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“Please.”
He picked her up and carried her outside and found a ridge of sand and laid her down so her head was propped against it.
“I…I need batteries,” she said.
“Say what?” Wayne said.
She lay looking straight into the sun. “Brother Lazarus’s greatest work…a dead folk that can think…has memory of the past…Was a scientist too…” Her hand came up in stages, finally got hold of her head gear and pushed it off.
Gleaming from the center of her tangled blond hair was a silver knob.
“He…was not a good man… I am a good woman. I want to feel alive…like before…batteries going…brought others.”
Her hand fumbled at a snap pocket on her habit. Wayne opened it for her and got out what was inside. Four batteries.
“Uses two…simple.”
Calhoun was standing over them now. “That explains some things,” he said.
“Don’t look at me like that…” Sister Worth said, and Wayne realized he had never told her his name and she had never asked. “Unscrew…put the batteries in… Without them I’ll be an eater… Can’t wait too long.”
“All right,” Wayne said. He went behind her and propped her up on the sand drift and unscrewed the metal shaft from her skull. He thought about when she had fucked him on the wheel and how desperate she had been to feel something, and how she had been cold as flint and lustless. He remembered how she had looked in the mirror hoping to see something that wasn’t there.
He dropped the batteries in the sand and took out one of the revolvers and put it close to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. Her body jerked slightly and fell over, her face turning toward him.
The bullet had come out where the bird had been on her cheek and had taken it completely away, leaving a bloodless hole.
“Best thing,” Calhoun said. “There’s enough live pussy in the world without you pulling this broken-legged dead thing around after you on a board.”
“Shut up,” Wayne said.
“When a man gets sentimental over women and kids, he can count himself out.”
Wayne stood up.
“Well boy,” Calhoun said. “I reckon it’s time.”
“Reckon so,” Wayne said.
“How about we do this with some class? Give me one of your pistols and we’ll get back-to-back and I’ll count to ten, and when I get there, we’ll turn and shoot.”
Wayne gave Calhoun one of the pistols. Calhoun checked the chambers, said, “I’ve got four loads.”
Wayne took two out of his pistol and tossed them on the ground. “Even Steven,” he said.
They got back-to-back and held the guns by their legs.
“Guess if you kill me you’ll take me in,” Calhoun said. “So that means you’ll put a bullet through my head if I need it. I don’t want to come back as one of the dead folks. Got your word on that?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll do the same for you. Give my word. You know that’s worth something.”
“We gonna shoot or talk?”
“You know, boy, under different circumstances, I could have liked you. We might have been friends.”
“Not likely.”
