First Blood

21

Teasle clung to the bars, resting, then pushed himself away, staggering toward the fence. He had been frantic that Trautman would get into the field before him, but now everything was going to be fine — Trautman was just a few steps ahead of him, crouched beside a bench, studying the thick brush of the field. Just a few steps ahead of him. He reached out and grabbed the bench to stop from falling, stood against it, breathing hoarsely.

Without a glance away from the field, Trautman told him, 'Get down. He'll see you for sure.'

'I would, but I'd never stand again.'

'So what would be the need? You can't do any good the way you are. Stay out of it. You're killing yourself.'

'Lie down and let you finish it for me? Screw. I'm dying anyhow.'

Trautman looked at him then.

Kern was nearby, out of sight, yelling, 'Christ, get the hell down! He has perfect cover and I'm not risking any men to go in! I sent for gasoline! He likes to play with fire, we'll burn him out!'

Yes, that's your style, Kern, he thought. He grabbed at the itch in his stomach, holding himself wetly in, and shuffled clumsily forward, propping himself against the fence.

'Get the hell down!' Kern yelled again.

Screw. Burn him out, will you, Kern? That's the kind of idea I expected from you, he thought. And you can bet that before the fire gets to him, he'll come through here shooting to take a few of your men with him. There's only one way to do this, and that's for somebody like me who doesn't have a hope anyhow to go in and take him. You haven't lost enough men yet, or you'd know that.

'What the hell was that?' Kern shouted, and Teasle realized that what he had been thinking he had said out loud. That startled him, and he had to get over the fence while he still was able. There was blood here on the fence. The kid's. Good. He would be going over where the kid had. His blood dripping on the kid's, he gathered himself and toppled over the fence. He guessed that he struck the ground hard, but his brain did not register the impact.

In a quick rush, Trautman came from the bench, vaulted the fence and landed in a neat crouch in a clump of brush beside him.

'Stay out of here,' Teasle told him.

'No, and if you don't shut up, he'll be onto everything we do.'

'He's not anywhere around to hear. He's way over in the center of the field. Look, you know he wants it to be me. I have a right to be there at the end. You know that.'

'Yes.'

'Then stay out of what doesn't concern you.'

'I started this long before you, and I'm going to help.

There's no disgrace in taking help. Now shut up, and let's go while you still can.'

'All right, you want to help? Then help me stand. I can't do it on my own.'

'You mean it? What a mess this is going to be.'

'That's what Shingleton said.'

'What?'

'Nothing.'

Trautman had him on his feet now, and then Trautman was crawling into the brush, disappearing, and Teasle stood, his head above the brush, surveying it, thinking. Go. Go on and crawl as fast as you can. It won't make a difference what you do. I'll get to him before.

He coughed and spat something salty and shifted forward through the brush in a straight line toward the shed. It was clear that the kid had gone this way, the branches broken down in a crude trail. He kept his pace slow, not chancing the helplessness of a fall. Even so, he was surprised at how soon he reached the shed. But as he prepared to go inside, he realized instinctively that the kid was not in there. He glanced around, and as if drawn toward a magnet, he shambled swaying down another broken path toward a large mound. There. The kid was there. He knew it, could feel it. There was no doubt.

When he had been spread out on the sidewalk, someone had said he was delirious. But that had been wrong. He had not been delirious. Not then. Now. Now he was delirious, and his body seemed to be melting from him, just his mind floating over the brush toward the mound, and the night was becoming glorious day, the orange reflection of the flames growing brighter, dancing wildly. At the bottom of the mound he ceased floating and hovered transfixed, the splendorous sheen illuminating him. It was coming. He had no more time. As if his will belonged to another, he saw his arm rise up before him, his pistol aiming toward the mound.

22

The numbness was at Rambo's shoulders now, at his navel, and steadying the gun was like aiming with two stumps of wood. He saw Teasle dispersing into triple focus down there, eyes bright, aiming, and he knew there should be no other way. No passive lapse into nothing. No lit fuse, self-disruption. But this way, the only proper way, in the last of the fight, trying his best to kill Teasle. Eyes and hands betraying him, he did not think he could hit Teasle. But he had to try. Then if he missed, Teasle would see the flash of his gun, and fire at it. And at least then I'll have died trying, he thought. He strove to squeeze his finger on the trigger, directing his aim at Teasle's center image. The barrel was wobbling, and he would never hit him. But he could not fake it. He had to try as hard as he could. He told his hand to squeeze on the trigger, but his hand would not work, and as he concentrated on it, clenching, the gun went off unintended. So careless and sloppy. He cursed himself. Not the real fight he had hoped for, and now Teasle's bullet would come when he did not deserve it. He waited. It should have come already. He squinted to clear his vision, looking down the mound where Teasle lay flat in the brush. Christ, he had hit him. God, he had not wanted that, and the numbness was so overwhelming by now that he could never light the fuse before it nulled him. So poor. So ugly and poor. Then death took him over, but it was not at all the stupefying sleep, bottomless and murky, that he had expected. It was more like what he had expected from the dynamite, but coming from his head instead of his stomach, and he could not understand why it should be like that, and it frightened him. Then since it was the total of what remained, he let it happen, went with it, erupted free through the back of his head and his skull, catapulted through the sky, through myriad spectra, onward outward, forever dazzling, brilliant, and he thought if he kept on like this for long enough he might be wrong and see God after all.

23

Well, Teasle thought. Well. He lay back on the brush, marvelling at the stars, repeating to himself that he did not know what had hit him. He really did not. He had seen the flash of the gun and he had fallen, but he had been slow and gentle to fall, and he really did not know what had hit him, did not sense it, respond to it. He thought about A

He heard someone stepping, cracking, through the brush. The kid coming, he thought. But slow, very slow to come. Well sure, he's hurt bad.

But then it was only Trautman standing there, head outlined against the sky, face and uniform lustrous from the flames, but eyes dull. 'What's it like?' Trautman said. 'Is it bad?'

'No,' he said. 'Actually it's kind of pleasant. If I don't think about what it's bringing. What was that explosion I heard? It sounded like another gas station.'

'Me. I guess it was me. I took the top of his head off with this shotgun.'

'What's it like for you?'

'Better than when I knew he was in pain.'

'Yes.'

Trautman pumped the empty shell from the shotgun, and Teasle watched its wide arc glistening through the air. He thought about A