'Now just a minute-!' B. J. began.
But Lieder cut him off. 'I'm already counting. Don't waste his time, schoolteacher. He ain't got all that much left… four… five… six…'
Mr. Delanny muttered something.
'I can't hear you!' Lieder chanted in a school-yard singsong. '… eight… nine…'
Over behind the bar, Jeff Calder stopped wiping the glasses and watched, his mouth agape, fascination and fear in perfect stasis.
'Yes,' Mr. Delanny said in a half-whimper.
'Are you saying that you want Bobby-My-Boy to hit you?'
'Yes!'
'Hard?'
'Yes!'
'Well then, you better tell him. Say it in words. Say, 'Bobby-My-Boy…' '
'… Bobby-My-Boy…'
'Will you hit me in the face as hard as you can, please?'
'… hit me in the face… as hard as you can…'
'Please!'
'… please… please!'
'Come on now, don't make the man beg and grovel, Bobby. Give him what he's asking for.'
The blow would have knocked Mr. Delanny out of his chair if he hadn't been tied in. He slumped against his ropes swooning with the pain and shock of having half his upper teeth loosened and the cartilage of his nose crushed against his cheekbone. Blood gushed from the corner of his mouth and oozed from his nose and his ear.
'For the love of God!' B. J. cried.
Matthew felt himself rushing toward the Other Place… then he was gazing soft-eyed out through the bat- winged doors into the glaring brightness of the street… deep into, and beyond, the blurry glare.
'That's enough!' B. J. said.
'I'll say when enough's enough,' Lieder told him. 'You just tell me who was right, you or me? Do you see now what a low, cringing thing your ordinary human being is? Now you and me, we wouldn't have acted like that. We'd of spit in their eye and let them do their damnedest. But then, we're superior beings. We read books and have ideas-Hey! I just got one of those ideas. And it's a honey. Listen up, Mr. Delanny. Maybe tonight I'll treat the townsfolk to a little show for their entertainment and edification. And you will be the star of the show. I'm going to have Bobby-My-Boy and Tiny bugger you, taking turns, one doing the buggering while the other holds the gun to your ear, and you'll be sobbing and whimpering and begging them to bugger as hard as they want, but please, please, please don't shoot me! For the love of God, don't shoot me! I think that will make an enlightening demonstration of human frailty. What do you think, schoolmaster?' He grinned.
'I think you're insane.'
'You reckon? Well, maybe it ain't my fault.' His eyes twinkled. 'Don't be hard on me, mister. I been made into a monster by a cruel childhood! Nobody ever loved me or praised me, and they made me sit at the table until I'd downed all my greens!' He grinned. 'Anyway, schoolteacher, I don't give a big rat's ass what you think one way or the-Hey! Get away from him, girl!'
But Frenchy had already slipped the boning knife between Delanny's ribs. He made a slight, almost apologetic grunt, and slumped against the restraining ropes. There wasn't much blood. Only a spreading stain on his ruffled shirtfront.
'Take that knife away from her!'
She dropped it at Bobby-My-Boy's feet and settled her eyes on Lieder's with insolent calm.
'Look what you have done, girl!' he said, approaching her with menace. 'You've killed a white man! I'd be in my rights to string you up!'
'She didn't kill him,' B. J. said. 'She just put him out of your reach.'
Lieder dismissed this with an irritated snap of his head. His pulse throbbing in his temples, he searched the depths of Frenchy's arrogant stare, his pupils flicking from one yellow eye to the other. Without looking toward it, he gestured at the corpse. 'Tiny, you and Bobby take that thing out of here!'
'Take it where?'
'I don't care! Dump it over the cliff! Just get it out of here! Peggy!'
Jeff Calder tried to swallow and speak at the same time. 'Sir?'
'Get a bucket and clean up this blood and… everything. This is no way for things to be!'
Calder sprang into rheumatic, stump-legged action.
Tiny and Bobby-My-Boy waddled out the front door with Mr. Delanny's slack body between them, Tiny backing out with the feet, and Bobby-My-Boy following with the bulk of the weight. They crossed the line of Matthew's vision without altering the soft intensity of his gaze out the barroom door into the glare of the street. He was aware that Frenchy had killed Mr. Delanny as one is aware of a fact of history. Nathan Hale had only one life to give for his country, and Frenchy killed Mr. Delanny. Frenchy… Mr. Delanny… Nathan Hale. He drew a sigh and settled deeper into the cosseting void.
Lieder continued to search Frenchy's eyes with a blend of revulsion and admiration. 'I said you were a different kettle of fish, and you certainly are! You are something special, girl. Slip a knife into a man just as cool as well water.' His eyes chilled. 'You better get out of my sight. And for as long as I'm in town, you'd better make yourself scarce, 'cause if I catch one glimpse of that ugly face of yours, I will kill you. And not in any fast way, neither.'
She didn't move.
B. J. stepped forward. 'Come with me, girl. Matthew, there are chores to be done up at the Livery…. Matthew!'
Matthew blinked and returned, smoothly and simply. 'Sir?'
'You have chores to do!' B. J. said with false severity.
'Wait a minute,' Lieder said. 'Maybe he ain't finished his work here.'
B. J. detected a tone of rivalry for Matthew's allegiance. He avoided a confrontation by asking Matthew, 'Are you done here?'
'What? Ah… well… pretty near. Just the dishes to wash up.'
'All right, you do the dishes, then come over to the Livery. I don't pay you for standing around here gawking. You come with me, Frenchy. ' When Frenchy didn't move, B. J. took her by the arm and drew her out into the street and across to the Livery.
MATTHEW WAS IN THE kitchen, washing the last of the dishes, humming in tuneless misery.
'Hey, how's things going, boy?' Lieder asked from the doorway.
Matthew tugged the old tablecloth he used as an apron out from under his belt and dried his hands on it. 'I got chores to do over to the Livery.'
Lieder sighed and abandoned the breezy tone with which he had hoped to transcend what had just happened. He sat on the step. 'I heard that schoolteacher call you Matthew. Well listen… Matthew. I want you to understand what I'm doing here, because you and me, we're the same thing. We're both damaged boys.' Lieder's sincerity was so intense that there seemed to be tears just beneath his words. 'And we love this country, you and me! We love every twig and pebble and mud hole, because damaged boys don't have anything to love but their country. They don't have family and friends and all that, you see what I mean? And it's only because I love this country of ours so much that I sometimes have to do things that may seem cruel. But what's really cruel is the way this government is turning our land into a pesthole of stinking foreigners. You see that, don't you, Matthew?'
'And you figure that gives you a right to torment people and kill them?'
'Whoa there! I didn't kill that pimp! It was that nigger gal!'
'No, sir. No, it was like B. J. said. She didn't kill him, she just put him out of your reach.'
'Goddamn it, boy, you could do a whole lot better than going around quoting some gutless, penny-'n'-nickel teacher!' He glared at Matthew… then he lowered his eyes, suddenly diminished. 'No, you're right, boy. You're absolutely right. I let things get out of hand. But you've got to humiliate your Example Nigger; that's the only way you can control people. But I got carried away, I admit it. I shouldn't have let Bobby-My-Boy hit him like that. I don't
