Aces and Eights
Part 2: Wounded
I withdrew the dead man's Trump and
studied it; pale milky sky and emerald waves, with a gray tower standing like a
needle on the scene's single, rocky island. I was certain that I had never seen
the place before, but--knowing that a Trump could access any one place
imaginable--the fact that I was not familiar with it did not mean much; the
painted image on the card could have represented anywhere.
I felt a strong desire to unravel
the mystery of the tower. Had the bearer of the Trump sought me out
specifically, or would anyone who understood such devices have served as well?
Whose Trump was it anyway? Someone had to have painted it, and it had definitely
not been rendered in the same draftsman-like style as those with which I was
most familiar. I had gotten the impression that the man who had given me the
thing had been a courier, or merely someone acting in that capacity. Perhaps he
had been under a geas. I wondered who had commissioned him to deliver it. Damn
him for dying anyway.
The Trump and tower thing came at a
bad time, as I still had some business to finish for my employer and friend from
back home on the Shadow called Earth. I refer to Lucas Raynard--known in his
homeland as King Rinaldo--the single source of all my travels away from Earth.
I had met Luke while doing my
Forestry undergraduate work at Berkeley. We were introduced while on an
astronomy camping trip, hit it off well that night while gazing at the stars,
and had subsequently spent quite a bit of time doing things together between the
beginning of my junior year and the end of my master's program, four years
later. Both of us were heavily into the camping, canoeing and hiking scene, and
these things consumed a great deal of our mutual free time. It was in the course
of pursuing such woodland activities that he and I developed our friendship.
Though at the time I thought I knew
him fairly well, it was not until after graduation that I found out that there
was more to my friend than a fast-talking sales routine and a fondness for
rugged environs.
I had accepted a job offer from a
State Park in Texas, and was in the process of packing my personal belongings,
sending back my rental furniture, et cetera, when I heard a quasi-knock on my
front door. It was not a healthy, hearty knock, but rather a sort of a dull
thump. At the door, I peeped through the little glass tube installed there. And
saw nothing. Curious (and a hell of a lot less cautious than I would be today),
I opened the door.
Lying on my welcome mat, doubled
over, was Luke, bleeding from many separate wounds; abrasions, punctures, hacks,
lacerations--you name it, he had it. I leaned down, trying to recall everything
I knew about first aid.
Luke looked up at me, his face
twisted with pain. "Inside," he said through clenched teeth. I started
to say something along the lines of, 'You should probably keep still,' but then
he gave me a look that was frightening in its intensity.
"Now," he hissed. It
sounded strangely like an order.
Shaken, confused and concerned, I
took hold of him under his arms, and dragged him backwards into my apartment. I
left him in the middle of the living room and began searching throughout the
cluttered room for my cordless phone.
"The door," he called out
hoarsely, "close it."
Suddenly, I realized that whoever
had ventilated Luke might still be outside, looking for him, hoping to finish
the job. Once this idea took hold of my thoughts, his demanding tone made more
sense. I crossed the room, looked outside, and, for good measure, flipped the
bloody mat upside down. Then I closed and locked the door. After that, I located
the phone, and was about to use it, when Luke made another strange request.
"No hospital, no doctors,"
he said.
I was about to call anyway, chalking
up Luke's weird behavior to delirium, when I saw that he gripped a small,
semi-automatic pistol in his left hand.
"Dammit, Nigel; no
doctors!"
"Put that thing away." I
gestured toward the gun, irritated that he would pull such a stunt. "Why
won't you let me call an ambulance?" I asked. "You obviously need
help."
"No," he said, weaker this
time, "I have reasons. Damned good ones." His head drooped slightly.
"Just try to bandage me up--stop the bleeding. I'll live." He looked
up at me, locking onto my gaze and holding it for a second. Then he laid the
pistol down on the coffee table.
Without pause, I dashed into the
bathroom, thankful that I had put it at the bottom of the packing list. I
gathered up a bundle of towels, a first aid kit, and a half empty bottle of
aspirin, and headed back into the living room. Luke was lying stretched out,
apparently unconscious. I glanced momentarily at the phone, then pushed the
thought aside and knelt down. Removing his jacket and ripping away his shirt, I
began patching holes.