Carol O’Connell - Stone Angel

“Lies, all lies!” said Malcolm.

“And what kind of lie did you tell Ira’s father?” Riker was louder now. “I know he threw the first rock. You put it in his hand, didn’t you?”

Ray Laurie was standing behind Jimmy Simms’s father, saying, “Now Dan, you know that’s a lie. Malcolm was gone before the first stone flew.”

Simms turned to look up at Malcolm. “Well, how did he know Ira’s father threw – ”

It was done quickly with the butt end of a rifle, and Simms fell. A second blow sent Riker to his knees again.

Malcolm strutted across the truck bed passing in front of the coffin. “He would tell any lie. He would spew any filth. All we know for certain is that Riker raped and killed that poor idiot. Maybe he was afraid we wouldn’t turn him over to the sheriff. Maybe he thought we would be so outraged by what he had done, that we would pluck out his eyes and flay his skin and stone him to death. And I could not blame any man or woman for doing this.” He pointed to the torches. “Take up these torches and shine the light on him. See this monster for what he is.”

Riker staggered to his feet again. Malcolm pointed one finger at the musicians. “Play,” he commanded them.

They stared at one another. “Play loud!” Malcolm screamed, and then Ray was there with his rifle leveled on the bandleader. Clark jumped down from the truck fender and lifted his horn with the rest of the band, and they began to play.

“Louder!” yelled Malcolm.

The band played, Riker screamed out in pain. Malcolm Laurie jumped down from the truck and walked away across the fairgrounds, heading for the lower bayou.

All the lights of Owltown went out, followed by the strobes positioned around the truck. This was Charles’s only clue that Mallory was not yet in the fray. He held fast to Augusta. She was not frail. Where he encircled her waist, the body was firm and well muscled. Her hair was flowing over him like a soft river, and to his left was the mighty Mississippi and the long sloping fall to night-black water. He could feel every pounding, jarring meeting of hoof and earth. They had cleared Upland Bayou and Dayborn township. The torch flames from Owltown were still match size from this distance.

Augusta screamed, “We’re going down now.”

The horse was descending, flying down from the road, his massive heart pumping fast. The animal stumbled badly, and they were falling. Charles’s stomach was rising, and his body was flooded with the chill of adrenaline. He watched the ground coming up to meet him as the horse went into a roll. Charles held Augusta closer, raised his knee and braced his foot on the horse’s back to push off with one leg. Then he and Augusta were flying through the air, clear of the horse, which now lay screaming in the dirt, rolling the rest of the way.

Charles hit the ground on his back with Augusta on top of him. She was first to her feet. The horse was struggling to rise, and falling back in a fresh agony of screams with every attempt. The moon was brilliant. He could see the broken white bone shining through the skin and the blood of the horse’s leg.

Charles moved toward Augusta and put his hand under her arm. She waved him off, scowling at him and pulling the derringer from her pocket. “Look out for your own damn self. Get on. I have to do this.”

As he was turning toward the far edge of the fairgrounds, Augusta knelt by the horse, one hand on the muzzle, the barrel of the derringer behind an ear. Charles was on the run when he heard the gunshot. The screams ended. His steps faltered, and then he ran on toward the firelight of Owltown.

The first person he saw was Malcolm, walking away from the mob while the band played on.

Charles ran into the crowd. He had no difficulty forcing his way through the crush of smaller people. He found Riker at the center of the mob, lying on the ground amid a scattering of rocks. He covered Riker with his own body and absorbed the blow of a stone to his back, then another hit one leg. He did have the sense to tuck in his head. He had learned a great deal from turtles.

The mob parted long enough for Charles to see Augusta standing by the truck’s rear wheel. By the light of a passing torch, he watched her feed a rag into the gas tank. The cloth darkened, soaking with gasoline. She looked up and caught the eye of the trumpet player. She struck a match and showed it to him. The musician dropped his jaw and nudged the sax man standing next to him, and then all five musicians fell back from the truck. Augusta touched her match to the rag and calmly lit a black cheroot as the flame traveled along the rag and into the tank.

Ray Laurie stood on the bed of the truck, overseeing the mob, while Augusta walked steadily into the enfolding darkness, and a Dixieland band ran across the deserted fairgrounds toward the parking lot.

The explosion rocked the ground. Charles felt the impact of the waves of energy exploding outward in a wide spray of flying bits of metal and flame, leaving a vacuum at the core of the blast. A roar of fire rushed back inward in a ball, then plumed up in a mushroom cloud of bright orange heat. Ray Laurie’s body shot straight out from the truck, and spikes of flame licked him in flight to set his hair and clothes afire. The man stood up and screamed, as the horse had screamed. He ran into the crowd, and the people backed away from the human bonfire. Ray fell to earth and writhed at their feet. The crowd had grown deathly still. A wicked whiff hung in the air, and Charles was stunned to realize that burnt human flesh could initiate hunger.

So this was hell.

While the crowd was in thrall to the spectacle of Ray Laurie burning to death, Charles was on his knees, pulling one of Riker’s limp arms around his neck. He was rising to a stand with one arm circled around the man’s waist, and now he dragged Riker’s unconscious body along with him. The toes of Riker’s shoes made ruts in the dirt behind them, and their progress was slow.

Ray Laurie had ceased to scream, to flail, even to twitch. The crowd turned its attention back on Charles and his heavy burden. He could feel their eyes on him, the heat of the flames at his back, and the tension growing with the sound of slow shuffles as a hundred pairs of feet were set into motion.

Though there was nothing spoken, no signal, they moved in unison, walking toward him, fanning out to form the next stoning ring. One by one, a head bowed down, low to the earth, and a hand shot out to snatch up a rock.

Charles braced himself for the next blow. He was preparing to lower Riker to the ground, to lie across his friend’s body and give him cover.

“Look there!” A woman standing at the fringe of the crowd was pointing to the other end of Owltown’s main road flanked by darkened shabby storefronts.

Only one streetlamp was lit. Standing in the pool of light was a lone figure wearing boots and a horseman’s duster. The face was shaded by the brim of a black hat.

Tom Jessup stood by the nurse’s station in the hospital corridor, holding Ira in his arms. Other cases were rolling by on gurneys, each one an entourage of emergency personnel. Darlene was crying, the public address system was issuing orders, and the harried triage nurse was looking down at Ira’s swollen, bloody face as she checked his pulse and pulled back the lid of one eye.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff. We’re stacking up critical cases in the halls. It’ll be a while before a doctor can see him. The chemical burns are first priority.”

He knew what she really meant. The boy’s breathing was a ragged whistle, and his color was edging toward a blue pallor. He had seen this before in the aftermath of road accidents. Ira was dying, and the nurse was more interested in the patients who might be saved.