The Last Innocent Man Read Online Free

for representing Tony Seals.
    “The car wasn’t far from where we was digging, but it was hard getting back. I was feeling weak and I couldn’t breathe. By the time I got there, all three of ’em was by the back of the car talkin’. I asked ’em to help me, but they acted scared and stood away, like they didn’t want to be near me. The back door was open where Sticks had got out, so I laid down in the backseat. The pain started gettin’ real bad then and I was cryin’ and blood started coming out of my mouth and nose and I got so dizzy I shut my eyes and just laid there. I could taste the blood and that was scaring me worse than the pain. Someone started the car and I thought we were going to the hospital, ’cause that’s what I asked them and they said they would.”
    “Do you remember the car stopping?”
    “When they dumped me out?” Jessie asked bitterly. “Yeah, I remember that. I was lying with my head on thedriver’s side, but facing the back of the car and the car had been bouncing a lot like we was on a dirt road and then they stopped and the passenger door opened. Sticks or Zack, I don’t know who, said to get out. That there was a kind of a plant that would stop the bleeding. I knew what they were up to, so I said I couldn’t move, I was in pain. Then T.S. and Sticks grabbed my legs and pulled and Zack was on the other side pushing me out. I tried to go into the front seat and I was hanging on underneath the seat and they was pulling me out by the feet. I was really scared then, ’cause it was so dark and I didn’t want to be alone. Then Zack said again how I should let go because there was a plant that stopped bleeding and I said, ‘Bullshit, there’s no plant that stops bleeding. Take me to the hospital.’ And that’s when Zack hit my fingers with the gun and I let go and they dragged me onto the ground a ways from the car.
    “I lay there. I think I was cryin’ ’cause they were gonna leave me alone in the dark and the pain was gettin’ worse. I heard the car door slam and I yelled to them to take me with them. I even said I wouldn’t take none of the pot. Then I heard two shots and I just shut up. I laid there not moving until the car drove off. I didn’t move then, either. I thought maybe one of them was waiting for me to move.
    “About two minutes later they turned around and fired the rest of the shots in the gun off at me.”
    It was very quiet in the room. David was having trouble taking this in, which was unusual for him. He was an old pro at this sort of thing. How many mutilated bodies had he seen in photographs or in person? How many human tragedies had he been involved in? What was this girl to him?
    “How close did the shots come to you?” David asked.
    “One bullet spit up dirt right near my head. So did another.”
    “Did you hear any of them say anything when they left?”
    “Yeah, someone said, ‘I think we got her,’ but I don’t know who.”
    “Do you know who shot at you from the car?”
    She shook her head and put it down on her crossed arms again. She looked very tired.
    “How did you get down to the bottom of the mountain? It’s several miles from where the shots were fired.”
    “I crawled.”
    “Crawled?”
    “I got scared lying there. I stayed curled up for a while, but the pain wouldn’t stop and there was no sound up there. Just the wind and animals in the woods. I didn’t want to stay put, so I crawled. And it took hours and it hurt so much.”
    There were tears in her eyes and David felt dead inside.
    “But I wasn’t gonna let them do this to me. So I crawled and sometimes I walked a ways and I got to the bottom and just fell in that ditch, and anytime a car come by or a truck I’d pull myself up. That was the worst. Even worst than the shooting and being alone. No one would stop for me or help me.”
    The tape recorder spun on. The rays of the sun created splotches of light on the tabletop. Monica placed her arm around Jessie’s