Another noise. The world was roaring and circling around him now, but even as Duane teetered on the edge of consciousness, recognizing in some removed, clinical part of his mind that it was as much from shock and fear as from the loss of blood, he recognized part of that roar.
The combine had been started up. It was moving toward him in the darkness. He could hear the cornstalks being severed, chewed, dragged into the unshielded maw of the snapping rolls. The air was full of the stench of decay warring with the scent of fresh-harvested stalks.
Duane struggled to rise, kicked, bit, tried to free either hand so as to gouge or claw at the shapes and dark weights holding him down. The boot on his face pressed with renewed pressure. Duane felt his cheekbone snap but did not pause in his maddened straggles to rise, to fight these things, to get to his feet.
There was a sudden movement, a shifting of the stench around him, a glimpse of the stars, and then the noise and the mass of the combine filled the entire world.
The instant the boot left his temple, Duane lifted his face from the mud. There was a great tearing at his legs, an irresistible force lifted him and turned him, pulled him toward the vortex he could feel through every fiber of his body, but for that split second, that briefest of instants, he was free-he could see the stars-and he lifted his face toward them even as he was spun away into the darkness roaring below and around him.
In Elm Haven, Mike O'Rourke had fallen asleep in Memo's room, sitting in the upholstered chair by the window, a baseball bat across his knees. He awoke at a sudden sound.
On the south end of town, Jim Harlen spun up out of his nightmare of the face at the window. The room was dark. His arm hurt from the bone outward and there was a terrible taste in his mouth. He realized that it was a distant but powerful sound that had awakened him.
Kevin Grumbacher had been dreaming when something brought him up in bed and gasping for air in the sterile darkness of his room. Some sound had awakened him. Kevin listened, hearing only the loud hum of the central air conditioner through the vents. Then it came. And again.
Dale came awake with a start, precisely the way he did when he was falling asleep and dreamed that he was falling. His heart pounded as if something terrible was happening. He blinked at the shadowed room, peered toward the night-light. He could feel stirrings in the bed nearby and felt Lawrence's warm fingers tugging at his pajama sleeve, asking what was wrong.
Dale pushed back the covers, wondering what had frightened him awake even as he blinked at the darkness.
Then it came again. A terrible sound, deep, echoing in the confines of Dale's brain. He glanced at Lawrence, saw his brother covering his ears and looking at him with wide eyes.
He hears it too.
It sounded again. A bell… louder, deeper, more terribly resonant than any church bell in Elm Haven. The first strike had wakened him. The second echoed away in the humid darkness. Then the third made Dale wince, cover his own ears, and hunker down in the bedclothes as if he could hide from the sound. He expected his mother and father to run into the room, shouts from the neighbors, but there was no noise but the bell, no response but his brother and he cowering from the awful noise.
The great bell seemed to be in the room with them as it struck four, struck again, and went on-relentlessly-striking the hour toward midnight.
TWENTY
Dale was playing baseball with the guys on Saturday morning when he heard the news. Chuck Sperling and some of his friends had just ridden up on their expensive bikes.
"Hey, your friend Duane is dead," Sperling called to Dale where he stood on the pitcher's mound.
Dale stared at him.
"You're nuts," said Dale at last, feeling how dry his mouth had suddenly become. Then he realized what they were talking about. "You mean Duane's uncle, right?"
"Uh-uh," said Sperling. "Uh-uh, I'm not talking about his uncle. That was last Monday, right? I'm talking about Duane McBride. He's dead as a roadkill."
Dale opened his mouth but found nothing to say. He tried to spit. His mouth was too dry. "You're a fucking liar," he managed.
"Uh-uh," said Digger Taylor, the undertaker's son. "He's not lying."
Dale blinked and looked back at Sperling as if the tall boy was the only one who could stop the joke.
"No shit," said Sperling, tossing the ball into the air and catching it. "They called Digger's dad out to McBride's farm this morning. The fat kid fell into a combine… a combine for Chrissakes. It took 'em more than an hour to get his body out of the gears and stuff. Torn to shit. Your dad says it'll never be an open-coffin funeral, isn't that right, Digger?"
Digger said nothing. He was looking directly at Dale with his pale gray eyes showing nothing. Chuck Sperling continued to toss the ball to himself.
"Take it back." Dale had dropped his mitt and ball and was walking slowly toward the taller boy.
Sperling freed his hand and frowned. "What the hell's wrong with you, Stewart? I thought you'd wanna know that…"
"Take it back," whispered Dale, but he did not wait for a response. He launched himself at Chuck Sperling, charging with his head down. Sperling got his arms up and bounced a rabbit chop off the top of Dale's head as Dale got inside the other boy's reach and started swinging. He punched Sperling hard in the gut, heard the wind go out of him, and got in three or four hard punches to the ribs, landing one right above the heart.
Sperling exhaled deeply and sagged back against the wire backstop. When his arms came down, Dale started punching him in the face. The second blow sent blood flying from Sperling's nose, the third crunched teeth, but Dale didn't feel the pain of his knuckles being ripped raw. Sperling began to fold up, whimpering and covering his face with his forearms, his hands on the top of his head.
Dale kicked him in the side, twice, very hard. When Sperling's arms came down, Dale got him by the throat and dragged him up against the wire. His left hand was choking him while his right was free and punching again, hitting him in the ear, the forehead, the mouth…
There were shouts very far away. Hands pulled and tore at Dale's t-shirt. He ignored them. Sperling swung wildly, slapping at Dale's face with his open palms. Dale blinked and hit the taller boy in the left eye as hard as he could.
Suddenly Dale felt a terrible pain in the kidneys, a hand grabbed under his chin and pulled him back, and he was torn away.
Digger Taylor moved between him and Sperling. Dale shouted something and started to charge through the short boy. Digger dropped his shoulder and punched Dale once, very hard, just above the solar plexus.
Dale went down into the dust, gasping and retching. He rolled up against the wire and toed to pull himself up. His lungs couldn't get any air and it felt as if his heart had stopped.
Lawrence came screaming off the old bench along the fence, launching himself six feet into the air and landing on Digger's back. Digger flipped the eight-year-old into the wire.
Lawrence bounced off and landed on his feet as if the fence were a vertical trampoline. His head was down and his arms were a blur as he waded into Taylor. Digger backed away, trying to hold Lawrence's head down and away. Both of them topped over the wailing Chuck Sperling and went down in a heap, Lawrence still swinging and flinging dirt. Barry Fussner walked in, pranced around the edge of the melee, and toed an effeminate kick at Lawrence's head.
"Hey!" cried Kevin, stepping closer for the first time. He shoved Fussner away. Barry toed kicking Kevin, but Kev grabbed the heavy boy's foot and flipped him into the dirt behind the plate. Bill Fussner shouted something and pranced forward, backing away as Kevin turned to face him. Bob McKown and Gerry Daysinger shouted general encouragement. Tom Castanatti had stayed where he was in the field.
Digger grabbed Lawrence by the t-shirt and swung him into the air, tossing him over the long bench. He picked Sperling up and began backing toward their two bikes. Lawrence leapt to his feet, fists clenched.
Dale staggered away from the fence, still unable to get a breath but not letting that
stop him, and raised his fists. He took three steps toward Taylor and Sperling, knowing that this time he wasn't going to go down until they killed him or Sperling took the lie back.
Heavy hands fell on Dale's shoulders from behind. He toed to shrug them off, couldn't, cursed something and kicked backward, turning to fight off this hindrance so he could get at Sperling.
"Dale! Stop it, Dale!" His father loomed over him, holding him with one arm around his middle now.
Dale squirmed for a second, but then he looked up at his dad, saw his father's eyes, and knew. He sagged to his knees in the dirt and only his father's arm around him kept him from falling forward.
Digger Taylor and Chuck Sperling rode off, Sperling's bike wobbling as the boy tried to ride while doubled over and weeping. The Fussners loped along behind. Lawrence was standing at the edge of the parking lot, throwing rocks after them until his father ordered him to stop.
Dale never remembered the walk back to the house. Perhaps he leaned on his father's arm. Perhaps he walked alone. He remembered that he did not cry. Not then. Not yet.
Mike was getting ready to serve as altar boy at an old lady's funeral Mass when he heard about Duane. He'd just pulled his surplice over his cassock when Rusty Ramirez, the only other altar boy to show up that day, said, "Jeez, didja hear about the kid who got killed on a farm this morning?"
Mike froze. Somehow he knew at once what farm, what kid. But he said, "Was it Duane McBride?"
Ramirez told him. "They said he fell into some farm machinery. Maybe early this morning. My dad's on the volunteer fire department and they called them all out there. Couldn't do nothing for the kid… he was dead… but it took 'em a whole bunch of time to get him out of the machine an' all."
Mike sat down on the nearest bench. His legs and arms felt like water. The corners of his vision went sort of dark, so he lowered his head, his elbows on his knees. "You sure that it was Duane McBride?" he asked.
"Oh, yeah. My dad knows his dad. He saw him at the Black Tree just last night. My dad says that the kid musta been drivin' this combine rigged for huskin' corn, you know? Like he was crazy or something. Pickin' in June. An' somehow he fell out and got in the picker part… you know where the grinders and stuff are? Dad wouldn't tell me everything, but he said they couldn't get the kid out in one piece and when they tried to pull the arm…"
"That's enough!" snapped Father Cavanaugh from the doorway. "Rusty, go out and get the wine and water ready. Now." When the boy left, the priest came over to Mike and put his hand gently on his shoulder. Mike's vision was fine now, but for some reason he was shivering. He gripped his thighs tightly to stop the shaking, but he couldn't.
"You knew him, Michael?"
Mike nodded.
"A close friend?"
Mike took in a breath. He shrugged, then nodded. The shaking seemed to have moved into his bones now.
"Was he Catholic?" asked Father C.
Mike lowered his head again. His first response was to say, Who the fuck cares? "No," he said. "I don't think so. He never came to church here. I don't think he or his dad belong to any church."
Father C. made a soft noise. "It doesn't matter. I'll go out to visit him right after this service."
"You can't go out there to see Mr. McBride, Father," Rusty said from the doorway. He had the small bottles of wine and water in his hands. "The cops've got the kid's dad over to Oak Hill. They think maybe he murdered him."
"That's enough, Rusty," Father C. said in a deeper tone than Mike had ever heard him use. Then, amazingly, the priest said, "Now get your ass out there and wait for Michael and me."
Rusty's jaw dropped, he stared wide-eyed at Father C. for a second, and then he scurried out to the altar. Mike could hear the mourners for Mrs. Sarranza's funeral beginning to file in.
"We'll think of your friend Duane as we say Mass and ask for God's mercy," Father Cavanaugh said softly, touching Mike's shoulder a final time. "Ready?"
Mike nodded, lifted the tall crucifix that lay ready against the wall, and followed the priest out to the altar in solemn procession.
Late that afternoon, Dale's father came upstairs to talk to him. Dale was lying on his bed, listening to the shouts and cries of younger children playing in the schoolyard across the street. The happy noises sounded very far away.
"How you doing, tiger?"
"Fine."
"Lawrence is eating some dinner. Sure you won't join us?"
"No. Thanks."
His dad cleared his throat and sat on Lawrence's bed. Dale was lying on his back, his fingers laced on his forehead, staring at the tiny cracks in the ceiling. He listened when his dad sat down, half expecting to hear a stirring under the bed. There was only the outside noise, drifting through the screens like the heavy air. The day was gray and thick with humidity.
"I called Constable Sills again," said his dad. "I finally got through."
Dale waited.
"It's true about the accident," said his dad. His voice sounded hoarse, strained. "There was some terrible accident with the machine they used to harvest corn. Duane… well, Barney thinks that it probably happened very quickly. In all probability, Duane didn't suffer…"
Dale flinched slightly, concentrated on finding a pattern in the cracks above him.
"The police were out there all morning," continued his dad, evidently understanding that no matter how terrible these facts were, they were what Dale needed now. "They're going to continue the investigation, but they're pretty sure it was an accident."
"What about his father?" rasped Dale.
"What?"
"Duane's father. Didn't the police arrest him?"
Dale's dad scratched his upper lip. "Who told you that?"
"Mike stopped by. He heard it from some kid. They said that Duane's dad had been arrested for murder."
His father shook his head. "Darren McBride was questioned according to the constable. He was… out drinking until late last night and couldn't account for his actions early this morning. But both Mr. Taylor's and the coroner's report… Dale, you don't want to hear this…"
"Yes," demanded Dale.
"Well, I guess they have ways of telling how long it's been since… since someone's passed away. At first they thought the accident had happened this morning, after Mr. McBride had gone home and… gone to sleep…"
"Passed out," said Dale.
"Yes. Well, at first they'd thought the accident had happened this morning, but then the coroner was sure that it occurred last night, sometime around midnight. Mr. McBride had been at the Black Tree until long after midnight. There were witnesses. Also, Barney says that the man is beside himself… hardly rational…"
Dale nodded again. Midnight was correct. He remembered the peal of the bell toward twelve. The bell that did not exist in Elm Haven. He said, "I want to go out there."
His father leaned forward. Dale could smell the soap and tobacco scent of his hands and forearms. "Out to the farm?"
Dale nodded. He thought he could see a pattern in the cracks now. A pattern like a large question mark made of zigzag lines.
"I don't think it would be a good idea today," his dad said softly. "I'll call later. See how Mr. McBride's holding up. See if there'll be a memorial service or funeral. Then we'll take some food out. Perhaps tomorrow…"
"I'm going," said Dale.
His father thought that he meant to the funeral. He nodded, touched his son on the head, and went downstairs.
Dale lay there thinking for some time. He must have dozed because when he opened his eyes again, the room was gray with fading light, the children's cries had been replaced by crickets and night sounds, and darkness had crept from the corners. Dale lay perfectly still, hardly breathing, waiting for a sound from under Lawrence's bed, for the peal of a bell, for something…
When the rain came, opening up as fiercely and quickly as a turned tap, Dale sat by the window and watched the leaves outlined against silent lightning, heard the gurgle of water in the pipes and t
he pattering of rain on leaves and the cinder driveway as the downpour lessened. A flash illuminated Depot Street wet and black in the night, the belfry of Old Central rising above the sentinel elms across the street.
The breeze coming in through the screen was chilly now. Dale shivered slightly but did not get back under the covers. Not yet. He had to think.
He and Mike went out after each had gone to their respective churches the next day. Dale had found Reverend Miller's sermon a distant drone; later, driving home, his mother had commented on how thoughtful the Reverend's comments about the McBride tragedy had been, but Dale hadn't heard them.
He told his mom that he was going over to Mike's chick-enhouse; he didn't know what Mike told his family, if anything. Dale didn't have to eeawkee-Mike was waiting under the big elm where they'd first met. Mike was wearing a rubber poncho that the Peoria Journal-Star had given him for his delivery route.
"You're going to get soaked," said Mike when Dale slid to a stop on the sidewalk.
Dale peered up through the branches. It was still raining hard; he hadn't really noticed, although he realized he'd pulled on a windbreaker. The bill of his wool ballcap was already dripping. He shrugged. "Let's go."
Rain pattered on the knee-high corn as they pedaled out past the water tower, east on Jubilee College Road, north again on County Six. They hid their bikes in the high weeds on the hill to Uncle Henry's house. The rain was coming down harder now and Mike fussed about the bike getting wet.
"Come on," whispered Dale.
They climbed the fence and went into Mr. Johnson's woods. They could see the cemetery on the next hill behind them, the black iron fence giving off a wintry feeling outlined as it was against a gray sky. The woods dripped and Dale felt his tennis shoes getting more soaked as he and Mike climbed up through wet umbrella plants and knee-high weeds. The hillside was slippery and on the steeper parts they had to grab trees or weeds to pull themselves up.
They came out into the narrow pasture abutting the south side of the McBride farm and Mike led the way west, toward the back field. Duane's farm was just visible across almost a mile of low corn. The sky was a mottled variety of grays that seemed to lie low as a ceiling above them. They paused at the fence.