drunk at Dmitri’s once told me, “You don’t know what kind of person you are until you’ve been shot. After that you either jump at any loud noise or you become brave in the face of anything.” All I know is that right now I’m not afraid of the bullet catcher. And I’m not leaving.
“No.”
The bullet catcher sits and crosses his legs. He grinds his jaw that’s crisscrossed with scars.
“No?”
I clear my throat. “I’m not leaving.”
“That is not up for discussion. You will heal and you will leave, or you will catch infection and die, and I will bury you with all the others who have come to kill me over the years. Those are the only two paths before you.”
“I didn’t come to kill you.”
The bullet catcher pulls a blanket off a large chest in the corner. He opens the chest and it’s full of guns, some large and gleaming, like those of the gunslinger the bullet catcher killed in Sand, some old and rusted, some blood-splattered. My gun sits on top, small and pathetic-looking. How many guns does the bullet catcher keep here? How many people are buried out there, anonymous in the cold ground?
He picks up my gun and weighs it in his hand. His fingers are long and the gun is so small it looks like a toy. Then he tosses it to me. Its weight tells me the chamber is empty.
“There’s only one reason to draw a gun, young lady. To kill someone. Next time, keep it in your pocket.”
I look down at the gun in my hand, then back at the chest filled with dead men’s shooters. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“You are young and foolish,” he says, closing and covering up the chest. “But someday, you may be old and wise.” A shadow crosses his face. “It is no small thing killing someone so young.”
The look on his face tells me not to pursue. Instead, I say, “I came here to learn from you.”
“Yet you pulled your gun on me,” he says, looking at me sideways.
I lie on my back, pull the quilt tight around me, and close my eyes. “I can’t go back to Sand,” I say. “I’d rather be dead.”
“There are many towns in the Southland,” the bullet catcher says. “You do not have to live in Sand.”
Propping myself up on my elbows, I look at him, then at the rain, still pouring down. “It’s not about where I live. It’s about what I want to do. I want to be a bullet catcher. It meant something to my brother.” I look back at the bullet catcher, who says nothing. “My brother’s name was Nikko. It was his dream to be a bullet catcher.”
“Are you in the habit of living other people’s dreams?”
His words take me aback. In all my years, I have never thought about what I wanted, other than to see Nikko again.
“If I can learn to be a bullet catcher it would be like bringing a part of him back to life.” It’s difficult putting into words things that were only feelings before. The bullet wound throbs and makes me lightheaded. I breathe out the pain and when I speak again I take all the emotion out of my voice, doing my best to mimic the bullet catcher’s calm. “My brother, Nikko,” I say. “He was very smart. He was strong.” I look at my hands; they are cupped as if holding the memory of him.
The bullet catcher lets out a sigh and says, “And he looked like you, only much taller. So you’re Immaculada.”
My face grows hot at the sound of my name. “Imma,” I say. “Call me Imma.” And then the gears start to turn, slowly, because not in my wildest dreams did I expect the bullet catcher to know Nikko, not really, let alone to know my name. I blurt out, “You know my brother!”
The bullet catcher looks out at the rain, coming down harder than before, turning the clearing to slurry. “I knew him,” he says, finally. “It was his dream to become a bullet catcher. But he was undisciplined, angry. He wasn’t interested in training. It was too painful for him.” The bullet catcher is silent for a time, just looking at the rain. “And in the end,” he says, “the training killed him.”
The air goes out of me. The canvas, pitter-pattering with rain, turns into a kaleidoscope of color. I lie back down and close my eyes. The sound of rain surrounds and envelops me. I hope it comes down so hard that it floods this place. I want the water to carry us down the mountain and throw us against the rocks until all our bones are broken and we are nothing but blood and torn skin and mud. I’ve been living with Nikko’s death for six years, but now, after this brief moment of hope, it’s like he’s died all over again.
“He spoke of you often,” the bullet catcher says beyond the sound of rain, his voice almost apologetic. Perhaps he says more, but his voice is indistinguishable from the rain, a white noise through which nothing else can penetrate.
• • •
I sleep without realizing it. There are no benefits to this kind of sleep, full of so much blackness. When I open my eyes the rain has stopped, but the smell of it hangs in the air, crisp and clean and earthy. The sun shines through the canvas, making the air golden and warm. The bullet catcher is outside, fixing his fire pit, drying his rocking chair.
“You passed out,” the bullet catcher says when I join him.
I nod.
“Your wound is bad. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You don’t have to make excuses for me.”
He merely nods again.
“How can I help?”
“The best thing for you is rest. You will heal quicker. Then you will leave. Same as before.”
“I’d like to help. To thank you.” Maybe it’s impossible to get him to train me. Maybe it’s a foolish child’s dream. But even so, there’s no way I’m leaving without him telling me everything he knows about Nikko.
The bullet catcher scans his camp, half destroyed by the rain, before resting his gaze on me. His eyes are soft, almost kind. “There is much to do. It will be hard work in your condition.” He pauses “But hard work is seldom without reward.”
2.
The bullet catcher doesn’t rest. He moves slowly, but constantly. Over the months that I spend with him, healing from my gunshot wound, I become his shadow. When he wakes before the sun, I’m right behind him. When he goes into the woods to check the traps, I’m there, asking questions. I’m there when he skins the fur from the wolves caught in the traps. I help as he hangs the hides in the sun to dry. He cuts the meat from the bone in a way that draws hardly any blood. He saves the bones and shows me how to suck the marrow from them. He salts and preserves the meat. Nothing of the animal goes to waste.
There are no seasons in the desert. The weather changes from hot to not quite as hot and then back again. Up on the mountain, fall slowly turns to winter. When the dawn breaks, brisk, with only the promise of light, I go down to the lake to bathe. I find a large smooth rock just beneath the surface of the water and sit. The thin film of ice breaks away as I disturb the water, so cold that I want to jump out and run for my clothes, run back to camp,
