Rufus shook him gently. “Josh, Josh, don’t do it, keep your damn eyes open. Don’t be going to sleep on me. Josh!”
Finally Josh opened his eyes and appeared lucid. “You got to get outta here, Rufus. All the shooting, people might be coming. You got to go. Now.”
“We got to get out of here — that’s right.”
Rufus lifted Josh up a little and checked his back. The bullet hadn’t gone through; it was still in him somewhere. Rufus started cleaning both wounds.
At one point Josh gripped his arm. “Rufus, get the hell out of here,” he said again.
“You don’t go, I don’t go, so that’s what we got.”
“You still crazy.”
“Yeah, I’m crazy as hell, let’s leave it at that.” He finished cleaning and then dressing the wounds and tightly bandaged them. He gently lifted his brother, but the movement sent Josh into a coughing spasm, blood from his mouth pooling down his shirt. Rufus carried him over to the truck and laid him down next to it.
“Shit, Rufus, this thing ain’t going nowhere,” Josh said desperately, looking at the battered truck.
“I know that.” Rufus pulled a bottle of water from the camper, twisted it open and put it to Josh’s lips. “Can you hold it? You need to get some liquid in you.”
Josh answered by gripping the bottle with his good hand and drinking a little.
Rufus rose and went to the overturned Jeep. He pulled the machine gun free from where Tremaine had wedged it between the seat and the metal side of the Jeep. The man had used wire, a piece of metal and a string to rig the trigger for full automatic fire while he set up his ambush of Josh. Rufus eyed the situation for a moment and then tried to push against the hood to right the vehicle, but he couldn’t get any leverage that way, and his feet slipped in the loose gravel. He studied the situation some more. There was really only one way that he could see.
He put his back against the edge of the driver’s-side seat and then squatted down. He dug his fingers into the dirt and gravel until they got underneath the Jeep’s side, and then he clenched the metal tightly. He gave one good pull to gauge what he was up against. The Jeep was heavy, damn heavy. Thirty years ago, this wouldn’t have been that much trouble for him. As a young man he had lifted the front end of a full-sized Buick, engine and all, clean off the ground by a good three feet. But he wasn’t twenty anymore. He pulled again and he could feel the Jeep rise a little before settling back down. He pulled once more, straining and grunting, the muscles in his neck tensing hard beneath his skin.
Josh put the bottle down and even managed to lift himself partially off the ground by leaning against the shredded truck tire, as he watched what his brother was trying to do.
Rufus was tired already. His arms and legs weren’t used to this anymore, not for a long time. He had always been strong, stronger than anyone else. Now, when he really needed it, when his brother would surely die if he couldn’t turn this damn Jeep upright, would he not be strong enough?
He hunkered down again, closed his eyes and then opened them. He looked skyward where a big, black crow lazily circled. Not a care in the world, just long, unhurried brush strokes against the canvas of blue.
As sweat poured off Rufus’s face he clenched his eyes again and did what he always did when he was troubled, when he thought he wouldn’t make it. He prayed. He prayed for Josh. He asked the Lord to please grant him the strength he needed to save his brother’s life.
He gripped the sides of the Jeep once more, tensed his massive shoulders and legs. His long arms began to pull, his bent legs began to straighten. For a moment, Jeep and man were suspended in a precarious equilibrium, moving neither up nor down — the Jeep unwilling to yield and Rufus just as stubborn. But then Rufus slowly started to fall back a little as the weight was just too much for him. Rufus sensed he would not have another chance. Even as the Jeep began to win the battle, he opened his mouth and let out a terrible scream that forced tears from his eyes. As Josh looked on at the impossible thing his brother was trying to do for him, tears started to fall down his exhausted face.