Chapter 6
Our hero saves a life and the Bikers bite off more than they can chew
It was Thursday evening when the young female deputy found Elgin under a Mustang working on a transmission linkage. The first he knew of her presence was a gentle kick on the ankle, “Mr. Chalmers, it’s Deputy Michaels.”
Elgin slid out on the glider, “Good evening Deputy Michaels, is there something I can do?” he said coming to his feet, wiping his hand on a rag.
“You, uh, have grease on your chin...Mr. Chalmers.”
Elgin rubbed his chin, smiled into the dark brown eyes, “Thanks, its Elgin by the way, if you would like.”
She ignored that, “The sheriff thought I should come around and talk to you. Its about Tony Deaton.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know a Tony Deaton,” but he had a sinking feeling that he did.
“You might know him as Hawk, you and he had a fight at the supply depot the other day.”
That confirmed his concern, “He was one of the men who trashed the garage on Sunday. He was already at the depot when I arrived. He felt he had a grudge and pushed, attacked me, I tried to just retreat but he made it clear he wasn’t going to accept a standoff. I responded and left him for his friends to take care of.”
The deputy jotted some notes down on her pad, the pretty mouth twisted into a moue of disapproval. “Citizens are not supposed to take these things into their own hands Mr. Chalmers, you should have retreated and called the sheriff’s office.”
“Deputy, I hear from your accent that you’re an easterner. Don’t know what the Sheriff has told you, but out here running from a fight is not a good idea. Folks figure that if you’ll run from a fight you’ll run out on other things.”
She ignored his somewhat exasperated explanation, “Did you know you’d broken Mr. Deaton’s jaw and knocked out four of his teeth?”
“Didn’t check to see, not surprised, hit him pretty hard in the jaw, almost impossible to kill a man, hitting him in the jaw.” The big brown eyes darted up in shock at that last then back to her book. “Mr. Deaton is in hospital, he was admitted yesterday, his jaw is badly infected, apparently infection already in his jaw got into the break. There is a very real possibility that he’s going to die. While he will not press charges on your assault, if he dies it will be up to the district attorney and you will be facing manslaughter charges at the very least.”
“And here I was thinking that I was saving the thug some dental expenses.” Elgin replied flatly.
Her pad and pen snapped down and she glared at him fiercely, “You may have killed a man, in a terrible and painful way and you joke about it!?”
“A thug attacked me twice, apparently confident he could get away with beating me to a pulp. And it’s me who gets in trouble because he has mouth full of rotten teeth that were going to kill him soon anyway?” He snapped back.
She jammed the pen and pad away, “I’ve done what the sheriff asked, and I hope its me she sends to arrest you, you red neck jackass when that poor man dies.” He had to say that her departure was very much in the ‘flouncing’ style, without the long dress.
After he left he rubbed his neck, “Now why the devil did I set out to upset her like that?”
There was no good answer he could think of, and the snickering coming from the back of his mind didn’t help.
-o-
The Little Wolf Hospital-Clinic was in Winston Gap, the new part of Beauty, where the new northern lake highway split from the old southern route. The old Clinic, a stone and log building had been gutted and was now admitting and office space, the modern brick and glass building behind it was very sleek and well integrated with the rocky land.
Elgin had never been inside before, his various sprains and breaks had been minor enough to be dealt with by a nurse, or ignored till the pain went away, he didn’t like how the hospital smelled. He found his way up to the ward without asking anyone directions, smiling at the nurses, doctors and visitors as he passed. They were mostly immigrant types, relatively few local tribesmen and women, none he knew.
Outside the one of the doors he saw a woman in jeans and a sweater and moderately heeled boots sitting slumped, her feet stuck out straight in front of her. Her face was wind and sun browned, but without the heavy makeup he’d seen before she looked younger and less hard.
“You Mrs. Deaton?” Elgin asked quietly.
She had been dozing, she woke with a jerk and looked up puzzled then almost frightened, “You?”
“I hear Hawk’s not doing too well.”
She stood, and even in regular boots she was only a little shorter than Elgin. He had completely surprised her, she tried to decide what her response was supposed to be, anger, outrage, accusation, disgusted contempt. She seemed to try them all but couldn’t hold any of them, she looked tired, defeated, angry, but not at him. “What do you want, to gloat?”
“Just to see him, to say I’m sorry it came to this. I certainly meant to stop, to hurt him, not kill him.”
“Oh.” She shrank a little, “You know he’d have laughed if the boot were on the other foot.”
“I understand that, but it’s not my way.”
She rocked her head at the door which was only partly open, “He’s in there all hooked up to this that and the other, they say he’ll be dead by tomorrow, he’s probably out of it, they keep him sedated.”
Elgin nodded, stepped inside, despite what the woman thought Mohawk, now shaven headed was awake, his muddy eyes glared at Elgin as the cowboy approached. His jaw was wired and taped up, the dressings were an ugly color and there was more than a whiff of corruption in the air.
“No need to get up Mohawk, the missus tells me you’re down for the count,” Elgin said. The others eyes looked daggers at Elgin, hate almost seemed to flow off the man and reach out for Elgin’s throat.
Elgin stopped by the bedside, the man’s arms were strapped down, the hands balled into fists, there was one of the self medicate buttons near his hand but Deaton was ignoring it. The man hated the world and himself so much that he wanted to go out suffering.
“Tony Deaton, or Hawk if you want, I’m sorry that you’re going through this. Not that I hit you, not that I broke your jaw or extracted some of those rotten teeth. But I am sorry that the infection got into the wound and is causing you such pain, as it kills you. None of that last did I intend or would have inflicted if I had known.”
The eyes now looked puzzled, but also a little vague.
Elgin pulled a hand out of his pocket, earlier Cutter and Iffrit had done something with a couple of apple seeds. Now the seeds were fine powder in a tube. He tapped the tube and the dust flowed, floated out and sank onto, into, Tony Deaton’s face. “I’m told that this should stop me from feeling too guilty about smashing your jaw. Sleep well.” Deaton’s eyes were already closed.
He stepped out of the room, took a breath of the chemically tainted air in the hall.
The tall woman-girl was still there, her eyes haunted. “He hated you for making him look like a fool in front of MovieStar, he was out for revenge. It was personal, not business.”
Elgin shrugged, “I’m sorry I needed to make a point and Hawk was the only tool available.”
“Your not afraid of them at all are you.” She whispered.
“Of course I am, but I can’t let fear rule what I do.” He didn’t say that he was mainly afraid for others since personally he was already dead and it was unlikely he could die twice.
“You moved like nothing I’ve ever seen, so fast, so terribly fast, I always thought Hawk was fast, you, you were so fast I couldn’t hardly see you move.”
“He gave me no choice, he’s a big, tough, fast man, I was never going to stand toe to toe and slug it out, or wrestle him, and win.”
She looked down at her hands, “I’m Mary, Tony’s girlfriend, thanks for coming, I guess. I’m sorry but if he dies, the Claw will call for your blood, and there’s nothing I can do a
bout it.”
That made him laugh, “And that is different from right now how, Mary?” He sighed, “Try and get some sleep, maybe he’ll be improving in the morning, that sort of thing does happen.”
-o-
It was Friday and his full day at the garage, late in the morning he was finishing up the Mustang, which had turned out to have had more wrong with it than a bad shift linkage. The owner was a local tribal elder who’d owned the thing since his youth, it had spent a lot of years up on blocks under a tarp and was in remarkably good shape because of that. Now the old man wanted to use some of his new income to regain some youth, including the Mustang.
“Mr. Chalmers, a lady on the phone for you.” The clerk called through the door.
Elgin went to the extension, punched the blinking button, “Elgin.”
“I don’t know how you knew, but he’s going to live,” a long silence, “Thank you for coming last night.” Then Mary hung up.
*What did you make out of those apple seeds?* Elgin asked.