“That’s a load of crap,” Bob Stookey counters after taking another pull off the tarnished flask. Maybe the liquor has begun to loosen Bob’s lips, because he feels a twinge of bitterness. “My guess is, knowin’ that Chad character, he’d been asking for this for a while now.”
“Bob, that’s not—”
Lilly stops herself when she hears the crunch of footsteps outside the tent. The shadow of a leviathan falls across the canvas. The familiar silhouette pauses for a moment, lurking awkwardly outside the zippered front flap of Bob’s tent. Lilly recognizes the figure but says nothing.
A huge hand gently folds back the tent flap and a large, deeply lined brown face peers in. “They said I could—they gave me three minutes,” Josh Lee Hamilton says in a choked, sheepish baritone.
“What are you talking about?” Lilly sits up and stares at her friend. “Three minutes for what?”
Josh kneels in front of the tent flap, looking at the ground, struggling to tamp down his emotions. “Three minutes to say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean, ‘good-bye’? What happened?”
Josh lets out a pained sigh. “They took a vote … decided the best way to deal with what happened was to send me packing, kick me outta the group.”
“What!”
“I suppose it’s better than gettin’ hung from the highest tree.”
“You didn’t—I mean—it was completely accidental.”
“Yeah, sure,” Josh says, staring at the ground. “Poor fella accidentally bumped into my fist a whole bunch of times.”
“Under the circumstances, though, these people know what kind of man—”
“Lilly—”
“No, this is wrong. This is just … wrong.”
“It’s over, Lilly.”
She looks at him. “Are they letting you take any supplies? One of the vehicles maybe?”
“I got my bike. It’ll be okay, I’ll be awright…”
“No … no … this is just … ridiculous.”
“Lilly, listen to me.” The big man pushes his way partially into the tent. Bob glances away out of respect. Josh crouches down, reaches out and gently touches Lilly’s wounded face. From the way Josh’s lips are pressed together, the way his eyes are shimmering, the lines deepening around his mouth, it’s clear he’s holding in a tidal wave of emotion. “This is how it’s gotta play out. It’s for the best. I’ll be fine. You and Bob hold the fort down.”
Lilly’s eyes well up. “I’ll go with you, then.”
“Lilly—”
“There’s nothing for me here.”
Josh shakes his head. “Sorry, babydoll … it’s a single ticket.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Lilly, I’m real sorry but that ain’t in the cards. It’s safer here. With the group.”
“Yeah, it’s real stable here,” she says icily. “It’s a regular love fest.”
“Better here than out there.”
Lilly looks at him through ravaged eyes, tears beginning to track down her battered face. “You can’t stop me, Josh. It’s my decision. I’m coming along and that’s all there is to it. And if you try and stop me, I will hunt you down, I will stalk you, I will find you. I’m coming with you and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t stop me. Okay? So just … deal with it.”
She buttons up her coat, slips her feet into her boots, and starts gathering up her things. Josh watches in dismay. Lilly’s movements are tentative, interrupted by intermittent flinches of pain.
Bob exchanges a glance with Josh, something unspoken yet powerful passing between the two men, as Lilly gets all her stray items of clothing stuffed into a duffel bag and pushes her way out of the tent.
Josh lingers in the mouth of the tent for a moment, looking back in at Bob.
Bob finally shrugs and says with a weary smile: “Women.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Josh has the saddlebags of his onyx Suzuki street bike brimming with tins of Spam and tuna fish, road flares, blankets, waterproof matches, rope, a rolled-up pup tent, a flashlight, a small camp stove, a collapsible fishing rod, a small .38 caliber Saturday night special, and some paper plates and spices cribbed from the common area. The day has turned blustery, the sky casting over with ashy dark clouds.
The threatening weather adds another layer of anxiety to the proceedings as Josh secures the luggage bags and glances over his shoulder at Lilly, who stands ten feet away on the edge of the road, shrugging on an overstuffed backpack. She cringes at a sharp pain in her ribs as she tightens the straps on the pack.
From across the property, a handful of self-proclaimed community leaders look on. Three men and a middle-aged woman stand stoically watching. Josh wants to holler something sarcastic and withering to them but holds his tongue. Instead, he turns to Lilly and says, “You ready?”
Before Lilly can answer a voice rings out from the east edge of the property.
“Hold on, folks!”
Bob Stookey comes trundling along the fence with a large canvas duffel slung over his back. The clanking rattle of bottles can be heard—Bob’s private stock of “medicine,” no doubt—and there’s a strange look on the old medic’s face, a mixture of anticipation and embarrassment. He approaches cautiously. “Before y’all ride off into the sunset, I got a question for ya.”
Josh gives the man a look. “What’s going on, Bob?”
“Just answer me one thing,” he says. “You got any medical training?”
Lilly comes over, her brow furrowed with confusion. “Bob, what do you need?”
“It’s a simple question. Do either of you yahoos got any legitimate medical credentials?”
Josh and Lilly share a glance. Josh sighs. “Not that I know of, Bob.”
“Then let me ask you something else. Who in the flying fuck’s gonna watch that eye for infection?” He gestures toward Lilly’s hemorrhaged eye. “Or keep tabs on them fractured ribs for that matter?”
Josh looks at the medic. “What are you trying to say, Bob?”
The older man shoots a thumb at the row of vehicles parked along the gravel access road behind him. “As long as y’all are gallivanting off into the wild blue yonder, wouldn’t it make more sense to do it with a certified U.S. Marine Medical Corpsman?”
* * *
They put their stuff in Bob’s king cab. The old Dodge Ram pickup is a monster—pocked with rust scars and dents—with a retrofitted camper top on the extended cargo bay. The camper’s windows are long and narrow and as opaque as soap glass. Lilly’s backpack and Josh’s saddlebags go in through the rear hatch, and get wedged between piles of dirty clothes and half-empty bottles of cheap whiskey. There’s a pair of rickety cots back there, a large cooler, three battered first-aid kits, a tattered suitcase, a pair of fuel tanks, an old leather doctor’s bag that looks like it came from a pawnshop, and a phalanx of garden implements shoved against the firewall in front—shovels, a hoe, a few axes, and a nasty-looking pitchfork. The vaulted ceiling rises high enough to accommodate a slouching adult.
As he stows his bags, Josh sees scattered pieces of a disassembled 12-gauge shotgun, but no sign of any shells. Bob carries a .38 snub-nose, which probably couldn’t hit a stationary target at ten paces with no wind—and that’s if and only if Bob is sober, which is rarely the case. Josh knows they will need firearms and ammunition if they want a fighting chance of survival.