later, swallowing, he asks again, “How you feel?”
He leans forward, putting his ear by Alexander’s lips. After a long time, he hears Dr Potter whisper, “I feel good.”
Oliver doesn’t quite know how long he sits but, eventually, rubbing his eyes, he stands up, slowly and painfully. Laid up as he is, it takes him a while to get the fire started but, once he has, the chemicals in the laboratory flare up quick and hot. Lifting Dr Potter’s body in his arms, he steps through the storeroom door and back into the tunnels.
Sol, Ag, and Elizabeth stand a block or so away, watching Dr Hedwith’s Apothecary Emporium burn to the ground. The three have never seen a fire of this magnitude and it has a strange kind of beauty, particularly when the various powders and chemicals in the shop start to burn, turning the flames multicolored like a Celestial’s firework show. Fire crews are running around, getting hoses tangled, shouting and, in general, trying to seem more in charge than the others.
“Too many cooks in that kitchen,” Ag says, pointing at two crews fighting to move a single pumper car. “Whole damn city will burn down before they figure this all out.” He shakes his head. Close to the front of the building, as near as the flames will allow, two men with identical features are yelling at one another, pointing and cursing. A stacked display of Sagwa in the front window goes up with an explosion of glass and the twins tumble into each other, backing away hastily. Knowing brothers, Ag imagines that soon enough they’ll come to blows.
“You reckon they got out, Oliver and Dr Potter?” Sol asks, worried. “Neither of them looked too good.”
Ag shrugs. “I reckon so. Oliver seems a competent type of gentleman.”
Sol gives his brother a strange, appraising look. “Yeah, I suppose.” Sol looks over at Elizabeth. He wants to sidle a bit closer, say a few things, but something keeps him from doing it. Now that he’s found her, all of his fine words have deserted him, burnt up in his brain like the fire they watch.
A tall, skinny, birdy-looking woman is running towards the blaze, screaming. The twins stop their bickering long enough to grab hold of her arms, keeping her from running into the building. Down the block, Ag can see a bent-leg man limping away, somehow furtively, a bag of something heavy in his hands. The birdy woman collapses to her knees between the twins, holding her head in her hands and weeping, which sets the men off yelling at each other again.
“Come on,” Ag says, shaking his head again. “Let’s get out of here.” He turns and heads off down a side street.
Sol catches hold of Ag’s arm, stopping him. He looks down at the ground and then back up, trying to summon the words.
“You don’t leave family, Sol,” Ag says, before his brother can open his mouth, already knowing what Sol wants to say. “You’re right about that.” He shrugs, condensing the longer story, all that he’d felt after leaving the train, the doubts and guilt and anger and fear, into those four bland words: you don’t leave family. Because it’s the truth, when it comes right down to it, regardless of whatever else he might want to add.
Sol nods, squeezing Ag’s bicep. They look at each other uncomfortably for a moment. Finally, he smiles and shakes his head. “But how the hell did you just show up like that, right when we needed you, blazing away with that scattergun like a goddamn outlaw, brother? How did you even find us?”
Ag crumples his brow, extending one long arm, pointing at the large sign for Dr Hedwith’s Apothecary Emporium that blazes on the roof of the burning building, raising and shaking the rusty shotgun with his other hand. “Hell, Sol, I just went in the damn front door, showed those boys in there this gun and asked where you all were.”
He gives Sol an exasperated look. “Don’t know why you always got to make everything so complicated, brother.”
Ag shrugs his arm free and walks off, muttering to himself. Sol pauses for a moment, staring after his brother’s lanky frame, and then motions Elizabeth to go before him. He’s surprised when he feels the small pressure of her arm, looping through his. They walk east, the fire burning like a sun at their backs.