“He’s still there.”
“How did you… get to where I found you?”
“I crawled. Arthur, you came back. Hang onto that. It can be worth something to you. You came back.”
“Why is he still there?”
“… I guess it’s the hospitality. Shut up. I’m trying to think.”
“But maybe… we’re waiting too long,” he said. “I should put you in the hospital and call the police.
“You have a very conventional approach. But shut up.”
When I had it worked out, I had him drive east on the Trail into the empty night land of cypress, billboards, and roadside drainage ditches. With no traffic from either direction, I got the automatic pistol. I had to keep my right hand folded around it with my left hand, and give the trigger finger a little help. I emptied it into the wilderness. On the way back to the hospital, I coached him carefully.
He parked near the emergency entrance. He helped me walk in. Double vision had become infrequent. The life in the dead arm and leg felt closer to the surface. Now they felt as if I had a thick leather glove on the arm, fitting firmly to the armpit, and a similar stocking on the leg. It was a trim little hospital, and they were doing a big business. The staff was trotting around. Fresh blood dappled white nylon. Doctors and relatives were arriving. Somebody in the treatment room kept screaming until suddenly it stopped, too suddenly. A woman sat weeping in a chair in the corridor next to the check-in desk, a red-eyed man clumsily patting her shoulder. Arthur made ineffectual attempts to attract attention. I got a few absent glances from staff people until finally a harried burly nurse hastened by me, skidded to a stop, came back and stared at me, lips compressed with concern. She got me over to a chair, down to a level where she could look at my head. “Gunshot,” she said.
“Yes indeed,” I said.
“It’s all we need,” she said. She grabbed an orderly, told him to get me bedded down in Trauma Room C right away. I was there five minutes with Arthur standing by before a young, squat, redheaded doctor came swiftly in, followed by a tall, narrow, pock-marked nurse. He. pulled the light down, hunched himself over my head. His fingers felt like busy mice, wearing cleats.
“How long ago?” he asked Arthur.
“Three hours, approximately,” I said.
He seemed a little startled to get the answer from me. “How do you feel right now?” he asked me.
“Shot.”
“We’re not in the mood for smartass remarks around here tonight. Several local young people were in a car that didn’t make a curve north of here about three quarters of an hour ago. We lost one on the way in, another here, and we’re trying like hell to keep from losing two more. We’ll appreciate cooperation.”
“Sorry. I feel mentally alert, doctor. I’m not in pain. When I first regained consciousness, I had double vision, and no feeling or control in the whole right side of my body. The symptoms have been diminishing steadily, but my right side feels… leaden, as if every muscle had been strained.”
“Why has it been so long, and how did you get so messed up?”
“I was alone. I had to crawl to where I’d be noticed.”
“Who shot you?”
“I did. It was an accident. A very stupid accident. That gentleman has the gun.”
“Outside the city?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll get a deputy over to make out a report. It’s required.”
He turned the overhead light out, shone a pencil beam into each eye, taking his time. The nurse took pulse and blood pressure, and I gave my name and address. Redhead went out and came back with an older doctor. He looked me over, and they went over into the corner and I heard some of the words they feed Ben Casey. One is practically television cliche. Subdural hematoma.
The older doctor left. Redhead came back and said, “You seem to have your luck with you, Mr. McGee. The slug hit right at the hairline at such an angle it grooved the skull but didn’t penetrate, traveled about a full inch under the scalp, and then, probably tumbling after impact, tore free. A sharp blow on the so-called funnybone can numb the hand. The left hemisphere of the brain controls the motor nerves and sensory nerves of the right half of the body. We feel that a shock of that severityoould well have stunned and, deadened the synapses on that side, the nerve functions, the ability to originate and transmit orders to the right side of your body. Sensation and control are returning so rapidly, we feel you should be back to normal feeling and use in a day or so. I see no clinical evidence of concussion, but there could be a rupture of small blood vessels in the impact area, and slow bleeding. So we’ll keep you here a few days for observation. Now the nurse will clean the wound and prep you for a little stitching.” He got a hypo, held it up to the light. “This is just to deaden the area to save you discomfort.”
He pricked me twice in the scalp and once in the left temple area and went away. The nurse tested, and when I could not feel her touch, she cleaned and shaved the area. She went and summoned the redhead. I could hear, inside my head, the sound as he pulled the stitches through. When he drew them tight, I could feel the pull in my left cheek and temple. When the cleaning had started, Arthur had gone into the hall. Not until the antiseptic dressing was in place did he come back in, looking queasy.
Then they rolled me down the corridor to what seemed to be a combination treatment room and storage room. Bright lights were on. The deputy got up when I was wheeled in. He was elderly, florid, heavy and asthmatic, and he licked his indelible pencil after every few words he wrote on the form in his clipboard. I swung my legs over the side of the wheeled stretcher and sat up. There was a mild wave of dizziness, a momentary recurrence of double vision, and that was all. He put the clipboard on the foot of the stretcher and hunched over it.
“Got the name off the records. Let’s see identification, McGee.” He took my driver’s license and copied the number on his form. For local address, I gave him the name and registration number of my houseboat and told him where it was docked.
“Scalp wound, self inflicted,” he said.
“Accidentally self inflicted, Deputy.”
“Weapon?”
Arthur handed it over. He took it with the familiarity of the expert, pulled the slide back and locked it back, checked chamber and clip, sniffed the muzzle, then pushed the clip ejector. It doesn’t work. I’ve been meaning to have a gunsmith fix it. You have to pry it before it comes loose.