Cawley handed him a glass of water and put two yellow pills in his hand. “These should do the trick. Knock you out for an hour or two, but when you come to, you should be fine. Clear as a bell.” Teddy looked down at the yellow pills, the glass of water that ‘hung in a precarious grip• He looked up at Cawley, tried to concentrate with his good eye because the man was bathed in a light so white and harsh that it flew off his shoulders and arms in shafts.
Whatever you do, a voice started to say in Teddy’s head... Fingernails pried open the left side of his skull and poured a shaker of thumbtacks in there, and Teddy hissed as he sucked his breath in.
“Jesus, boss.”
“He’ll be fine, Marshal.”
The voice tried again: Whatever you do, Teddy...
Someone hammered a steel rod through the field of thumbtacks, and Teddy pressed the back of his hand to his good eye as tears shot from it and his stomach lurched.
•.. don’t take those pills.
His stomach went fully south, sliding across into his right hip as flames licked the sides of the fissure in his head, and if it got any worse, he was pretty sure he’d bite straight through his tongue. Don’t take those fucking pills, the voice screamed, running back and forth down the burning canyon, waving a flag, rallying the troops. Teddy lowered his head and vomited onto the floor.
“Boss, boss. You okay?”
“My, my,” Cawley said. “You do get it bad.”
Teddy raised his head.
Don’t...
His cheeks were wet with his own tears.
... take...
Someone had inserted a blade lengthwise into the canyon now.
•.. those...
The blade had begun to saw back and forth.
... pills.
Teddy gritted his teeth, felt his stomach surge again. He tried to concentrate on the glass in his hand, noticed something odd on his thumb, and decided it was the migraine playing tricks with his perception. don’ttakethosepills.
Another long pull of the sawteeth across the pink folds of his
brain, and Teddy had to bite down against a scream and he heard
Rachel’s screams in there too with the fire and he saw her looking into
his eyes and felt her breath on his lips and felt her face in his hands as
his thumbs caressed her temples and that fucking saw went back and
forth through his head
don’ttakethosefuckingpills
• and he slapped his palm up to his mouth and felt the pills fly back in there and he chased them with water and swallowed, felt them slide down his esophagus and he gulped from the glass until it was empty.
“You’re going to thank me,” Cawley said.
Chuck was beside him again and he handed Teddy a handkerchief and Teddy wiped his forehead with it and then his mouth and then he dropped it to the floor.
Cawley said, “Help me get him up, Marshal.”
Rachel looked up at him. Her face and neck were speckled with blood. She said, “Give me a hand.”
Teddy said, “What? I could get in trouble.”
She said, “Give me a hand and I’ll be Dolores. I’ll be your wife.
She’ll come back to you.”
So he said, “Sure, you bet,” and helped her. They lifted all three children at once somehow and carried them out through the back door and down to the lake and they carried them into the water. They didn’t throw them. They were gentle. They lay them on the water and the children sank. One of the boys rose back up, a hand flailing, and Rachel said, “It’s okay. He can’t swim.”