Wounded by Percival Everett Read Free Book Online

up the wall phone.
    “John?”
    “Yes?”
    “It’s Howard.” Howard Thayer was a friend from college, the only one I’d managed to keep. We hadn’t been in touch for over a year.
    “Hey, poke,” I said. “How are you?”
    “I’m fine. You ranching it up out there?”
    “You bet. How are Sylvia and the kids?” The heat of the sun through the window was making me perspire again. I grabbed a towel from the counter and wiped my neck. It was damp and felt good.
    “Actually, I’m calling about one of the kids,” Howard said. “David.”
    I untangled the cord and pulled the phone over to the table and sat. “Is he all right?”
    “He’s fine.”
    “How old is he now?”
    “He’s twenty,” Howard said.
    “God, that means you’re old.”
    “Tell me about it,” he said. “Hey, Davey’s going to be up in Highland and I was wondering if you could look in on him. Take him to lunch or something. Just so he has a friend, you know.”
    “Of course. What’s he doing up here?”
    Howard paused briefly as if doing something away from the phone. “I don’t know exactly. He’ll be staying at the Rusty Spur Motel. Is that place okay? Is it a fleabag?”
    “Yes, but it’s a quaint fleabag.”
    “He arrives there on Friday,” Howard said. “Driving out with a friend. So, what’s it like out there?”
    “Beautiful. Always beautiful,” I told him. “How’s Chicago?”
    “Crowded, dirty, disgusting,” he said. “It’s hot and ready to turn cold. You should visit.”
    “So, David is twenty,” I said. “Last time I saw him he was fifteen, I think.”
    “Yeah, fifteen. He’s grown up some.”
    “Any possibility of you and Sylvia making it up here?”
    “I don’t think so,” Howard said. “John, Sylvia and I split up. We’re divorced now.”
    “That’s too bad,” I said, not knowing if I thought that or not. “Are you all right?”
    “Everybody’s okay,” he said. “These things happen. What can I say? Listen, I’d better run. Thanks for looking in on my boy.”
    “Sure thing.”
    “Talk later,” Howard said.
    “Bye.” I hung up.
    Gus came in and snatched the damp towel off my shoulder. “What are you, some kind of heathen? I’ll bet you were going to put that right back on the counter, weren’t you?”
    “I hadn’t thought that far,” I confessed.
    “Well, of course you hadn’t. Heathen.” He sighed. “Who was that on the telling phone?”
    “My friend Howard. You remember him. I went to college with him. His kid’s going to be in town this weekend.”
    “Are you hungry?” Gus tossed the soiled towel onto the big pile in the laundry room.
    “Not yet. I’ve got some more work to do.”
    I went out to the barns and checked all the animals. I probed around the corners and between the stacks of bales of hay trying to flush out any late-season rattlesnakes. Then I made sure the extra chain was fastened onto the paddock gate where I kept Daniel White Buffalo’s mule. The damn thing was an escape artist. Fortunately, he hung around and never did anything more than nibble at the hay and visit the other horses and get them agitated.
    I went back into the house and told Gus I didn’t need dinner.
    “That’s fine with me,” he said.
    “I’m going to ride up and camp in the cave.”
    “You’re an odd fellow, John Hunt.”
    “See you in the morning.”
    I saddled the Appy and rode out. Zoe went with me. Gus didn’t mind not cooking. He was always happy with just cereal.
    At the cave, I unrolled my bag and got a fire going. I cooked a couple of hot dogs, tossing a couple pieces on top of Zoe’s dry food. “I don’t know,” I said to her, “this might make you a cannibal, a dog eating a hot dog.”
    Zoe didn’t laugh.
    The fire threw light and my shadow against the wall.
    I put on my headlamp and walked deeper into the cave. Zoe was good to have along because I trusted her to be able to find her way out, even if I couldn’t. Still, I used light sticks every thirty