I tried propping Smith up, having him lean on me but walk on his own power toward the truck, but it didn't work and he took me down with him. We landed all jumbled up together, my arm pinned under his ass, his left leg overtop of my right. It felt nice to be close to Smith, except it was alarming how light he felt, how loose and floppy his limbs were, the way the blood had started to soak into his wingtips. I am on the small side of average for a woman, but farm life has made it so that I can lift improbable things. I picked Smith up over my shoulders and carried him. He had parked me in, so I headed for his truck instead of mine. Letting him down turned out to be lots harder than picking him up. I tried to be gentle, but I stumbled when I opened the door and dropped him pretty hard into the passenger seat. He moaned some then. His keys were in his pocket, so I had to grope him some to get at them. He kept on moaning, his eyes turned up into his head like he was trying to read the fine print on his own brain.

I tried to move Jerry, too, but I had used myself all up. My arms and shoulders burned and shook. I just couldn't manage it. I propped him against a hay bale, kissed his cheek. He was still breathing.

“I'll be back, Jerry,” I whispered, letting my lips move against the softness of Jerry's ear. “I'll send Fran.”

Tears prickled the back of my eyes as I walked away from Jerry. I know I'm not the person I wish I was because even though me and Jerry had been together for a couple years, and even though he was always real nice to me and I cared about him a lot, I was happy it was Smith already in the truck.

FRAN CAME OUT TO meet us in her driveway. She had her white hair up in a bun held together by two lead pencils and was wearing a house apron that covered almost all of her, like a painting smock. Smith wasn't talking anymore, but he was bleeding a little slower than in the barn.

“Take him into the kitchen,” Fran said, glancing over each shoulder at the road. “Keep him over the linoleum. I don't want him bleeding all over my rugs.” Fran wasn't smiling but neither did she look particularly grim. It was hard to tell what she was thinking.

I laid Smith down, gentler this time, on Fran's floor. “You going to help him?” I asked.

“I'll look him over,” she said, handing me an old towel, frayed at the edges, with holes where bleach had eaten through the terry cloth.

“Okay.”

“Where's Jerry?”

“He's shot too. In the barn. Can you go?”