Peter Abrahams - Last of the Dixie Heroes

“Get this over with, Griff,” Vandam said.

His son nodded and swung his fist, a long, slow, looping punch that Rhett had plenty of time to block or sidestep or lean away from, but he did none of those things, didn’t move at all, not even raising one of those shaking hands. The blow caught him flush on the side of the head, made a sound like a fastball smacking into a catcher’s mitt.

“Yeah,” Vandam said, and so did someone else.

Rhett still didn’t move. Vandam’s son took a step forward, upper teeth showing now, and hit Rhett again, same way, same spot. Smack.

“Yeah,” Vandam said again, louder now, and there were other voices: “Go get ’im, Griff. Get ’im again.”

Griff got him again, a little higher up this time, no way to tell if he was trying to hit the same spot or not. This one, or the cumulative effect, split Rhett’s cheek open, but not too bad. Not too bad, Roy told himself; maybe said it out loud, hard to tell with all the other voices rising.

“Yeah.”

“Again.”

“Get ’im.”

“Again.”

And Lee looking white, and Jesse looking sick, and Sonny: “Remember what I told you, for fuck sake.”

Roy glanced at Sonny. What struck him wasn’t so much the blood trickling from Sonny’s ear, or his split lip, or the muscles and veins popping up all over the place, but the way his hair being chopped off made the facial resemblance to Roy’s father suddenly obvious. He took that for a good thing, that they were practically brothers, all in this together, and therefore Rhett would come through. He had to.

Remember what Sonny told you, for fuck sake. Meant that to be a silent thought, but maybe it got out, and if it did this wasn’t like football where the players couldn’t hear, because Rhett looked his way, an expression in his eyes that Roy found hard to bear, and while he was looking his way, got popped again, in the mouth this time, bang on.

Rhett staggered.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Smack in the fuckin’ face.”

“You got ’im now.”

“Again, again.”

Rhett’s lip was split now too. He spat, and out came a little white tooth, might have been a baby tooth, Roy thought. It made him mad. He took a step forward and shouted: “Fight, boy. Fight like a son of a bitch.”

But Rhett did nothing. Vandam’s son, Griff, threw another one of those heavy slow rights, and Rhett just let it hit him, side of the face again, split that split a little wider. Blood poured freely now, and Rhett’s legs went wobbly. He fell, almost melted, in the dust, lying at Sonny’s feet.

“Atta boy, Griff.”

“In the fuckin’ face.”

Sonny dropped to his knees, leaned over Rhett, spoke to him. Roy couldn’t hear much of what he was saying, caught only “sack of shit” and “piss pot,” but he saw, everyone saw, what Sonny did next: he licked the blood off the split in Rhett’s face. What else could he do, hands tied behind his back?

Rhett got up. He spat out another tooth, this one trailing a pink plume in the dusty air. Then he looked up at the bigger boy and said: “I’m gonna kill you.”

“Yeah?” said Griff, and he hit him again, same place, must have been his natural angle or something, opening the split wider than ever. “Yeah?” he said, higher-pitched this time, his mouth in a frozen grin but his eyes savage, and did it one more time.

“Again.”

“In the fuckin’-”

Rhett stepped inside and bounced a quick left jab off Griff’s nose, every muscle in his little arm showing. Griff leaned back, surprised. Rhett seemed to inflate; everything about him changed, his stance, his bearing, but most of all his eyes, suddenly fearless-and frightening in a way that Griff’s, no matter how savage, were not, Rhett’s being so much colder. He had the gene.

“You gonna let him do that to you, boy?” said Vandam. “Split his fuckin’ face in two.”

Griff bent his knees, drew back his fist, grunted, threw another of those looping right hands, this one the heaviest of all. But it didn’t land. Rhett ducked, moved in, tilted Griff’s face back with another left jab and then did something whether on purpose or not, Roy couldn’t tell: with his right fist, Rhett punched Griff on his exposed neck, square on the Adam’s apple.

Griff went down writhing, clutched his throat.

“Yeah.”

“Got ’im, Rhett, you got ’im.”

And Sonny said: “Now finish him off.”

Rhett fell on Griff, punching, punching, punching. Red welts popped up all over Griff’s face, red blood soaked into blue and gray, Griff cried out something about breathing or not breathing, Roy didn’t care. He was just screaming, they all were, all the Irregulars, all the Confederates, screaming over their fighting hero.

Then Peterschmidt, Vandam, other Yankees were in the circle, not a circle now, too crowded, pulling Rhett off, Rhett, still punching as Vandam lifted him in the air. One of his punches caught Vandam in the gut. Vandam made a little oof sound. Then he hit Rhett in the head, very hard. Rhett fell to the ground, lay still.

Roy went wild after that. They all did, blue and gray, both sides kicking, spitting, butting, kneeing, the Yankees using their fists and rifle butts too. Wild: like snakes, bears, hyenas, but more dangerous; and they made wild sounds, wordless but human. One by one the Confederates, hands still tied behind their backs, went down, only Roy and Sonny standing; Lee down, jacket off, hands pawing at her, the noise rising louder and louder, now no longer completely human, beyond endurance, and then a helicopter shot up over the ridge.

Roy didn’t even know what it was at first, could make no sense of the writing on its side: National Weather Service. The machine threw up a blinding cloud of dust, soared on up the mountain. Roy couldn’t see a thing. He felt a glancing blow on the back of his head, not much, but that was all it took.

Adept little fingers were working at his wrists. Roy opened his eyes, saw an apple lying in the grass, a foot or so away. A tiny, perfect red apple; as he watched, an ugly bug crept around from the other side, like a destroyer coming over the horizon.

Lee untied him. Roy got up. The Yankees were gone and so was Rhett.

Lee, all buttoned up now, but the collar not high quite enough to hide the bruise on her neck, said: “They took him anyway.”

“Said we cheated,” Dibrell said.

They were all-Roy, Sonny, Lee, Jesse, Gordo, Dibrell-beaten and bloody.

“It’s my fault, Roy,” Gordo said. “Them finding us up here.”

“No, it’s not,” Roy said; what connection could there be between Gordo and Ezekiel?

“It is,” Gordo said, starting to cry. Combat fatigue, Roy thought-nothing to be ashamed of. “I told Earl we’d be up here,” Gordo said, “asking for the extra time off and all.”

“So?” said Roy. “What’s Earl got to do with it?”

“Peterschmidt bought a car off him,” Gordo said, wiping his eyes. “An LX, with the comfort and convenience package, loaded. Earl must of told him.”

Roy didn’t quite get it, but he felt those headlights on his back again.

Machine noise came drifting down from the mountaintop.

“Let’s go,” Jesse said.

Roy shouldered his gun.

By the time night fell, the Irregulars were safe in Sonny Junior’s barn, patching themselves up. Roy had a bad, bad feeling that he wouldn’t see his son again. He also had a feeling that he would never return to the Mountain House.

They drank water, not the heavenly water from the creek, but rusty water from the pump in the yard. They ate hardtack, the Slim Jims all gone. The sun set, but left an orange glow on the windowpanes; inside, two or three candles spread golden holes in the murk, not quite reaching the tilted tractor, Sonny’s drum kit, the demolition derby car. High up on the walls, ember-colored tints showed here and there on a scythe, a rake, the ball and chain.