Chapter 12

As Jesse walked up to the hospital doors, he saw the sheriff's car pulling away, and wondered in alarm if that officer had already been there talking to Steve. He hurried into the building, mentally cursing the miserable construction detour that had gotten him lost and delayed his return; he had wanted to be there when Steve came around to full consciousness, wanted to be the one to break it to him that Mark had been arrested for the shooting. From the little he had seen of the sheriff, he was sure the man would have broken the news in the worst possible way.

Jesse went up to Steve's room, pausing only to speak to the nurse on duty to check on his friend's status. A few sentences were all it took to confirm his fears; the sheriff had indeed already spoken to Steve, who had been obviously agitated by the interview, although he had adamantly refused the sedative they had wanted to administer after the sheriff's departure. Jesse entered the room quietly, casting a practiced eye of assessment over the patient as he lay with eyes closed, his face pale and strained.

As Jesse approached the bed, Steve's eyes opened, and he turned to see who was there.

"Hey there," Jesse said. "How are you feeling?"

"Not very good," Steve replied grimly. "Tell me you've seen my dad."

"I just came from talking with him," Jesse assured him. "I told him you're going to be fine."

Steve felt some of the tension that gripped him dissipate as his most immediate concern was allayed. At least his father knew he was alive and going to be all right.

"How's he holding up, Jess?" Steve asked, the ordeal his father was undergoing still foremost in his mind.

"Hopefully better now that he knows you're going to be okay," Jesse replied, not wanting Steve to know how concerned he was about Mark. He sat on the edge of the bed, gazing soberly at his friend.

"Steve, what happened?" he asked. "How on earth did Mark end up shooting you?"

"I wish I knew," Steve replied in an agony of frustration. "I can't seem to remember anything about it! All I remember is getting back from testifying at Tremelan's trial; everything after that is a blank."

"Take it easy," Jesse soothed, trying to ease his friend's obvious anxiety, his mind busily trying to grasp the medical implications of Steve's statement, as well as the probable consequences for Mark. "What did Dr. Erickson say?"

"He said something about concussion or traumatic shock or something," Steve muttered.

Jesse nodded. "That makes sense. He didn't find anything physically wrong, then; that means you have a good chance of recovering your memory."

"In the meantime, that idiot sheriff has my father under arrest for attempted murder!" Steve said angrily. He looked up at Jesse, his anxiety for his father fairly radiating from him. "Jesse, what did Dad tell you? What did he say happened?"

"What did Consten tell you?" Jesse asked.

"All he said was that Dad admitted to shooting me but said he was drugged - a claim the sheriff apparently didn't believe," Steve replied bitterly. "He's obviously made up his mind and isn't interested in any further information. Not that I could give him any," he added, grimacing in self- disgust and frustration. He looked back at Jesse, his expression hardening. "Tell me everything Dad said; does he know who drugged him? How did he end up with Walter's gun? Does he." Steve hesitated almost imperceptibly before continuing, "Does he actually remember shooting me?"

Jesse mentally uttered a few choice epithets directed at the sheriff, but focussed on giving Steve the information he needed, even though he knew his friend was going to hate hearing it as much as he hated having to tell him. As concisely as he could, he told Steve what Mark had told him.

"While you were gone, Mark went fishing. When he came back to the cabin, there was a boy in there going through your things. He had a gun and pointed it at Mark when he entered. Don't worry - he didn't hurt him," he quickly added, as he felt Steve shift uneasily on the bed. He laughed wryly. "Mark, being Mark, ignored the gun, fixed him a meal, extracted his life story, and eventually got the kid to give him the gun. He was pretty hazy about what happened after that, but he's convinced he was drugged," Jesse continued, keeping a watchful eye on Steve to gauge his reaction to all this. "He says he remembers holding the gun, and wandering around the woods, and he remembers you being there, but he's not very clear on what exactly happened."

"Maybe that's because he wasn't the one who shot me," suggested Steve, with a flicker of hope. "If he doesn't remember actually firing the gun.."

Reluctantly, Jesse interrupted. "He does remember firing the gun." He hated to extinguish that faint hope, but he figured it was better to get it all laid out up front so they could figure out what to do. "And they found cordite on his hands. What he doesn't remember is what happened after that. The next thing he remembers is waking up down by the lake, confused and sick, with blood on his jacket." Jesse hesitated for a moment. "He said he had a vague image of you being with him, and he was afraid that you were hurt, so he was heading back to look for you when the sheriff's men found him and arrested him."

Steve turned his face away for a moment, trying to hide his reaction to the sudden, poignant image that rose in his mind of his father seeing himself stained with his son's blood, frantic to ascertain Steve's fate, callously hauled away as criminally responsible. He'd seen enough of Sheriff Consten to know that he probably hadn't wasted any compassion on his assumed culprit, possibly hadn't even bothered to tell him that his son was still alive. He felt a hot spurt of anger and a fierce determination to do whatever it took to free his father. He turned back to his friend, his mind searching for a way to prove his father's story.

"What about the drugs?" he asked Jesse. "Consten said they didn't find any in Dad's blood."

Jesse looked disgusted. "From what I can make out," he said, "they didn't even bother to draw his blood until several hours later, by which time a lot of drugs wouldn't leave any trace. And they didn't send him to the hospital to be checked or run a urinalysis which might still have picked up something."

"And nobody seriously checked out his story about the kid he found in the cabin." It was more a disgusted statement than a question. Steve's brow furrowed as he considered the little information he had. "There's got to be something that can confirm Dad's story," he said in frustration. "Why don't you go up to the cabin, see if there's any sign of food or drink that might have been drugged, any sign that the boy was there. Didn't Dad tell you the kid's name? Or anything else about him?"

Jesse hesitated, having a hard time meeting Steve's eyes. This was the part he really hated to tell his friend. Steve noticed the hesitation, and he felt his stomach tightening. "Jesse?" he prodded, anxiety sharpening his voice.

"Well, Mark hasn't actually been real talkative about the whole thing," Jesse said with obvious reluctance.

Steve's frown deepened. "What do you mean he's not been 'real talkative'? We need to know everything he can tell us in order to clear him."

Jesse took a deep breath and bit the bullet. "I don't think he's too interested in being cleared."

Steve felt a chill steal over him as the implication of what Jesse was saying dawned on him. "You said you told him that I'm going to be okay."

"I did," Jesse confirmed. "And I'm hoping that when he's had a chance to let that sink in, that it'll help." He couldn't quite put enough conviction in his voice, though, and knew that Steve had picked up that hint of doubt. "Look, Steve," he continued, seeing the toll the emotional strain was taking on his still seriously weakened friend, "I don't have to tell you how severe an emotional trauma it's been to your dad to know that he almost killed you. Between that and whatever side effects this unknown drug might have, it's not surprising he's not thinking very clearly right now. Up 'til now, the only thing he's cared about was finding out if you were going to make it. Now that he knows you're going to be all right, hopefully he'll start to come around again. In the meantime, it's important that you get some rest; you're still not completely out of the woods, you know." He saw Steve open his mouth to interject, and overrode him before he could speak. "If you start pushing yourself too hard too soon, you could rupture those stitches and bleed to death or risk a recurrence of infection; and I don't think Mark could handle that right now."

Steve swallowed his instinctive protest about his inability to rest while his father was in prison. As bitter as the knowledge was, he knew that Jesse was right. The best thing he could do for his father right now was to get himself well enough to get out of this hospital as soon as possible. In the meantime, however.

"Jesse, see if you can find out anything about this kid. We need to find him and make him tell the sheriff what happened."

"The sheriff's already looked for him," Jesse said, somewhat doubtfully. "He says there are no local boys by that name."

"The sheriff's an idiot," Steve retorted. "There can't be many schools around here. Try to find a yearbook for the local middle and high schools, and let Dad look at them. Hopefully, he can identify him."

"I will, Steve," Jesse assured him.

"Talk to Dad again," Steve urged him. "Get him to give you some more details. He's got to understand that this isn't his fault. Tell him it's going to be okay. Tell him." His voice petered out as he searched for the nonexistent phrases that could ease his father's pain.

Jesse smiled wryly at him. "You know, I just had a similar conversation, or lack of one, with your dad. He couldn't find the words he wanted either. But I think you know what he wanted me to tell you. And I'm sure he'll know what you mean too." He reached out and placed a hand lightly on his friend's arm. "Get some sleep, Steve," he said. "I'll talk to Mark and start looking for this kid."

"Thanks, Jess," Steve said, grateful for his friend's help and support, reluctantly trying to resign himself to his enforced inactivity. Jesse smiled at him understandingly and left.