The Invisible Hand - A crime novel

Chapter 46

The scrawny guy sprints toward the noise. Sam and I drop our trash and follow.

I hear a truck come to a stop a few rows away. Then a voice gushing agony. A couple other voices scramble the air with quick barks.

We turn a corner. Spot what's up. A worker is on his back in the bed of a pickup. A fleshy tear runs down his left arm. I spot flashes of white within his meat-red sleeve.

The rest of him is slopped in "mud." Not mud-mud. "Mud" is the lubricant for the big machines on the oil rigs. It gets everywhere. Paints his coveralls brownish-gray. Stinks.

A guy hovering over him yanks at a belt. It's wrapped around the worker's bicep. Must a tourniquet.

A short guy comes out from one of the campers. Didn't see it before, but the camper's got a red cross spray-painted on the outside. Must be the camp doctor. The other guys call him, "Doc."

"He got hurt tripping pipe on a rig, Doc. Real bad," one guy says.

I guess so. You could stick his shredded arm in a grocery store and sell it as beef.

Sam seems more curious than anything. Rolls onto her toes for a better look. We keep our distance until the scrawny guy spots us.

"What are you looking at? Help get him out of the truck," the scrawny guy says.

Seriously? There's nothing some quack Man Camp doctor can do for this guy. He needs to get to a real hospital. Fast. Unless, I suppose, there's a reason they don't want to go to a hospital.

We jump in and help anyway. Lower the worker onto a cot. I let the scrawny guy handle the bad arm. No way I'm getting on the hook for fucking it up even more.

We haul the cot into Doc's cramped camper. A sign on the side reads, "Infirmary." It's an old Bethany pop-up. A table sits between two collapsible bed wings.

"Put him there," Doc says. Points to the table.

The injured worker groans as we set him down. I secure a good position. Curious what crazy ditch medicine this Doc is packing.

The rest of the guys must feel the same way. We're all just standing there, waiting. One guy passes around a rag. We wipe the "mud" from our hands.

"Everyone just stay out of my way and be quiet," Doc says.

Sam and I take a seat next to the scrawny guy. He's still got that shotgun. It's tucked between his legs. The end of the barrel rests on his cheek.

Doc starts by clearing the wound best he can. Then he pulls out a bottle of blue liquid. Says "caine" on the side. I assume it's "Novocaine" until I see the whole label.

Cocaine. Liquid cocaine, at that.

Doc soaks a rag with it. Dabs the wound. The worker's moaning stops in a few seconds.

It's surprising until I remember the time I saw this done. I used to get bad nosebleeds as a kid. Like he's-going-to-bleed-out-and-die bad. When the clinic in town couldn't stop it with cotton, I remember getting a hit of liquid cocaine. Made the blood seize up.

The trick works now, too. Together with the tourniquet, the bleeding stops.

Just when Doc's looking legit, he pulls out another bottle. This one isn't marked.

Doc loads up a syringe, jabs it into the worker's arm. The worker's face glazes over. Like someone poured glue on it.

"Opium," Doc says. "Works every time."

"You gonna sew him up now?" the scrawny guy says.

Doc nods.

"But first, I need to clean the wound. Get the debris out. That's why I put him under," Doc says. Picks up a tweezers. "Need to do some digging."

Cocaine and heroin? Shit, what's next, meth?

As it turns out, yes. But not for the injured worker.

"Good work guys. Here's a little something to help make up for your lost work time," Doc says.

He passes each of us small bags. Yeah, that's meth. Been on the prairie long enough. I'd know that devil dust anywhere. No way I'm putting that inside me.

Sam and I don't refuse the bags, though. Better to fit in. We stuff them in our pockets. Leave the camper with everyone else.

The other guys pile into the pickup. Drive off. The scrawny guy stays behind. Takes to being a pain in the ass again.

"Back to work. Now you got no excuse to be lazy," the scrawny guy says.

I watch him slip a pinkie into the bag. Snorts the minute crystals like he's done it a million times.

Sam has her bag out, too. I'm hoping she doesn't do the same. Nope. She tosses her bag at the scrawny guy.

"There. Now you don't got an excuse, either," Sam says.

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