Norman Partridge - Dark Harvest

They don’t say anything for a long time.

“Okay?” he asks finally, because now there are tears in her eyes.

“Okay,” she says, and then she smiles.

A strong squeeze, and their hands part.

Kelly takes the brakeman’s club off the desk.

Pete picks up the.45.

He says, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The big Dodge jumps the tracks — chassis coming down hard, shocks crunching — and Jerry Ricks’s teeth clack together so hard that he nearly bites his cigarette in half.

Shit. That’s all Ricks needs. He slams the gas pedal with a steel-toed boot and flicks on the high beams. The patrol car speeds through a bright tunnel carved by the headlights, past the market where Ricks gunned down those kids an hour and change ago.

He’s heading north, toward the fire.

Make that fires . Because dispatch had it wrong. The radio call Ricks caught a couple minutes after parting company with Dan Shepard mentioned one fire, but Jerry spots two towers of flame rising from the north side.

Those fires look to be several blocks apart.

The town has exactly one fire truck.

Shit. everything’s gone nuts tonight. First the deal at the market, now this. If Ricks gets his hands on the pimply-faced arsonist who pulled this crazy stunt, what that kid gets won’t be as easy as a bullet. He’ll hang him from a tree like a heavy bag and do the job right… and slow.

Ricks heads toward the blaze that wasn’t called in. He gets on the radio and takes care of that little detail, even though he knows it’s pointless. Even the lazy bitch at dispatch is smart enough to figure out that a fire crew can’t be two places at once, so guess who gets to pick up the slack — your pal and mine, Jerry Ricks, who’s suddenly pretty sure that several city blocks are going to end up as cinders tonight.

All Ricks can do is jump on the problem, maybe contain the blaze if the people who live closest to it aren’t already panicking. And if they are, well… maybe he can save the asses of the ones that matter before they get barbequed. The way Jerry figures it, there won’t be too many of those — the only good news he’s got right now is that there aren’t many Guild members living in this dumpy little corner of town.

And that’s not much if you’re looking for a silver lining. Ricks signs off the radio, clips the mic on the dash, and swerves just in time to miss a couple of knotheads running toward the scene. Jesus. As he makes the next couple blocks he notices that there are dozens of kids on the streets, and they’re all heading toward the fires… every single one of them.

And that’s when it hits him.

The identity of the firebug.

Gotta be the October Boy himself, a.k.a. little Jimmy Shepard.

Yeah. Ricks slams his palm against the steering wheel, figuring it all out just that fast. Ol’ Hacksaw Face did the deed. Sure he did. And every chuckleheaded kid running on a five-day hunger has fallen for his feint. Because that’s what this action is. The freak has them kissing up to the flames like a bunch of idiot moths. He needs a diversion. He had to come up with some way to draw the gangs away from Main Street so he could clear a path to the church, and it looks like he’s done just that, because every starving little moron running around in a pair of tennis shoes tonight is beating a path in the wrong direction.

“Well, fuck me with a fistful of splinters,” Ricks says. “This boy is good.”

Houses blur by on both sides of the patrol car. Flickering pumpkins leer at Ricks from porches, and he can almost hear them laugh. Almost. Because imagination only goes so far with Jerry Ricks. It might crawl up on his shoulder and say howdy now and then, but it’s never long before he gives it the back of his hand.

And that happens right about now. Ricks stares straight ahead at the blaze silhouetted by peaked rooftops. He butts out the cig he nearly bit in half when the Dodge rattled across the tracks, gets another one started with his Zippo. There’s part of him that’s thinking maybe it’s not too late to stop the fire. But there’s another part that wants to forget the whole deal, rip a U-bender and point the Dodge in the other direction, because a glance at his wristwatch tells him that it’s 11:30. That leaves Dan Shepard’s misfit son thirty solid minutes to make it to the church, and Ricks doesn’t trust Dan to do the Guild’s dirty work if his kid manages to make it all the way to the finish line before the bell tolls midnight.

But what the hell can he do? Could be the Boy is still up ahead somewhere. That’s where the smoke is… that’s where the fire is… maybe that’s where his scarecrow ass is, too.

“Goddammit!” Ricks shouts. “Goddammit!”

His foot jams the brakes. He skids to a stop. He’s so damn close now. Flames are licking the rooftops just a block away. A half dozen boys race past him, heading for the show with bats and pickaxes and chains. The idiots don’t even realize that no one’s coming to fight the fires besides good old Officer Ricks. They don’t even know how close they are to running headfirst into a blast furnace they’ll never escape.

Ricks sits there behind the wheel, just sits there like he never has before in his life. For the first time he can remember, he can’t make a decision, and he can’t fucking stand it. He drags so hard on his cigarette that he nearly burns it down to the filter. And then a kid comes running toward him. A big kid. Ricks thinks he remembers him… maybe from the football team. Yeah. The kid looks familiar. But his face is swollen, and his nose looks like it ate fifteen rounds’ worth of jabs. Someone must have bashed him good… and more than once.

He’s pounding on Ricks’s window, screaming something. Jerry grabs his.38 with one hand, rolls the window down with the other. The kid stumbles back when he sees the gun.

“Christ… no! Don’t shoot!”

“Calm down. What the hell do you want?”

“I saw Sawtooth Jack! He’s a couple blocks over… in front of the Bagley place. He had the gas cap off Old Man Bagley’s pickup, and he was stuffing a rag into it — ”

And then it’s like someone shook up the whole damn world and popped the cap. Boom! The sound sucks any words the kid had left in him right out of his mouth, and the concussion nearly knocks him flat-ass on the blacktop.

But Ricks barely notices. He’s too busy watching a fireball climb the ladder of the night like a demon laying siege to Heaven. He’s watching that fire paint the sky, and everything beneath it — the silent houses, the hard cold streets, the white hood of his patrol car.

Something plows through the orange glow. Two dead-white headlights spear Ricks’s retinas. He squints but doesn’t look away as a car burns by. Maybe it’s a Chevy… or a Chrysler….

“Jesus Christ — it’s him!” the kid shouts. “It’s the October Boy! He boosted Mitch Crenshaw’s ride!”

Ricks eyeballs the rearview as the Chrysler’s taillights swim away in the murk. The driver’s making tracks, heading downtown… where there’s probably not a kid in sight anymore… where the only thing to stop him is a used-up crybaby with a riot gun.

Ricks knows he can’t count on that.

He looks at his watch. It’s twenty-five minutes to midnight.

He shoots a glance at the swollen-faced kid that is all business.

“Get in,” he says. “Now.”

The kid’s jaw drops open, but no words come out. He runs around to the shotgun side of the patrol car, fills the space with his sizable ass and slams the door. Ricks peels out just that fast, trailing those taillights swimming away in the dark.

Between that Chrysler and the pair of hands strangling the patrol car’s steering wheel, Ricks’s reflection floats on the windshield — his narrow face painted in dashboard green glow, the tip of his cigarette glowing like a fuse. Ricks glances over at the kid. The big dope doesn’t look like a winner. If he’s got anything in common with the other young bucks who ended up in that cornfield with a couple ounces of lead ricocheting around in their brainpans, he’s doing a pretty solid job of hiding it.