Hunter's Moon by Chuck Logan (the false prince series txt) 📗

talk much anyway, they got him wacked out on Dilaudid.”

Harry froze. Jesse Deucette, her face as bloodless as chilled ivory, had found time to braid her hair. She stood in the center of the room with the ostentatious diamond sparkling on her left hand. Their eyes played fast paddycake. If they blinked, their infidelity would crash to the floor and writhe like snakes.

Emery broke the spell. His usual watchfulness gone, he missed the eye play. He only saw Jesse. He moved surprisingly fast, silently.

Her presence turned his face buttermilk smooth and soft. “Now Jessica, this ain’t the time…”

The mask of grief on her face crumpled into tears as Emery held out his arms to her. Wracked with sobs, she shook her head, but Emery persisted patiently and she was drawn into his embrace. She shuddered against his shoulder and couldn’t get words out.

“Best to cry, just…cry now,” said Emery, stony and patient, gently patting her shoulder.

The people in the ER seemed to shrink back, like the hunters had done when Emery inspected the deer at the general store. Harry followed Emery’s eyes, which looked past Jesse.

Becky stood poised uncertainly on the balls of her feet in the corridor. Emery raised one hand toward her. The girl’s face spooked and she broke into a run, past the tableau of people who were watching Jesse cry in Emery’s arms. No one moved to stop her.

Harry watched her dart out the door. A green Jeep Wrangler shivered on its suspension with a keyed-up nervous HUNTER’S MOON / 89

clutch in a cloud of exhaust just outside the plate-glass entrance. The driver threw the door open for her. Harry caught a glimpse of the driver’s tow-headed hair and the gray flash of Becky’s wind suit and the Jeep fishtailed away.

Jesse had stopped crying. Sniffling, she scrubbed her palm down her cheek to wipe away the tears and said, “I have to see Bud.”

“They got him doped up,” said Emery.

“You’d better wait a little,” said the doctor gently. “We’re monitoring for shock. Then you can talk.”

Jesse looked at the floor in front of Harry. Her eyes came up slowly. The despair in her face was drained of tears and had become precise, faceted fire and ice, a larger version of the rock on her finger.

Emery floated warily on the toes of his boots between them.

“Why isn’t he under arrest?” she said and Harry’s heart stopped.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Jessica,” Emery said patiently.

“Not sure what we got here. Fact is, Griffin’d be within his rights to file an assault complaint on Becky. That’s some permanent damage on his face.”

Harry’s fingers crept gingerly up to his face and felt a dangling flap of his cheek. Emery nodded to a nurse who took Jesse by the arm and walked her away.

Another nurse led Harry back to his chair. Emery followed. His shadow, Jerry, was just a step behind. “Take down your trousers,”

ordered the nurse, squinting along a hypodermic.

“Tetanus,” said Emery. The nurse stuck Harry in the rump and then sat him down next to a table. Small curved needles lay on a towel. A stainless steel tray smelled of alcohol.

The young doctor returned and adjusted a light on Harry’s face.

He dabbed with alcohol-soaked gauze. Harry trembled. The doc was moving pieces of his face. He yanked off a flap of skin.

“Two of these need stitches,” said the doctor. “Are you allergic to novocaine?”

90 / CHUCK LOGAN

“I don’t want novocaine in my face.” Harry wanted to stay alert.

“You sure?”

“Sew,” said Harry. He stared at Emery as the doctor sewed.

Emery’s eyes didn’t waver, but a commotion at the door allowed them to break eye contact.

A tall, red-faced, beefy man wearing hunting boots and a blaze-orange parka stomped into the ER. In contrast to his ruddy complex-ion, his hair, eyebrows, and mustache were fleecy platinum. He swiveled pale falcon eyes.

“Larry? Jesus Christ, I just heard,” he yelled. Six other men followed in his wake. All but one was dressed for hunting in blaze orange and had the same hawkish features and white-blond hair. Emery ambled over to them.

The doctor grimaced as he forced the needle through Harry’s cheek. Surprisingly tough stuff, skin. Harry used the pain to sharpen his attention.

The big guy put his hands on Emery’s shoulders. For a moment Harry thought he might embrace Emery. But he shook him, getting his full attention. They talked, their heads close, then the big guy turned and pummeled the tile wall with his fist. “You don’t fucking get it, do you?” he yelled at Emery. Emery put his hands on his hips, stared at his boots. Emery talked. Harry couldn’t make out the words.

The big guy blew up again. “I told you to do something back then, goddamnit! God, we could get sued for negligence.” Then the big guy stepped back, warned by Emery’s eyes. “I’m sorry but goddamnit…”

They went back to talking low. They all turned and looked at Harry. The nonhunter walked over. His scrubbed face was fringed with a closely barbered mustache and his dry blue eyes were set in contemplative wrinkles behind horn-rim glasses. His sandy hair was styled past his ears and was shot with gray.

“How you doing, son?” he asked.

“I’m not your son. I’m probably older than you.”

“You need anything?”

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“You got a cigarette?”

“You can’t smoke in here,” said the doctor, yanking the knot on the last stitch a little harder than was necessary. Then he dropped the needle in a pan of antiseptic and walked away. The tense discussion Emery was having with the hunting party was making the ER

jumpy. The new guy sat down in the doctor’s place. He held out his hand. “Don Karson. Local minister. Lutheran. You Catholic?

We have a priest in town.”

“Is he out hunting, too?” asked Harry, sizing Karson up. A soft Christ. Not a carpenter.

“You know, I think he is,” said Karson.

Harry’s palm was smeared with dried blood. Karson wiped his hand on his pants.

Jesse reappeared and joined in Emery’s conversation with the big