AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The gun went off with a sharp crack. Valentine and Duvalier stood dumbfounded. Blood and flesh flew from the Golden One's neck. He lowered the gun to his elbow and shot himself through the arm. Then again, at the hip point.
Valentine tried to wrestle the gun from Ahn-Kha's grip, burning his hand on the barrel, but the Grog was too strong. It fired again.
"Urmpf," Ahn-Kha grunted, releasing the gun.
"What the hell, man?" Duvalier asked.
"No need for insults," Ahn-Kha said. "I just decided-"
"You wounded yourself to get into the hospital?" Duvalier asked.
"Why not just shoot yourself once?" Valentine asked, putting the gun back on safety and digging for his first-aid kit.
"One bullet wound with powder grains around it might be self-inflicted. How many desperate cowards avoid combat by shooting themselves four times? But I fear the last penetrated my intestines."
"I'm sorry," Valentine said. "I thought you'd gone mad."
"I knew what I was doing. Pass me that disinfectant."
"You should get going," Valentine told Duvalier. "If you pass some of our local constables, have them send an ambulance."
Duvalier gathered up her stick and pack, and wheeled her bicycle over to Ahn-Kha. She kissed him on the ear. "You taste like a muskrat. Don't let him leave you."
Valentine glared at her.
"I'll hang around at Price's motel," Duvalier said. "They made him pay for a month because of the Grog. If you make it back out you can find me there. Unless, of course, I get the feeling I'm being watched. Then I'm gone."
* * * *
Valentine applied dressings, then sat Ahn-Kha on the saddle of the bike. The tires immediately flattened, but it served as a convincing conveyance for a wounded Grog, with one long arm draped around Valentine's shoulder. Birds called to each other in the trees; they both could lie down and die and the birds would still sing on.
"How you doing, old horse?"
"The wounds burn."
"They'll get you patched up. Hope that supply truck passes soon."
"I can walk all the way there if I must."
No supply truck came, but a white ambulance snapped deadfall twigs as it roared through the riverside hills. It didn't employ a siren, but there was no traffic to hurry out of the way.
Valentine sat Ahn-Kha on the weed-grown shoulder and stood in the roadway, waving his arms. The ambulance, tilted due to a bad suspension, came on, unheeding, lights flashing-
Then swerved and braked, stalling the motor.
The driver spoke through the wire grid that served as his window. "You almost got yourself killed, quirt." His associate used the stop to light a cigarette.
"We're trying to get to the hospital. My friend's wounded."
The clean-shaven pair in blue hats exchanged a look. "A Grog? Try the-"
"I'm hurting too. Can we-"
"On a call, sir. We'll radio back and have you picked up." He nodded at his associate, who touched a box on the dashboard.
"Thank you. Thank you very much."
"Don't move. Another ambulance will be along." The driver got the engine going and moved off.
