XVI: Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Whatever that shot was, it's helped him walk, clearing his mind somewhat, calming his nerves, and giving him the adrenaline to press on, so Sawyer's not about to ask any questions of its composition. Chances are, whatever definition would be given, he wouldn't understand it anyway. For the span of about three seconds, he wants Jack there to tell him what he was given, and then to get lost once the definition's relayed.
There's not much of a path anymore, most of it swallowed up by the jungle, but Sawyer does his best to try and keep an eye out for tracks or whatever he can find. If I knew what I was supposed to be looking for, maybe I could find it in all these vines and ferns and trees and leaves and stuff. He should've asked Kate or Locke to give him lessons after they got back from tracking the boar. That would have certainly helped. As it is, he can do nothing but try to make out little etchings in the dirt, marks that seem as foreign to him as hieroglyphs.
He doesn't have much time to figure it out, though. He's got to keep walking, on a dogged trek that's eerily similar to the one he made mere days ago back to the camp. There's a irony there that nobody else would appreciate, I'm sure. At the rate the other fellow walks, Sawyer has started to wonder at what point they will cross the island – or, worse, come across the Others.
No whispers, though. None at all. No hint of anything wrong, except the druggie he's tagging along with. There's plenty wrong with him. He's got the gun, though, so Sawyer isn't going to comment. Well, not unless he says something to me first. His comrade apparently prefers silence, though, and for once that's fine with Sawyer. He would have said something to provoke the other fellow into conversation, but he's dealing with an unstable individual, and there's no sense in making matters worse.
"So, you never left that hatch, huh?" He can't resist. The questions keep on shooting to the surface and sooner or later, one of them has to break the water. This is the one that does, and though he tenses for a moment, he's satisfied with it. He could have asked plenty of worse things. "Just spent your days in there listenin' to hippie music and reading crappy science fiction novels. Christ!"
The other man is silent for a moment, whacking a fern out of the way. He pulls a branch aside to walk by it, and Sawyer sees it swinging back towards him. He ducks out of the way but just barely, stumbling a little. At least my brain's working, even if my reflexes still aren't, quite.
"I was told that I had to stay down there and push that damned button. And the doors said 'Quarantine.' What would you've done, then?"
Sawyer doesn't hesitate. "I would've gone right out through those doors. Bam."
"We can't all be as stupid as you, man."
"It's not stupidity," Sawyer snarls. That comment stung a bit, though he's damned if he's going to admit it. "It's calculated risks. See, bein' in my line of work, you've got to know when to take risks like that. And, hell, if you were ever gonna take a risk, that would've been the one to take."
Desmond turns back towards him. Stares, as if he can't quite comprehend why Sawyer would advocate such a position. Shakes his head slowly, lank hair flopping. "Ain't any damned way. Kelvin said there were things out there. That's why we had the defense system worked out, y'see. That way, those… things couldn't get inside."
"We got inside. Anything could."
That's cause for concern, from the look on Desmond's face. Sawyer watches the progress of emotions: Shock, disbelief, acceptance, resentment, fear, panic – and he watches the other fellow's hand go for his gun.
"But you're lucky. Nothing else did. And your hatch is fine. We're still enterin' the numbers. I know. I spent damn days cooped up on that bed." OK, so a little exaggeration never hurts. "Trust me, Bono. All right?"
Sawyer doesn't blame the other fellow for the look of absolute distrust, or the scornful laugh and bitter words that come: "Trust someone whose damned friends swarm into my hatch, take it over, take my stuff – I wanted to get out, man, but this ain't the way I'd planned it." Desmond's fingers drift away from the pistol. "You think I didn't want to get out? You think, when I saw brother-Jack there, I didn't want to tell him, 'Jesus, brother, I spent so long down here goin' crazy waiting for the day when they'd open up that fuckin' door!' ?"
If Sawyer hadn't been watching where he was going, he would have easily tripped on the root before him. As it is, he just drags himself on and lets out a stunned, "Jack?"
Desmond doesn't pay any attention to his shock. "Your friend. Tall as you, brown hair – that was longer when I knew him, man, though not as long as yours – doctor or something, if my memory's still servin'?"
"Yeah!" He cuts off the description as quickly as he can do. "Yeah, I know him. I don't like him – but I know him." Sawyer stops dead in his tracks, forcing Desmond to do so too. He waits until Desmond's looking at him to ask the question. "What in the Sam Hill do you know Jack from?"
Desmond's mouth opens and closes a few times, silently. Sawyer can tell he wants to say something other than what he does say, but the tone of the other man's voice orders not to press the issue. "We've met a few times. First time was when he was in medical school. Nothin' much to say, really." That's an obvious lie, but no details of any other times seem forthcoming; instead, Desmond turns and starts to walk again.
As he follows, Sawyer goes through the facts as well as he can. The fellow who took him out of the hatch knows Jack, knows he was in medical school, was friends with him in medical school. The hatch is quarantined. Medically? He doesn't know, but he'll bet that's the case. And Jack's on this flight that just happens to crash where the hatch is located, out of all the islands in the world that it could crash on. Entirely coincidence, of course. Totally coincidence. And here is this guy, this lunatic, with the army tags, and if the whole place is some sort of big setup – a hatch, a radio tower, enough resources to have that ship that they took the kid on – there's something wrong here. There's something desperately wrong here. And it's got to be set right. The whole thing has to have been set up in some way. Coincidences don't happen as neatly as this. No, this has to be a con of the highest order. Someone even better at pulling scams than he himself has organized this.
Why didn't he see it coming? He chides himself for that as he follows through the forest, trailing along after his captor as best he can. I should have been able to tell things like that. Damn it, boy, you think you're the best con-man there is, and you can't even see things like this coming.
A paroxysm of doubt seizes him, then. Maybe he's no good at being a con. How else to explain how he shot the wrong damn guy in Australia, that stupid shrimp seller who was Hibbs' foe? He should have seen that coming, too. Ever since the whole Florida thing got settled, he's been making these same stupid mistakes, and he's got nobody to blame for it but himself. Well, there's one other person who started this. The son of a bitch started all this. He'll pay, when I get stateside. He scrapes some brushes to the side and trails along after the other man, feeling himself start to stumble, his feet start to pound a bit harder on the ground now. He needs more drugs, speed or morphine or whatever he was shot up with. Should he ask? How the hell is he supposed to ask, anyway?
He doesn't get the chance. As they break into a clearing amidst the trees, he almost stumbles right into Desmond. Real coordinated, there. Managing to snag a low branch of some tropical tree, he holds himself up, following Desmond's glance to the ferns that lie beyond. There's a gun lying there atop the leaves, a submachine gun of some sort, stock closer to them and the gun barrel pointing at the thicket of trees beyond. It's an old gun, from the Seventies at the latest. A Thompson, a tommy-gun. That's not what attracts the most attention, though, and he watches as Desmond takes a few cautious steps closer.
A body. That's all. It doesn't even have a head. It's decomposed pretty well by now, a few weeks dead, and what scraps of clothes remain are dipped in a dull, rusty brown that he knows is blood. As Sawyer looks down around the body he sees blood everywhere, like an animal attack. More animals have picked at it, the bones showing through.
Desmond moves over to the body like a zombie, lifting something from the corpse. He lifts what he's got to Sawyer, and Sawyer can see – though he's known for a few seconds already just what it is – the small little army tags, dog-tags, dangling from the Irishman's fingers.
The other man's voice sounds very small. "It's Kelvin."
"Who the hell is Kelvin?"
"I buried him. I threw him into the water for a burial, and I thought maybe the tides would take him out to sea and whoever came across his body would find me. I threw him in the water, not the bloody jungle. And I definitely didn't give him that gun, or saw his head clean off."
All Sawyer can do at first is gawk open-mouthed and let out a wary, "Damn." There is no real way to respond beyond that except, "At least you ain't the only one that's lost his head now."