Faith Without Works

“Follow me.”

Willard said it like he was suggesting lunch instead of escaping a shooting, a wounded dog, and a cult.

Nobody argued.

Bodhi already had Sasha in his arms.

Her head rested against his chest. Her black coat shone wet beneath Kristy Lee’s hand where she kept pressure against the wound.

Too much blood.

Any blood was too much.

The crowd around Finch’s had dissolved into panic.

People ran in every direction. Children cried. Vendors abandoned booths. Festival officers fought against the tide while one of them kept Wade facedown on the pavement.

Real police.

Finally.

I started toward them.

“We need help.”

“Ambulance won’t take a dog,” Kristy Lee said.

“Then we tell the police where we’re going.”

Gene looked past me.

“We don’t have time for them to figure out which people wearing costumes are part of the festival and which ones belong to the murder cult.”

The black robes had started moving.

Not running.

Not yet.

They didn’t have to.

They were spreading through the crowd, quietly cutting off streets and sidewalks while frightened people flowed around them.

One looked directly at me.

Then at Sasha.

His hand disappeared beneath his robe.

“Move,” Kristy Lee said.

I hated it.

Running from legitimate police went against every instinct I had.

Then Sasha whimpered.

That decided it.

Willard walked directly into the fleeing crowd.

The rest of us followed.

He led.

Gene watched our flanks.

Kristy Lee kept her pistol concealed beneath her jacket and one hand pressed against Sasha’s shoulder.

Bodhi carried her.

Rachel stayed close to him.

And I cleared a path.

We made it twenty yards before Bodhi stumbled.

Not because he was weak.

Because carrying eighty pounds of frightened, bleeding dog through a stampede wasn’t something human beings were designed to do.

Kristy Lee spotted an abandoned craft booth and grabbed a folded quilt from beneath the table.

“Set her down.”

Bodhi hesitated.

“We need to stop the bouncing,” she said. “Blanket stretcher. Keep her level.”

We lowered Sasha onto the quilt.

She looked up at us.

Confused.

Trusting.

Her tail moved once.

That nearly broke me.

Kristy Lee folded part of the quilt around her and replaced the blood-soaked dressing with fresh gauze from her trauma pouch.

“Pressure stays here,” she said. “Don’t let her shoulder roll.”

Bodhi grabbed the corners near Sasha’s head.

I took the other end.

We lifted together.

“Easy, girl,” Bodhi whispered.

Willard pointed toward an alley beside an antique store.

“This way.”

A festival officer saw us.

“You people! Stop right there!”

I turned my head without slowing.

“Our dog’s been shot. We’re taking her to the veterinarian.”

“I said stop!”

Behind him, one of the robed figures pushed through the crowd.

The officer turned.

“Sir, let me see your hands.”

The figure kept coming.

The officer reached for his weapon.

Gene shoved my shoulder.

“Dan.”

I kept moving.

We weren’t fugitives.

We weren’t running from justice.

We were taking Sasha somewhere an ambulance wouldn’t.

I repeated that to myself until it almost sounded true.

Willard reached an iron gate blocking the alley.

A heavy chain wrapped through the bars.

Padlock.

No exit.

The Order was closing behind us.

“Willard,” Gene warned.

Willard reached into his coat pocket.

His hand came out holding a small brass key.

He slid it into the padlock.

Click.

The chain dropped.

Gene stared at him.

“How did you know that was the right key?”

“I didn’t.”

Willard pushed the gate open.

We carried Sasha through.

Kristy Lee followed, then pulled the gate closed behind her.

Willard locked it again.

The first robed figure reached the bars seconds later.

He grabbed them and shook hard.

Willard looked at the key.

Frowned.

Then threw it onto the pavement.

“You don’t need that anymore?” I asked.

“Probably not.”

A collection of keys hanging from his belt jingled as he walked away.

Brass.

Steel.

Silver.

One shaped like a fish. Another with a red glass handle. One looked old enough to have opened a castle.

“What about those?”

“Those are different.”

“How?”

“I like them.”

Behind us, one of the Order members started climbing the gate.

Willard adjusted his hat.

“We should probably go.”

The alley emptied onto a service lane behind an old department store.

A sign hung on the back door.

CLOSED FOR DECADENCE DAY.

Willard reached into his pocket again.

Another key.

This one long and narrow.

“Please tell me this veterinarian is close,” Bodhi said.

“Other side of the block.”

Willard unlocked the door.

I looked at him.

“This is breaking and entering.”

“No,” Willard said. “Breaking involves damage.”

“That isn’t how the law works.”

“Law gets overly particular.”

We carried Sasha inside.

The store was dark except for red EXIT signs and sunlight bleeding through the front windows.

Mannequins stood frozen among racks of clothing.

The place smelled like dust, perfume, and old carpet.

Our footsteps echoed.

So did the ones behind us.

“They’re inside,” Kristy Lee said.

Gene grabbed a rolling clothing rack and shoved it across the stockroom door.

It struck the wall just as somebody hit the other side.

The door jumped in its frame.

Then jumped again.

“Won’t hold long,” Gene said.

Willard kept walking.

Of course he did.

Rachel moved beside Bodhi without breathing hard.

Without sweating.

Without looking frightened.

An hour ago, she’d barely been able to stand.

Now she looked stronger with every scream outside.

Every siren.

Every pounding fist against the door behind us.

She looked across the darkened store and smiled.

Not at Bodhi.

Not at Sasha.

At all of it.

Then she noticed me watching.

The smile disappeared.

Concern replaced it.

A little too late.

The thought tried to come together again.

Kristy Lee looked over her shoulder.

“Dan, eyes up.”

Right.

Sasha first.

Answers later.

A robed figure stepped from between two clothing racks.

He must have entered through the front.

Black mask.

Black gloves.

Plastic restraints looped through his belt.

He raised a stun gun.

“Put the animal down.”

Bodhi tightened his grip on the quilt.

Bad choice of words.

The man fired.

Kristy Lee moved faster.

She knocked the wires aside with her jacket, stepped inside his reach, and drove the heel of her hand beneath his chin.

His head snapped back.

She caught his wrist.

Turned.

The stun gun dropped.

Gene kicked it beneath a display table.

The man lunged again.

I still had both hands wrapped around the corners of Sasha’s stretcher.

So I did what defensive linemen have done since the invention of football.

I lowered my shoulder.

Three steps.

Plant.

Drive.

The hit lifted him off his feet and carried him backward through a rack of bathrobes.

Metal collapsed.

Hangers flew.

The Order member disappeared beneath enough luxury sleepwear to begin a very comfortable new life.

Bodhi stared at me.

“Remind me not to make you angry.”

“Everybody says that.”

Another crash came from the stockroom.

The blocked door was giving way.

Willard had already reached the far exit.

Locked.

Naturally.

His hand went into his pocket.

A small key appeared.

Blue metal this time.

He looked at it approvingly.

“That one’s nice.”

“Open the door,” Gene said.

Willard did.

Then slipped the key onto the chain at his belt.

We spilled into another alley.

Sirens echoed between the buildings.

No helicopters.

No private armies firing from rooftops.

Just a small town coming apart one block at a time.

Two sheriff’s cruisers sped through the intersection ahead of us.

We waited until they passed.

Then crossed.

The veterinary clinic stood halfway down the next block.

Small brick building.

White sign.

LIBERTY CROSSING VETERINARY SERVICES.

A paper notice had been taped beneath it.

CLOSED DURING DECADENCE DAY

EMERGENCY NUMBER LISTED BELOW

Willard went to the side door.

Locked.

He reached into his pocket.

Gene shook his head.

“I’m never going to get used to that.”

“You don’t have to.”

Willard pulled out the key.

“Oh,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve seen this one before.”

He unlocked the door.

An alarm chimed softly as we entered.

Felicia sat behind the reception desk in blue scrubs, glasses low on her nose, a medical chart open in front of her.

A monitor beside the desk showed a sleeping dog in one of the recovery kennels.

She looked up.

Blink.

Blink again.

“Willard?”

Willard removed his hat.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

Felicia looked at the key in his hand.

“You know you’re supposed to knock.”

Then she saw Sasha.

Everything changed.

She was out of the chair before Willard could answer.

“What happened?”

“Gunshot,” Kristy Lee said. “Through-and-through. High shoulder. Bleeding controlled. Breathing stayed steady during transport.”

Felicia pointed toward the back.

“Treatment room. Now.”

Whatever reunion she’d imagined having with Willard disappeared beneath professional instinct.

We moved.

She shoved open a set of double doors and cleared a stainless-steel table with one sweep of her arm.

“Put the blanket on the table. Don’t lift her out of it.”

Bodhi and I lowered Sasha together.

Felicia snapped on gloves.

“Who owns her?”

“I do,” Bodhi said immediately.

“Name?”

“Sasha.”

Felicia leaned close to Sasha’s face.

“Sasha, I’m going to help you, okay?”

Sasha looked at her.

Her tail tapped once against the table.

Felicia checked her gums.

Then her eyes.

Then pressed a stethoscope against her chest.

She counted breaths while her fingers found the pulse inside Sasha’s rear leg.

“Fast heart rate. Gums are still pink. Breath sounds are clear.”

Bodhi swallowed.

“That’s good?”

“It’s better than the alternative.”

She carefully examined both sides of the shoulder.

Entry wound.

Exit wound.

A matching pair of horrors.

“The bullet passed through,” I said.

“It appears that way.”

“So she’ll be okay?”

Felicia looked at me.

Not unkindly.

Not reassuringly either.

“I need X-rays. I need to make sure it didn’t fracture the shoulder or clip the chest. She’s lost blood, she’s in pain, and gunshot wounds carry contamination deep into the tissue.”

She reached for a soft muzzle.

Bodhi stiffened.

“She won’t bite.”

“I believe you,” Felicia said. “Pain changes good dogs. This keeps her safe and keeps my hands attached.”

Bodhi nodded reluctantly.

Sasha looked personally offended when Felicia secured it.

That was the most encouraging thing I’d seen all day.

Felicia pointed at Bodhi.

“Stay near her head. Let her hear your voice.”

Then she looked at the rest of us.

“Everybody else out.”

“I can help,” Willard offered.

“No.”

“Fair.”

“Kristy Lee has medical training,” I said.

Felicia looked at her.

“Military?”

Kristy Lee nodded.

“Stay. The rest of you give me room.”

Gene backed into the hallway.

Willard followed.

Rachel was already there.

She stood beside the door, watching Felicia shave a patch of fur from Sasha’s front leg and place an IV catheter.

Not frightened.

Not exhausted.

Interested.

Like this was one more scene in a show only she understood.

Sirens grew louder outside.

The police were coming.

The Order probably wasn’t far behind them.

None of it mattered.

Not right then.

Sasha lay on a steel table with Bodhi whispering into her ear while clear fluid moved down a plastic line and into her leg.

Felicia opened a drawer.

Pulled out bandages.

Saline.

Medication.

Her hands never stopped.

Neither did Bodhi’s voice.

“You’re okay, girl.”

Sasha’s eyes stayed on him.

“That’s my princess.”

Her tail moved again.

Weak.

Still there.

Felicia glanced toward the hallway.

Then at Bodhi.

Then at me.

“Anybody here the praying kind?”

Nobody answered immediately.

Then I heard my own voice.

“I am.”

Felicia nodded without looking up.

“Then you’d better get to praying.”

I looked through the open doorway.

At Sasha.

At the blood staining the blanket beneath her.

At Bodhi standing near her head, whispering words only she could hear.

I knew how to pray in front of people.

I’d done it beneath stage lights. In stadiums. At men’s conferences and charity dinners. I knew when to lower my voice. When to pause. How to land on amen so the room knew it was time to clap.

This wasn’t that kind of prayer.

This one didn’t have an audience I wanted.

No applause waiting at the end.

Just a good dog bleeding on a steel table.

Gene’s hand found mine.

Willard took his.

Rachel completed the circle.

I bowed my head.

The words still didn’t come easily.

Mama always said God cared more about honesty than presentation.

So I went with honesty.

Please.

Please let her be okay.

Please let her stay.

Please don’t take one more thing away from people I care about.

My throat tightened.

I don’t know what You want from me.

I don’t know why any of this is happening.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

I opened my eyes and looked at Sasha.

But she’s good.

Better than most people.

Please save this dog.

No thunder.

No light pouring through the ceiling.

No voice telling me everything would be all right.

Felicia kept working.

She clipped fur away from the wounds. Cleaned the blood. Connected fluids to the catheter in Sasha’s leg.

Kristy Lee handed her whatever she asked for before she had to ask twice.

That was it.

Medicine.

Pressure.

Steady hands.

People doing the work in front of them.

Then another thought surfaced.

Uninvited.

Kristy Lee on my couch.

Blue lips.

Shallow breaths.

Rachel’s hand against her forehead.

Rachel after the bank.

Stronger.

Brighter.

The manager clutching his chest while panic spread through the lobby.

Rachel at Finch’s.

Watching the crowd run.

Watching people scream.

Looking better with every frightened face.

Then Sasha had been shot.

I’d begged Rachel to heal her.

And Rachel couldn’t.

Because this wasn’t like Kristy Lee.

This wound hadn’t come from Rachel.

The thought hit me hard enough to steal my breath.

Maybe Rachel hadn’t healed Kristy Lee.

Maybe she had only stopped hurting her.

I raised my head.

Rachel was watching me.

The strength she’d carried through the festival was gone.

Her shoulders sagged. Her face had gone pale again. Standing upright looked painful.

Like the quiet inside the clinic was draining her.

Or like she wanted me to believe it was.

Our eyes met.

For one strange second, the mask slipped.

Not enough for me to see what was beneath it.

Just enough for me to know there was one.

Then Rachel swayed.

Willard caught her arm.

“You okay?”

She nodded weakly.

“I’m just tired.”

Of course she was.

She’d been through everything the rest of us had.

More, probably.

Hadn’t she?

The thought loosened.

But it didn’t disappear.

Felicia sedated Sasha long enough to take images.

Ten minutes became twenty.

Twenty became forty.

Nobody sat.

Nobody talked much.

Bodhi paced the hallway with blood drying across the front of his shirt. Gene leaned against the wall beside him, close enough to catch him if the waiting became too much.

Kristy Lee watched the windows.

Willard watched Felicia.

Rachel sat alone beneath a framed photograph of a golden retriever wearing a birthday hat.

I watched everybody.

Mostly, I watched her.

Finally the treatment-room door opened.

Felicia stepped into the hallway and pulled off her gloves.

Bodhi reached her first.

“Well?”

Felicia exhaled.

Then smiled.

“She’s going to make it.”

Bodhi stared at her.

“What?”

“The bullet passed through the muscle high in her shoulder. It missed the joint, the bone, the major blood vessels, and her chest.”

Relief changed his entire face.

“She’s okay?”

“She isn’t okay tonight,” Felicia said. “She’s been shot. She’ll need antibiotics, pain medication, wound care, and a lot of rest.”

Bodhi nodded at every word.

“But she’ll recover?”

“She should make a full recovery.”

Bodhi laughed.

One broken sound.

Then another.

Gene put both hands over his face.

Kristy Lee closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

My knees almost gave out.

Willard wrapped Felicia in his arms.

“You continue to be my favorite veterinarian.”

“I’m the only veterinarian you know.”

“Still counts.”

He kissed her.

Quick.

Grateful.

The kind of kiss built from years of history and too many unfinished conversations.

Then Bodhi was through the treatment-room door.

The rest of us followed more slowly.

Sasha lay beneath a clean blanket with a bandage wrapped around her shoulder and an IV line running into her leg.

Her eyes opened when Bodhi approached.

“Hey, Princess.”

Her tail thumped weakly against the table.

Once.

Then again.

I rested my hand against her head.

“You’re ridiculous.”

Her tail moved a third time.

Not healed.

Not yet.

But alive.

Still here.