silence. In the depth of it, Arslan looked down on the four men and spoke.
“Ollie Schuster and Bill T. Carmichael'—their names sounded quaint and exotic in his foreign mouth—'you have committed murder.” There were bayonets at their throats before they could begin their protests. “Fred Gonderling, you have helped these two. Morris Schott, you have known this and tried to hide it.” He looked up, and out over the crowd, and his chest swelled like a singer’s, and he cried in a voice that rang with exultation, “Now I will kill you!” and only then did his eyes come back to the four men.
The guards fell away to the edge of the open space and took their places in what was now a double circle like concentric gears, the outer ring of rifles facing the crowd, the inner the four scared men. Arslan came down the steps with a movement that made my neck prickle and my arm tighten on Luella’s shoulders—the hard, flowing motion of a dancer, muscle without bone. The holster on his hip was empty; the sheath knife was gone from his belt.
They backed and bunched before him, and Fred Gonderling was making one more try at formal protest. But before their indecisive movements had brought them into any defensive position, Arslan was already on them. With the unhesitating assurance of a trained herd dog cutting out a sheep, he pulled Ollie Schuster away from the others, a long one-handed yank on Ollie’s right arm. The first cry went up from the little arena, a hopeless yelp of pain, or fear, or both; and before it died, Arslan’s other hand rose and fell, and again, in two streaking hammer blows to the back of Ollie’s head as the first pull jerked him past. He crumpled, half on his slack knees, half dangling by the arm in the iron grip.
Arslan spun back to the others, his face drawn taut with a passionate smile. Morris Schott, unexpectedly resolute, dived forward; Arslan met his tackle with a stooping embrace. They skidded and rocked in the dust. Carmichael started forward, hesitated. It was already too late to help Morris. Arslan had flung him loose and was systematically demolishing his head with kicks and stamps.
Strange noises came from the crowd—cries of protest and exhortation and horror and rage that united and emerged as an inarticulate muttering groan. Carmichael and Gonderling had fled to opposite segments of the circle, as if neither one of them had any hope beyond seeing the other killed first. Gonderling was almost directly in front of us. I leaned forward and bellowed at him, “Stay together, you damned fools! Fight him!”
Fred looked at me with startled eyes. He jerked a glance at Arslan, still occupied with Morris, and took off at a scared run around the circumference of the circle. Pausing in his work, Arslan stood still and watched him. Morris lay twitching; his wrecked head in a puddle of blood. Gonderling and Carmichael braced themselves, shoulder to shoulder. Arslan set one foot deliberately on what had been Morris’s face, and swung across him with a vaulting stride.
He walked into them as if he expected no resistance at all. But Carmichael almost managed to sidestep his belly-punch; it took him grazingly under the ribs, and even at that, it staggered him away from Fred. Now they were separated again, but by the same token Arslan had to turn his back on Fred to follow up Carmichael. From our position, I couldn’t make out the action exactly. I only saw that Arslan waded into Carmichael with fists and knees, and that Fred Gonderling threw himself wildly onto Arslan’s back, flinging his arms around his neck to jerk his head backwards. Arslan hunched under the onslaught, turning spasmodically back towards us. His left hand was knotted under Fred’s gripping arms—saving him, maybe, from strangulation or a broken neck, but otherwise useless for the moment. With his other hand he was reaching behind him to get at Fred. Bill Carmichael righted himself and plunged at Arslan’s unguarded front. A howl went up from the nearer ranks of the crowd as Carmichael’s knee found Arslan’s groin. Bull-like, Arslan swung right and left, right and left again, moving forward staggeringly with every swing. Fred—I thought it was Fred—screamed suddenly, and at the same moment Arslan fell forward bulkily, bearing Carmichael down beneath him. For a few seconds the battle heaved on the ground, three men deep; then Arslan was up and out of it, stepping lightly backwards. He stooped and grabbed Fred’s ankles, just as Fred was rolling onto his side and pushing himself up. One jerk put him flat on his face again. Arslan backed, dragging him partway across the sidewalk; then, with a lifting twist, he half turned him over, dropped his ankles, and leaped forward onto him. He banged Fred’s head on the edge of the walk, and then his hands were on Fred’s throat.
The crowd was screaming. It was as if all the feelings of all these past years had found voice at last. But the only words I could make out in the uproar were the ones in my own throat: “Get up! Get up!” And they were aimed not at Fred Gonderling—no use to yell at him—but at Bill T. Carmichael. He had dragged himself up to hands and knees, or nearly so. Blood dripped from somewhere on his face, but he looked fairly intact. Suddenly the yelling seemed to reach him. He got his feet under him with surprising speed and lunged at Arslan.
Arslan knelt like an incubus on Gonderling’s chest, one knee and foot on the ground for stability. Carmichael hit him like a tidal wave hitting Gibraltar. Arslan’s head was bowed, his lips drawn back in an animal grin. His hands were rooted in Gonderling’s neck. He crouched there immovable, while Carmichael clubbed and tore at his unshielded head with fists, knees, fingers. The crowd throbbed with hope, and in the froth of sound I heard myself howling, “His eyes! Get his eyes!” The faces of the double ring of soldiers were set grimly; every rifle seemed trained on some appropriate target, one of which was my chest. Nizam on the steps with Sanjar in his arms stood like a statue of poised vengeance. The child stared, motionless. I caught another glimpse of Arslan’s face through the welter of blows, and I could have sworn he was laughing.
Then in an instant the battle was reversed once more. Carmichael was down again. It took me a moment to realize Arslan’s hands had come up like lightning and yanked him down by an arm and knee. Now he had his own knee in Carmichael’s back, one arm binding his arms and chest, the other wrapping his head and dragging it back in a series of brutal jerks. The noise of the crowd swelled painfully, off-key, and died. Arslan clambered upright, shedding Carmichael’s body across Gonderling’s.
Luella stirred in my arms, and I realized I was gripping her painfully tight. I relaxed my hold. The crowd was still.
Arslan stood breathing in hard gasps, mouth open, arms hanging slack. He said something hoarsely, pointing at the ground. Then he turned toward the steps, and Nizam came quickly down them and put Sanjar into his arms. The boy’s little arms went around his neck and held fast. Without another look at the bodies at his feet, he started back the way he had come. This time he went first, and only the men with the dogs followed. The crowd split away from his path as if some electric field had hurled them back. As he walked he swayed, and once I saw him stumble.
Even before he was through the crowd, some of the soldiers had brought out shovels from the school and started to dig. And long after Arslan and his child and his dogs had disappeared into my house, we stood like a herd of cattle in the sun and watched them dig the four neat graves and tumble in the bodies with their feet, and fill the graves again and tramp and stamp them down.
Chapter 11
He must have slept the rest of the day and through the night. The house was very still, with a closed feeling. All the bedroom doors stayed shut. Next morning I was up early, before Luella. I was just starting downstairs when he came out of his room. “Good morning, sir,” he said—his commonplace greeting—and went on towards the bathroom. He was still wearing the dirty fatigues in which he’d killed the four men yesterday, very rumpled now. His hair was awry, his face was bruised and his right eye swollen, and the ragged scratches where Bill T.’s fingernails had dug his face were blood-caked and inflamed. But he looked rested.
We were eating breakfast an hour later when he came in, clean, shaved, with Hunt at his heels. Luella jumped up to pour coffee and slice ham and fry eggs, and while Arslan plunged wordlessly into his meal, Hunt opened a book and began to read: “In regard to tunicated bulbs, those consisting of broadened and fleshy leaf-like coats, as in the onion, no one not absolutely certain of his diagnosis should ever attempt to eat any which lack the familiar odor of onions…”
So it was business as usual—but business with a difference. There was a kind of fury in Arslan’s actions, in his voice, his laugh, his stride. Every movement he made looked like a blow held back. He’d never wasted time before, but he’d never seemed pressed for it, either; he’d had the leisure to enjoy everything. Now, suddenly, he
