Nightrunners (17 page)

........

And Brian and his cohorts, at the first hint of dusk, started out of the pasture, down the back roads, flying high and fast, blowing up country toward Minnanette.

Things were about to get ugly.

ELEVEN

The lights at Pop's came on just ahead of their arrival. They cruised into the drive and Brian and Loony got out.

Pop left his dinner, went outside, looked at them, didn't like what he saw, but said,

"Help you boys?"

"Boys?" Loony said. "Boys? Hey, old man, you call an alligator a lizard?"

Pop grimaced. "I call a fart a fart, and what I see is a little fart, that's what I see.

Now you little farts turn that piece of shit around and get the hell out of my drive. Right now."

With that, Pop started back to the store and his dessert.

Brian stepped quickly to Pop's side. "Say, old man, that isn't polite."

"Get your goddamned hand off me, sonny, unless you want to take to wearing it in a sling."

"You're tough for an old dried-up turd," Brian said.

The old dried-up turd turned and hit him with an uppercut in the gut. Brian went to one knee wheezing.

Loony came out of nowhere, hit Pop in the head with his fist, knocked him down.

Brian stood up, one hand on his stomach. "You're going to wish you hadn't done that, old man."

"Am I?" Pop said, trying to get up. Loony kicked Pop in the head, made him bleed over the right eye.

"Oh yeah," Brian said, "you're going to regret that."

Pop shook blood out of his eye. "Pull him to the pumps," Brian said. Loony grabbed Pop by the collar and began dragging him toward the gas pumps. Pop kicked and wiggled, but couldn't shake free.

Stone, Jimmy and Angela were out of the car now.

Stone went to help Loony, and the two of them slammed the old man's back against one of the pumps. Pop sat there, puffing, dizzy. "Fill up the car," Brian said to Loony. Loony unhitched a nozzle, went over to the '66 and started filling up.

Brian walked around to Pop's right side and kicked him. Pop tried to roll over on his hands and knees and get up, but Brian kicked him again, knocking him flat.

Then Brian began walking around him, kicking him from time to time, A couple of kicks made the old man fart.

"How about that?" Brian said. "Kick it and it farts."

Loony put the nozzle back into the pump, said, "Filled up."

"Give me the gas thing," Brian said.

"What?" Loony said.

"The nozzle, shithole."

Loony jerked it free of the pump, handed it to Him.

"Stone. Jimmy. Hold him."

Stone went over and grabbed the old man, rolled him on his back. Then, sitting on the ground, he was able to pull Pop's head and shoulders into his lap by applying a full nelson.

"Jimmy?" Brian said. "Don't just stand there."

"No," Jimmy said. And for a moment, he couldn't believe his own voice.

"What?" Brian said.

"You do what you want," Jimmy said. "I'm not going to try and stop you—"

"Course you ain't," Loony said.

"—but you do it. Me . . . Me and Angela, we don't want any part. Just do your thing, but I'm not hurting anyone. Not me."

"Hey, you're fucked," Loony said.

"No," Brian said calmly. "It's all right. I understand."

"We're not going to tell nothing," Jimmy said. "Promise."

"Nothing," Angela said. "We just want out."

"Okay," Brian said.

"Hey," Loony said, "you're fucking me, ain't you? Come on, Brian—"

"Shut up, Loony. I'm still running the show here. They say they won't talk, they won't talk.

They promised." He looked at Jimmy and-Angela. "Am I right? You promised?"

They both nodded.

"See, Loony. Now, you get over there and help Stone hold the old man."

"You going to let them get away with that?" Loony said. "You said—"

"Loony, do as I say, while you're still able to do anything."

Loony's mouth opened, but the look on Brian's face held him silent. A nervous tic had begun on Brian's lower left cheek and it was rippling wider and wider, beginning to look as if something were moving beneath the flesh.

Loony scuttled over to the old man, and after getting kicked in the shin a couple of times, managed to get hold of Pop's feet. Loony sat down on the ground and held one sticklike leg under each arm.

The tic in Brian's face had ceased. He said to Jimmy and Angela, "No problems."

Brian turned to Pop.

Pop yelled for them to let him go.

Brian walked over and squirted gas from the nozzle, sent it splattering onto Pop's chest.

He bent, took hold of Pop's jaws and pinched them. Pop's false teeth came loose, and with a cautious thumb and forefinger, Brian plucked them from his mouth and tossed them.

"Bastard," Pop managed.

Brian jammed the nozzle in Pop's mouth.

"Afraid you're going to have to put this on our bill, old man. Fill her up!" Brian squeezed the nozzle, sent a stream of gas down the old man's throat.

Pop's head jerked from side to side, but he couldn't shake the nozzle free. Brian gave him another squirt. Gas boiled out of the corner's of Pop's mouth and ran down his cheeks, chin and neck.

Brian jerked the nozzle out, splattering gas all over Stone and Pop.

Pop turned his head to the right and began vomiting. Stone released his grip so that the puke wouldn't get on him. Pop rolled on his stomach and continued to throw up and cough.

Brian knelt down by Pop. "Old man, I'm going to ask you a question. I'm looking for this teacher. A real good-looking bitch. Probably has her hubby with her. I had this fellow draw me a map of how to get here, where this place is, and he gave me the area of this cabin I'm looking for, but can you get this: he forgot to pinpoint it for me. I mean, I could be looking through cabin after cabin before I found my teacher, you know. Now this fellow was in a bit of a bind when he was putting this map together for me—Loony, weren't we carving on his wife's tits about then?"

"Ears," Loony said.

"My mistake." Back to Pop. "Anyway, you see our problem here. This couple, they're staying in one of the cabins on Lake Minnanette, and this cabin belongs to the Beaumonts, and I just bet you know them, and know the cabin. Am I right, old man?"

"Fuck you," Pop said.

"Have it your own fucking way."

Brian pushed Pop flat, face-first into the drive.

He stuck the nozzle down the back of Pop's pants, began pumping. In seconds Pop's trousers were sodden.

Standing, Brian tossed the nozzle aside. He reached into his pockets, fumbled around.

"Loony, Stone, you got a match?"

Pop tried to push up and run, but Brian skipped to him and kicked him with all his might in the stomach. Pop dropped to the ground and Brian kicked him again. A rib cracked loudly.

"Lie still," Brian said.

Pop groaned, quit trying to rise.

Loony brought a booklet of matches over. Brian took them, said to Pop, "We're going to play a little game, old man. I used to catch armadillos around the house once in a while, and I'd get me some gas out of the lawn mower can and I'd put it on their ass and let them go and I'd chase them tossing matches. Never had one armadillo get away from me. Know what I'm saying?"

Pop had gotten to his hands and knees, the cracked rib felt like a knife blade in his side.

"We're going to play that little game I used to play with the armadillos. You're the armadillo. One for the money—"

Pop got up and ran.

Brian flicked a match at him, yelling, "Cheater."

It hit the old man in the back, bounced down to the seat of his pants and they burst into flames. The fire licked up his body like a torch. His face and head caught on fire from the gasoline that had been spilled there. His shirt leaped into a blaze. He ran zigzag-crazy, screaming. Finally he fell to the ground rolling, tossing along the cement drive like a fish flopping on dry land.

"Cute, ain't he?" Loony said.

"Precious," Brian said. He turned to Jimmy and Angela. "You two, go in there and get something for us to eat and drink. We're moving out."

Jimmy glanced at Pop tossing on the driveway, keening like a rat in a trap. "Sure,"

he said. He turned to Angela. She was leaning against the Chevy, vomiting.

"You're gettin' it on the goddamned car," Brian yelled. "Get the fuck away from there."

"I'm getting her," Jimmy said. He put his arm around her and eased her gently from the car.

"Get the stuff, like I told you," Brian said.

"We're going," Jimmy said, and he began leading Angela toward the store.

When they had disappeared inside, Loony said, "What about them, you aren't going to just let them go, are you?"

Brian glared at him. The flesh at the corner of his mouth jumped, and then his whole face began to tic, thumping and rippling like a frantic rat trapped in a leather sack.

"What do you think, Loony?"

"They get theirs?"

"Right, they get theirs—when I'm ready. I'm not ready."

They looked at Pop. He was lying still now. Flames were rolling from his back, all the way to his shoes. Smoke was curling up into the store lights, like an escaping soul.

Brian turned to yell at Stone, "You're driving for a while."

Stone nodded.

"Loony, go in there and hurry them up."

Loony trotted for the store. Two minutes later Jimmy and Angela came out, and behind them came Loony. He had his hands full of Halloween masks. "Hey," he said,

"look here at these. Ain't tonight the night?"

"Get in the car," Brian said, and the trio ran past him.

Brian ran inside the store. Moments later he came darting out. Behind him, licking from the doorway like forked tongues, were Barnes.

TWELVE

"Come back here, you sonofabitch," Moses Franklin yelled.

The black and tan hound disappeared into the darkness. Moses could hear him rattling in the bushes, and then he was gone.

"You goddamned sonofabitch," Moses yelled. "I'm gonna blow your ass off when I catch you!"

He was pissed, really pissed. Hundred and fifty bucks he'd paid for that dog at the Canton Trades Day, and the sonofabitch didn't know any more about Hunting than he knew about baying at the moon.

The other two hounds came bounding through the bushes, tongues wagging. But not the black and tan knucklehead, he was out running wild.

Moses turned up the beam on his helmet light, and with a sigh, set out in the direction the dog had taken. His hounds trotted alongside.

He looked down at them. They weren't so hot either, far as hunting went, but least they came when you called. If you were going to have a dog, the flea-bitten sonofabitch ought to know its place.

Crashing through the brush, calling for the dog, getting no answer, he resorted to his hunting horn. He was lifting it to his mouth when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

Redness.

He squinted. What the fuck? That was the direction of the main road and . . .

Pop's.

By
God,
Pop's was on fire!

Swinging the strap on his rifle over his shoulder, putting the hunting horn back in his belt, he began to walk briskly in the direction of the flames, pushing and swatting the undergrowth out of his path.

The dogs bounded along behind him. From a tall oak, a possum watched in silence as they went.

........

Down the dark clay road two cars moved. One car was a Dodge Dart. The other a black Chevy. The Dodge was in front of the Chevy by several miles, but it wasn't moving as fast. The kids inside the Dodge were drunk and happy. The kids inside the Chevy were high on fire, blood and hate— except Angela and Jimmy, they were high on fear.

Sam Griffith, the ugliest and the drunkest of the Dodge's occupants, tossed out a beer bottle; tossed it high and backward. The bottle sailed upward, flashed like a quick, silver-toothed smile in the moonlight, fell into the middle of the road, bounced twice, lay still.

The Dodge turned left down a narrow road. Griffith said he knew some good lake cabins they could egg down that way.

The Chevy roared on, hit the bottle Griffith had tossed, whipped it from beneath its rear left tire and tossed it backward thirty feet. The beer bottle shattered into three large sharp fragments.

........

And Ted and Larry, fall of chicken fried steak and too much coffee, were driving toward Minnanette again, this time by the obvious route. Prom Minnanette they were going to make a few back roads then call the area off, try elsewhere.

........

"God, God, oh God," Moses screamed.

The store was a writhing monster of red, yellow and orange flames. It spit black smoke to the sky.

Pop was little more than a charcoal stick in the driveway.

"God, Jesus, God," Moses kept saying. He went over to Pop, bent down.

"God, Jesus, Pop?"

One of Pop's hands lifted, slightly, like a dying butterfly, flopped back on the cement.

"Oh God, Jesus, God."

........

Ted and Larry saw the flames standing hot and tall above the pines.

They made a curve. The store—what was left of it; a charred wood skeleton being devoured by a fire blob—was visible now. A man crouched over something in the drive.

Ted put it to the floorboard, screeched into the driveway.

........

The kids in the black '66 were nearing the cutoff that led to the cabin where Becky and Montgomery Jones were, but they didn't know it. Brian was cursing himself for killing Dean Beaumont too soon. He thought he would have gotten better directions if he had waited awhile longer before starting in on his eyes.

No matter, they'd find them, if they had to turn down every goddamned road in the country. At least he was certain of one thing: they were close. He'd gotten that much out of Beaumont before he died. The cabin was nearby.

........

"I didn't do anything," Moses said.

Ted took the rifle from him. "Doubt you did," he said.

"Tell us about it," Larry said.

"I was up there in the woods, hunting, looking for one of my dogs," he waved a hand at the animals who were sniffing about nearby, "and I saw the flames. Came down here and found Pop like this."