Page 124 of The River We Remember

Ramona Creasy lay on the couch where she’d been when Brody visited the night before. She didn’t bother trying to rise but stared at him out of a face that was twin to her son’s.

“I’m calling an ambulance, Ramona.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No money to pay for it.”

“You need to be seen by a doctor.”

“Can you take me?”

“All right. Del, give me a hand.”

They helped her up. She winced at every move. They eased her outside and onto the backseat of the cruiser. Brody called Hector up front, and Del got in beside his mother. Brody hit his siren and shot toward the hospital.

“HE CAME HOME early this morning, before sunup,” Del explained after he’d been examined in the emergency room. “I heard his truck pull up. He got out, went to Velma’s place first, then came to the trailer. I don’t know what Velma told him, but he was worse than I’ve ever seen him. He lit into me. Mom tried to get between us, so he lit into her.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Screaming about that twenty-two of his. Then he started screaming about everything and everybody. He went crazy, said he was going to settle accounts, make everyone pay.”

“Everyone? Did he mention names?”

“If he could, he’d shoot the whole fuggin’ world.”

“Any idea where he was headed when he left?”

“No. But I’ll tell you this. If I ever see him again, I’ll kill him.”

Del Wolfe was all of fifteen years old. Brody looked into that beat-up face, into eyes as full of hate as he’d ever seen. As inured as he believed himself to be because of all the brutality that he himself had been a part of, Brody’s heart nearly broke.

“I’ll find him, Del. And the law will deal with him, I swear.”

Ramona Creasy’s injuries, though ugly and painful, weren’t life threatening: bruised ribs, lots of contusions. The ER physician recommended she stay overnight, just for observation, but she refused. Brody was pretty sure that money—or the lack of it—was the main reason for her decision.

“I’m not taking you back to the hollow,” he told her.

“I’m never going back there,” she said.

“Where do you want to go?”

“My sister in Saint Paul.”

Brody said, “Greyhound leaves this afternoon.”

“I don’t have any money,” the woman said.

“I’m buying you two tickets courtesy of Black Earth County. In the meantime, I’m taking you someplace safe.”

Which was the home of Ida and Angie Madison. Brody called and explained the situation, and when his cruiser rolled up in front of the house, the women were waiting. They’d closed the Wagon Wheel for the rest of the day, and gentle as saints helped Ramona inside their home. Del hung back in the yard, Scott with him, and Brody let the two boys be.

After they got Ramona settled, Angie accompanied Brody to his cruiser. “He’s a man with a lot of anger in him, Brody,” she said. “It’s going to keep exploding from him until someone helps him through it.”

“Or kills him,” Brody said.

“Is that your job?”

“If it comes to that, yeah, Angie, it is.”

“Oh, Brody, be careful.”