Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull (Bloodsong Series) (12 page)

Leroy was almost to the far gate when a Sheriff’s black and white pulled in from the other side and blocked the exit. He stopped, weaving from exhaustion and grief. Two deputies got out and approached Leroy, hands on their weapons.

“You need to give up your father, Mr. Watches. He needs medical attention. Sir, can you hear me?” Leroy stared straight ahead, swaying.

One deputy flashed a look at the other. “Is he on something? Could all that cow shit make him sick or something?”

 I dunno. I never saw anything like this.” He gestured at Leroy, who was shifting from one foot to the other. “Look at him.”

“We need backup.”

“We have an individual behaving bizarrely,” the cop said into his microphone, “He’s carrying an injured man and isn’t responding. He’s staggering. He’s covered with matter from that exploded bull.”

Leroy was barely staying on his feet. His dad wasn’t that much smaller than him. He dropped to one knee, and then rose unsteadily. He looked behind him at the ambulance. The two drivers were conversing heatedly, taking into a microphone. He saw them pointing a camera at him. He kept going.

The ambulance passed him. The vehicle stopped maybe fifteen feet in front of him. Leroy kept going, weaving even more dramatically.

“OK. Now!”

The paramedics threw the ambulance doors open and jumped out, bearing a gurney for his father. One carried an elephant-sized syringe. More men converged on him.

“OK, buddy. Nice and easy. Let him go. Your father needs treatment.  We’re going to the hospital.”

“And we’re going to get you fixed up.” He injected Leroy in the neck.

Leroy did not know how they got the tranquilizer in him, only that his powers were flaming. He knew that the white man’s medicine would kill his father and that he could save him, given a bit of time. His soul burst through the tranquilizer the instant they were inside the ambulance. Leroy stood up, easily balancing himself in the moving vehicle.

The paramedics looked at him with terror. “Hey, stay calm, man.” The other guy scrambled for another syringe.

Leroy scanned the interior of the vehicle. This was as much quiet as he was going to get for a while. He grabbed the paramedics by the throats.

“You’re going to take a nap,” he said. They fell onto the side benches, out cold.

Leroy closed his eyes, balancing against his father’s gurney. He went into a healing trance at once. Placing one hand on his father’s chest above his heart and the other on his abdomen, Leroy explored his father’s injuries. He had so many that Leroy could hardly count them. His breastbone was fractured. The collarbone on one side was broken; so many ribs were busted that he could only guess the number. His spine was bruised; the big bone on the top of one leg broken. His nose. Cheekbone. His skull wasn’t cracked, but his brain had been banged around inside it.

And then the soft tissue injuries revealed themselves. Collapsed lung. Leroy gave up exploring and started healing. As he healed, his face took on a blissful expression. The healer that he was shone. He moved his hands, running them over his father, and occasionally reaching inside his body to fix something that spiritual power alone wouldn’t heal. But it wasn’t enough. He was losing; death was taking he father faster than he could heal him.

Leroy’s healing powers had manifested when he was very young, the legacy of his mother and grandfather. They were more powerful than he was. He needed a burst of their power, now.

“Oh, mama, it’s Leroy. I need your help. Please help me.” Leroy turned his soul toward his grandpa, “Grandpa, I need you. My dad’s gonna die if I don’t get help. I know you and he don’t get along much, but he’s been good to me. Please help him.”

Leroy didn’t know what happened. He was overtaken and his soul enlarged. The blue light that had come out of his eyes covered him like a luminous blanket. It covered all of him, ran down his hands and into his daddy and shone out of him, too. It covered the paramedics. Leroy smiled. Done with healing his father’s injuries, Leroy went to work on his papa’s arthritis. He’d get rid of it for good. Finally, he sat back.

His daddy was healed, asleep on the gurney. He’d let him sleep for a while, then they could get in their camper and head on home.  Leroy sagged. Healing could be exhausting; he was already worn out from the rodeo.

Leroy partially roused the paramedics. “Everything’s fine. My father’s fine. You don’t have to do anything but clean him off,” Leroy instructed their deepest minds. “Keep those doctors away. They’ll kill him.”

They nodded, entranced.

“Remember, no doctors. Wake up now!” He snapped his fingers.

The rear doors of the van flew open. A half dozen guys in green coats grabbed his daddy and hauled him away.

“Stop! He doesn’t need anything.” They rolled his pop down the hall. “Where are you taking him?” Leroy wailed, running after the gurney. A bunch of orderlies turned him back at swinging doors.

“The surgeon will talk to you when he’s done.”

“He doesn't need surgery …” It was no use. A half-dozen burly male nurses got between him and the door cordoning off the operating rooms.

“Come on, buddy. You don’t have to run off with him again. We got him.”

Were they going to cut his daddy to pieces trying to find something wrong with him?
Nothing
was wrong with him. Leroy could have howled. For a moment, he considered blowing up the men blocking his way. He decided that wasn’t smart and his powers probably wouldn’t work, anyway.

A nurse walked up to the men, waving her hand to shoo them off. “This nice young man isn’t going to do anything. He’s going to sit here and wait for his father.” The nurses walked away.

She said kindly, “They’re going to take good care of your dad, son. Your father will be fine. The surgeons will fix him. You wait here.” She took him to the surgical waiting room.

The room seemed vast, with shiny metal chairs with turquoise seats arranged in rows. Leroy was still splattered with dead bull an inch thick. He looked like he belonged in the surgery instead of the waiting room.

A child sitting with her mother looked at him with bug eyes. She clung to her mom. Her eyes grew misty, then shut tight. Then the girl let loose like a fire engine, filling the room with terror. Several other children saw Leroy and started wailing.

A new nurse came over. “Sir, you’re scaring the children. You need to leave or get cleaned off.”

“I don’t have any other clothes. My daddy …” He waved toward the surgery.

“Come with me.”

She took him to a shower room. “This is where the doctors clean up. Sneak in there and take a shower. Clean scrubs are in the in cubbies along the wall.”

He went back into the waiting room wearing green surgical scrubs, a matching hat tied on his head, and a mask over his face. Hopefully that would be enough camouflage. He looked up at the TV.

The bedlam at the Thomas & Mack was raging, then replays of him with blue beams coming out of his eyes. The media caught it all. Naked people were streaking through the parking lot. The stations filmed them, but placed opaque little squares where they needed to. Announcers whose faces could have been made of plastic discussed Leroy’s crimes. “The authorities are searching for terrorist ties and radical associations.”

13

MY GOD, IT’S NILES SWANNE

“Wake up! I am FBI special agent Austin Zemsky. You are under arrest.”

Leroy jerked awake in the waiting room. The sky outside was navy blue. Guys in black uniforms were all over. Someone was waving a badge under his nose.

“You’re under arrest for terrorism and treason––and attempted murder …”

The guy kept going on about things he supposedly had done. He had it all wrong.

“Everything you say can and will be used against you … You have the right to an attorney … Do you understand your rights?”

“Where’s my daddy?”

“Who’s your daddy? Oh, yes, the rodeo clown. I don’t know where he is.” Austin’s demeanor said that he thought Leroy Sr. was probably dead.

“Can you have someone check and see how he is?”

“That can be used against you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Austin. We all saw what happened to his daddy. Somebody go find out how the man is!” Leroy looked at the stranger gratefully. “I’m Sheriff Rodriquez.” The Sheriff gazed at him for a long moment, first looking angry, then softening his gaze. “You sure are a good bulldogger. And your tie-down roping isn’t bad either.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The sheriff shook his head as though trying to knock bull remnants off of it. “This sure has been one hell of a fucked up day,” the sheriff burst out with. “I’ve been thinking about doing things I never would have thought in my life … Sorry, son. It’s just a fucked up day.”

“Yes, sir, it certainly has been a …” Leroy never swore, but his shoulders dropped and his eyes filled. “I sure wish I knew how my daddy is.”’

“He’s fine,” a nurse ran in after being in some subterranean part of the hospital. “He came out of surgery fine.”

“He didn’t
need
surgery. You didn’t need to cut on him.”

She looked at Leroy sternly. “Listen young man, if a
surgeon
says you need surgery, you need surgery.”

A tense and crabby-looking man dressed in scrubs entered the waiting room. He nodded at Zemsky and approached Leroy. “Your father’s fine. He didn’t need surgery. I sure as hell would like to know why not, because I saw those rodeo tapes, and he should be dead. We’re keeping him overnight to see if we can figure out why he’s alive.” The doctor seemed to be extremely annoyed that Leroy Sr. had lived. “It doesn’t make sense. What happened in that ambulance? How did you heal him? And what were the blue beams?”

Zemsky jumped forward. “That is classified information, doctor. Give your report regarding the injured bullfighter to …” Zemsky looked around and focused on a sheriff’s deputy, “him.”

The surgeon stood with a hauteur only possessed by heads of major states. “I’ve given my report to my patient’s son. To give it to anyone else is a breach of professional practice and the law.”

“Listen you, a classified situation is more important than professional practice
or
the law.”

The doctor sniffed and tossed his head, walking away.

“You,” Zemsky pointed at the deputy, “arrest that surgeon.”

Leroy wondered if he should ask for an attorney. The creepy guy with the badge said he could have one. He said he was FBI. Was that worse than a cop? Leroy recalled reading about the FBI keeping people in jail forever with no trials. He opened his mouth to ask for an attorney, when …

“You stinking, cowardly, scum-bag. You …” A very beautiful woman with flowing blond hair walked in, screaming at the weird guy with the badge. She had on a shiny red jumpsuit cut very low in front. Leroy’s eyes opened wide. Wow.

“What are you talking about, Sylvia?”

“You don’t know, do you, you shit head?”

A tall, equally beautiful man followed her, looking concerned. He also had long blond hair.

“Niles noticed right away. What’s missing from this happy family picture?”

The weird guy with the badge seemed bewildered.

“The
children
, Austin. Where are Jimmy and Hannah? They’re lost. No one knows where they are.”

Zemsky’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, Sylvia, I forgot.”

“You stinking!” She threw herself at her husband, hitting and clawing him. “You pompous, self-absorbed, selfish ASSHOLE! Where are my children?”

“I don’t know, Sylvia. They were in the Thomas & Mack …”

“Can’t I get my hair done without you losing our
children
?”

“Oh, please, Sylvia  …”

“Anyone who can leave his children covered with blood and bull shit shouldn’t have children. You and I are done.” She turned to the tall, good-looking man. “Niles, what should we do?”

“Sylvia, we will find them. If we have to go door to door over all of Las Vegas, we’ll find them.”

 A woman with tousled hair approached them. She was dressed in clothes so nondescript that no cleaning lady would wear them “I’m Renee Wicks, ATF.” She held out her badge. “I witnessed the child abandonment. Those children were terrified.” She glared at Austin as only a member of the ATF can glare at her counterpart in the FBI. “He walked off and left those kids smeared with blood and bullshit and never looked back. The boy was injured.”

“Jimmy was hurt? Oh, my God! Where are they?” Sylvia looked a microsecond away from tears. “Oh, please …”

“Ma’am, I’ve got them right here. They never left my side.”

The kids ran in. They were clean and dressed in new clothes.  “Mommy! Mommy! Daddy
left
us. There was blood everywhere. We were scared,” Hannah cried.

“I got hurt, mom. A bone hit my arm. I had
stitches.”
Jimmy held out his bandaged arm.

“
Mommy!” Hannah and Jimmy broke down, clawing at their mother and sobbing. She dropped to her knees and hugged them. Niles put his arms around all of them.