Page 36 of JoyRide

Savanna hopped out of her chair. “Where is he? Where is Travis?”

“He’s in the operating room. I came up to see if you were here with Billy.”

“Where’s Harlan?” asked Billy.

“At the scene with Ted. He’ll come after the bodies are cleaned up. Doctor Olsen is there.”

“Bodies?” Billy raised an eyebrow. “How many bodies are we talking about, Tam?”

“Four. Harlan got pissed and kind of lost it when one of the assholes shot Dad.”

Billy nodded. “Uh huh. I can see how that worked.”

“You poor thing.” Savanna hugged me. “Let’s go down to the cafeteria and get coffee. We’ll get one for Billy too.”

“I’m going for more tests in a couple of minutes,” said Billy, “so you girls take your time.”

On the bottom level of the hospital, me and Savanna drank coffee for an hour, then we went back to the waiting area and Travis still wasn’t out of surgery.

Savanna took coffee upstairs to Billy while I waited for Harlan to come and find me. I didn’t want him to look all over the hospital and get upset like he could do.

He came rushing in and I hadn’t noticed it before, but his uniform was covered in splatters of blood. Big gobs of it in some places. It was drying up now and turning to dark stains that I’d never get out in the wash. His pants were toast, but I might be able to save his shirt.

I drove like a maniac with the strobes and siren on from the trailer park all the way to the hospital in Cut Bank and it turned out I didn’t have to hurry.

I asked a couple of places, found out where Travis was and found Tammy in the waiting area for the operating rooms.

“He done yet?”

“Nope. Savanna is upstairs with Billy. She’ll be back to sit with us.”

“How long has it been, Tam?”

“Long.”

I sat in the chair next to her and pulled her close to me. “Anybody say anything yet?”

“Nope. What if he’s dead in there, Harlan? Then what are we gonna do?”

“He’s not dead, Tammy. If he was dead, they’d come running right out and tell you to your face.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. They’d have no reason to stay in there, would they?”

“Guess not. You’re so fuckin smart.”

“Yeah, right.”

Savanna came back to the waiting area, and she’d only been back about ten minutes when the doctor came out and said Travis was being moved to the ICU and we could see him in twenty minutes.

“If you want to move to the ICU waiting area on the fourth floor, you can see Sheriff Frost very soon, but only for five minutes.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Savanna.

“Come on, Tammy,” I said. “We’ll get a coffee, go up to the fourth floor and then it will be time to see him.”

She nodded and took my hand.

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