Abandon

Lana reached for it, her right hand slipping into the inner pocket, grasping the key.

“What’s that open?”

She wrote: The mine. You have to get them out. There’s children. Get the sheriff. “Of course.” He took it out of her hand, stroked the key’s long stem, its teeth. “I should operate immediately.”

Lana was crying as Dr. Primack handed Milton the cloth, standing poised beside her left arm.

“I’ll have it off in two minutes.”

She stared at the finely serrated blade of the amputation saw dripping red water onto the bed, the collection of knives laid out on the sheets, the bottle of ether, the Kelly pad under her arm, the washtub glistening red under the electric light.

Though she was fading from the big dose of laudanum, her heart still reeled.

“Go ahead, Milton.”

Here came the cloth, sharp bite of ether in the back of her throat, and then she floated in a warm gray sea, flanked by swirling voices.

“Damn, that was fast.”

“Hold the cloth to her mouth.”

“She ain’t awake.”

“Do what I tell you or get the f**k out.”

Lana smiled, gleaming with morphine, and still in that same bed in that same room in the Grand Imperial, only now it was filled with the natural light of morning and noise from the street below.

She thought, I’ve survived.

Beautiful Dr. Primack stood at the foot of her bed, speaking with another man—round and gray-bearded, holding a bowler against his thigh, a shiny object catching early sunlight pinned to his black frock coat.

When she tried to lift her right hand to catch their attention, she felt the straps binding both arms to her sides.

She made a noise with her throat.

The men quit talking and looked at her. They walked over, sat on either side of the bed.

The older, bearded man ran his fingers through his thinning hair, his dirty nails leaving fleeting white trails in the ripples of his rosy scalp.

“Miss, I’m Sheriff Donaway, and Dr. Primack has explained to me the tragic predicament.”

Thank God, she thought.

“He’s had to take off both legs and arms, and arrangements are being made to transport you on the narrow-gauge to Mercy Hospital in Durango.”

She looked up at Dr. Primack, who watched her with something that might have been mistaken for compassion.

The doctor turned back the cover so Lana could see the bloody, bandaged stubs below both elbows.

The morphine elation fading.

My right arm was fine. You told me it was.

“I understand this is most upsetting,” he said, “but there was nothing I could do. Both arms had sustained severe damage. You’d be dead by now if I hadn’t taken them off.”

She opened her mouth. Why haven’t you told him about Abandon? But it came out as little more than the ramblings of an idiot.

“Try to settle down, Miss Hartman,” the doctor said. “You’re in a fragile state.”

They’re dying.

“Please, Miss Hartman.”

Why are you doing this?

“Can you give her something, Doc?”

“I sure can.”

Dr. Primack hurried over to his hand case, which was sitting on the dresser.

She heard the words in her head as clearly as she used to speak them, but the room resonated with only an ugly, tongueless noise.

“Listen,” the sheriff said, and he placed his hand on her shoulder. “Dr. Primack has also divulged to me your mental condition.”

Bottles clinked in Primack’s hand case.

“You’re going to recover in Durango.”

The doctor was coming back now.

“I have a connection with the asylum in Pueblo.”

Primack unscrewed the cap, tilting the bottle’s open mouth onto a white cloth.

“I’m certain I can get you admitted. They’ll help you there, Miss Hartman. Make the life God has seen fit to afflict you with as dignified and comfortable as can be hoped for.”

Look in his notebook. For Chrissakes.

“You’re lucky to have fallen under the care of Primack.”

She screamed and writhed, but the restraints held.

“Lana.” The doctor spoke softly into her ear. “I want you to know I’m waiving my fee for the amputations. Now don’t fight it.”

The ether-soaked cloth descended toward her face.

“Just close your eyes and take a long, deep breath.”

2009

EIGHTY-SIX

The lobby of the Grand Imperial stood accented by objects, the assemblage of which felt more like a cliché than a throwback to Silverton’s boom years—burgundy floral-print wallpaper, tin ceiling, chandelier, a stodgy black safe near the front desk, a pair of wall clocks, a grand piano, a sculpture of four grinning outlaws on horseback firing their revolvers into the air, and a large-scale portrait of a whore hanging over one of two high-backed leather sofas that comprised the sitting area.

Abigail reached the front desk.

“I need help. Call the police.”

“There’s no police here.”

“What?”

“Just a sheriff.”

“Give me the phone.”

“Are you a guest with us?”

“Are you joking—”

“The courtesy phone is only for guests of the GI.”

Abigail placed the young woman at sixteen or seventeen. She sat behind an expansive antique desk, a horror novel clutched in her left hand. She was sucking a green lollipop that wafted a bizarrely scented amalgamation of apples and whiskey.

Abigail read the clerk’s name tag. “Listen, Tracy. A man has chased me out of the mountains, and he’s coming to kill me. Think we could make an exception tonight?”

The desk clerk laid the paperback down beside a keyboard and withdrew the lollipop from green-ringed lips, making eye contact with Abigail for the first time.

“Fine.”

There was the screech of brakes, and, glancing in the mirror behind the desk, Abigail caught the reflection of the large front window that looked out onto Greene Street, saw an old beater of a Bronco slide into the Suburban’s rear bumper—a slight collision that barely shook the vehicle.

“Is that him?” the clerk asked.

“Does the sheriff live in town?”

“Yeah, end of Fourteenth.”

“Which way is that?”

A door slammed.

“Two blocks north.”

Boots clomped on the sidewalk.

“Tracy, get down behind the desk and keep quiet.”

Quinn stepped under the awning, and as he opened the door and started into the foyer, Abigail bolted up a carpeted staircase under a sign that read TO THE ROOMS.