a time, watched the rain beat him, realized that the way he was now, he looked like nothing more than a peaceful embryo waiting for birth.
I went back to the house by the porch and window. I didn’t see anyone lurking about. I found where the one who had gotten away had fallen through the boards, and down there I found something else too. Lying on his side on the ground, a black bag over his head, hands bound behind his back, ankles tied, was a child.
I got the boy out of there and pulled the bag off his head. He had a bandanna around his mouth, and under that something stuffed in his mouth, and he was having a hard time breathing. I got the thing out of his mouth and saw that it was a sock. I sat him on the side of the floor where the boards had given away, let his legs dangle. He looked at me. He was shaking.
“Please,” he said.
“It’s OK, son. I’m not one of them.”
“Please.”
I saw there was something else down in the hole, and got back down in there and grabbed it. It was a large piece of cloth, and under it was a book of the Psalms. I wrapped the book up in the cloth, which wasn’t just a cloth at all, and picked the boy up and made my way around the gap in the boards and carried him into the kitchen. He was stiff and frightened. I sat him on the floor with his back against the wall. He saw T.J. twisting on the floor, and he started to struggle, but the ties on his hands and feet prevented any real movement. He merely fell over and lay still.
“Easy,” I said. “You’re OK now.”
I glanced over and saw that Leonard had gotten Charlie’s handcuffs and was putting them on T.J. T.J. kept yelling over and over, “Bubba. Bubba.”
When Leonard had T.J.’s arms cuffed behind his back, he limped over to where me and the boy were.
“The runner lost the prizes,” I said, and lay the cloth and the Psalm book on the floor.
Leonard got out his pocket knife, and the boy flinched and made a sound like something dying.
“It’s OK,” Leonard said, and he cut the boy’s hands and feet free. “We got ’em for you, boy.”
Free, the child lay on the floor with his knees drawn to his chest. “They hurt you?” Leonard asked him.
The boy didn’t answer. He stared at Leonard. Leonard stroked the boy’s head. “Gonna be all right.”
I checked on Gleason. It didn’t take much of an examination to determine he wouldn’t be coming around. His head was twisted at such an angle it made my throat hurt. I found his toupee and stuck it on his head as best I could.
I went over then and looked at Charlie. He was lying on his back, conscious, but weak. “Where’s it hurt?” I asked.
“My head,” Charlie said. “Jesus, what a lick. The world’s spinning. I’d rather you hit me with the flashlight again.”
“Left hook,” I said. “He had a good one. He hasn’t got anything now.”
“You kill him?”
“The old well took care of him.” I worked Charlie’s coat off of him, folded it up and put it under his head. “Man, you going to have to go shopping. This suit coat is ruined. Pocket’s ripped clean the hell off of it.”
“Got his hand caught in it,” Charlie said. “Think Kmart’ll take it back?”
“Even they got to draw a line somewhere.”
“Gleason?”
“Afraid not. Take it easy, now. You might have a concussion. I’ll get some help.”
“Hanson don’t hear from us in a while, he’ll be up here.”
“I’m not going to wait that long, Charlie.”
I went back to Leonard. He said, “My ankle’s bad twisted. I’ve got down here now and can’t get up. It’s swollen from me kicking that big devil. I must have hit wrong. I think I’ll have to cut off the shoe.”
“Leonard, it’s not over yet.”
“I know. You’ll get him, won’t you? For me and you, and Uncle Chester?”
“You know it.”
“And Hanson for that matter. Boy is he gonna be pissed.”
“That’s how I like him best. Pissed… You’ll be all right?”
“Get him, Hap. Get him now.”
I folded the cloth around the Psalmbook and went away.
It took me a while to get from the Hampstead place back down to Uncle Chester’s, but not as long as it had taken us to go up there. I wasn’t trying to sneak and the rain had subsided. I thought all the way down. I thought about how stupid I’d been. I was so mad my ribs didn’t even hurt.
When I got to Uncle Chester’s, I went on past and across the street to MeMaw’s. The porch light was on, and Hiram’s muddy van was in the driveway. The porch overhang was dripping water like rain off the bill of a cap. I climbed on the porch and knocked on the door. A full minute passed before Hiram answered. He was wearing a different set of clothes than I had seen him wearing at the carnival. His hair was wet and his face was flushed and sweaty. He was a little out of breath. He had his van keys in his hand.
I said, “How’s MeMaw?”
“The same,” he said. “I’m going up there.”
“Can I come in?”
“Man, I don’t mean to be rude, but I got to run. I was just going out.”
“I just need a minute,” I said and pushed my way inside, and he closed the door. The house had the faint and pleasant aroma of home cooking. I looked at the photographs on the wall, the picture of Jesus behind the stove. The cheap, yellowed curtains. The place seemed a lot less clean than when I had seen it last, and smaller, and darker.
Hiram said, “You look like hell.”
“I been busy. I bet you’re fixing to light out, aren’t you?”
“What I was saying. I got to get back to the hospital. I need to get on back right now, spell my sister.”
“I think you think the Reverend’s going to do some talking. I don’t think you’re going to the hospital. I think you’re going to run like a goddamn deer.”
He looked at me, trying to think of something to say. “The Reverend?” he said.
“Did you know you and I just missed each other?” I said.
“How’s that?”
“I got something for you that’ll explain.”
I went over to the kitchen table, took the cloth out from under my arm, and shook the book of Psalms out of it. I took the American flag, popped it wide, let it float down over the table and the book.
“I believe you dropped this,” I said. “At least it wasn’t the Texas flag… You were going to wrap a child’s body in it, weren’t you, Hiram. Stick a sheet from the Psalms in one of the magazines hidden up there. That day I was over here, you quoted part of a Bible verse. That was from the Psalms, wasn’t it? MeMaw saw you got religious training.”
“Hap-”
“You didn’t know I was at the house, Hiram. You thought the Reverend was caught and going to talk, and you were just about to make a run for it. You know what? Fitzgerald’s dead. And T.J., hell, he wouldn’t remember you an hour from now. Not so it’d cause you any trouble anyway. But you panicked, and that’s what nails you.”
“Hap-”
“Oh yeah, there is someone who’ll remember you. You dropped the kid too. The one you were watching at the petting zoo. I bet he got a good look at you, seeing how it wouldn’t have mattered had things gone according to plan. Simple plan, huh? Fitzgerald loaded the kids back in the bus, said he had to stay for some reason, would catch a ride, whatever, then you helped him grab the boy. Or rather you helped trick the boy. He was someone Fitzgerald knew from the church, someone he gave a free pass to, someone he was acting like a father to, one of the lost ones. And T.J., he was on the bus, but he got off too, to help. He’d do anything for his brother.”
“You got to understand, Hap. I didn’t start any of this.”
“I don’t need to understand anything. All I understand is you and Fitz and T.J., every year, killed a young boy, cut him up and buried him under that house. That’s all I need to understand. The why of it doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
