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“No,” I said again.
“Move your leg,chiquita.”
There was no anger when he addressed me. He was back to using his soft voice.
“You aren’t blaming Lee and you aren’t blaming Mace. You aren’t blaming anyone. Mace told me shit would go down, I told everyone else and we decided to stay. It’s my shit that brought everyone out in the first place. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s me.”
Eddie wasn’t listening to me. Eddie was focused.
“Move your leg,” he repeated.
Then I thought about what I said.
“Actually, if there’s anyone to blame, it’s my dad,” I amended.
Eddie’s eyes cut to me. “Mi amor, I’m askin’ you, move your leg.”
I scanned the crowd and saw Lottie was standing behind Lee, next to Indy.
“Our dad is a fucking shithead,” I told her.
Seriously, if there was an F-word moment in my life, this was it.
“Jet, let Eddie take you to the hospital,” Lottie urged.
It was all hitting me, delayed reaction.
“He thought he could gamble himself into the big time and we’d all ‘live large.’ What kind of stupid, fucking moron is he?” I asked her.
“Jet, get to the hospital,” Lottie repeated.
“I’ve been working since I was fourteen fucking years old and he gambled away every fucking dollar I ever gave him. What a fuckingdick!” I shouted.
To punctuate my point, I brought my hand down on the window ledge and then cried, “Ow!” mainly because it hurt.
I looked at Eddie. “I hurt my hand,” I informed him unnecessarily.
His dimple appeared first then his lips formed a grin. “Maybe we’ll get the doctors to look at it after they check the bullet wound to your head.”
I blinked at him then nodded, “That’s a good idea.”
“You gonna move your leg now?” he asked.
“Sure,” I answered, the soul of amenity, and then I moved my leg.
He slammed the door and walked around the front of the truck.
Everyone was gathered at the side. Mostly they looked shell-shocked. Except Daisy, she looked pissed right the hell off. And not Lee and his boys. I noticed they were all trying to hide grins.
Eddie got in and started the truck.
To let them know everything was all right, I flashed a smile and gave a jaunty wave as Eddie pulled away.
* * *
It wasn’tuntil a lot later that I saw (regardless of the fact that itwasjust a graze) the amount of blood that had leaked down my face. I was sitting on the end of a bed in the emergency room at Denver Health and the nurse was cleaning me up.
“That’s a lot of blood,” I remarked, staring clinically at the towel she was using as if it was someone else’s blood.
