Filed to story: American Sniper: The Last Round (Carl Oliver) Book PDF Free
It played over and over in his head: the flash of the shot, the fall, the sense of loss as he hit. He had the sensation of screaming.
Finally, he awoke.
It was morning, judging from the light. He was freshly bandaged, his arm in a tight sling against his chest. He was clean, too. Somebody had sponged him down. He was undressed. With his good hand, he pulled the blanket close about him, feeling even more vulnerable. He blinked, swallowed, realized suddenly how thirsty he was. His legs ached; his head ached; there was also a bandage on his arm, and some pain. Yes, he’d been hit there; almost forgot about it.
The details swam at him; the punctured holes of the acoustic ceiling, all neat and in rows; some curtains, and how the bright sun streamed through them from some sort of porthole. The room he was in was small and dark, except for the sunlight’s beam. Next to him on a table was a pitcher filled with ice water.
He raised himself and poured a drink and swallowed it in one long gulp.
“How do you feel?”
She had slid into the doorway.
“Oh. Well, I feel like I might live a little bit. How long have I-“
“It’s been three days.”
“Jesus.”
“You slept, you screamed, you cried, you begged. Who’s Payne? You kept yelling about Payne.”
“Payne. Oh, let’s see. A fellow that pulled a trick on me.”
“Why do I think there aren’t too many men that have pulled tricks on you?”
“Maybe not. But he’s one of them.”
“The papers say you’re a psychopathic killer, a crazy man with a rifle. They think if you’re not in New Orleans, you’re in Arkansas. Or dead. Some people think you’re dead.”
He didn’t say anything. His head ached.
“I didn’t kill the president.”
“The president!”
“I wouldn’t kill the pres-“
“It wasn’t the president. Didn’t you listen to the radio?”
“Ma’am, I’ve been in a swamp for a week, shooting one animal every two days to live. In the cars-hell, I just drove.”
“Well, it wasn’t the president. They say you aimed at the president but you hit some archbishop.”
“I never missed what I aimed at in my life. Besides with that rifle-“
And then he stopped.
“That’s what Donny said. And that’s what I believe. But they have evidence. Fingerprints, the tests on the gun, that sort of thing.”
“Well, maybe they aren’t as smart as they think they are. Maybe I’m not so far up the tree as they say. A bishop?”
“My God, you really don’t know. Either that or you’re the best liar I’ve ever seen.”
“I wouldn’t shoot a priest. I wouldn’t shoot anything. I haven’t shot to kill in more than a decade.”
Carl shook his head glumly.
Shooting a priest, he thought. And then he thought: That’s what it was all about. That’s what it was always all about.
And then he thought: And they had me bird-dog it for them. Figure out the best way. Work it out for them. And then they used it against me. For some priest.
Then a thought came to him.
He took a deep breath.
“Say, was there anything in the papers about my dog?”
“Oh,” she said. “You don’t know?”
“They killed him?”
“They say you killed your dog.”
“What they say and what happened are two different things,” he said. But it hurt him that people could say such a thing of him.
He watched her watching him.
“The bastards. Kill a great old dog like that. Oh, the sons of bitches.”