from distinguishing the sex of each one, and their shoes—sneakers or penny loafers—were not much help, either. At least one woman had come along: Her high-pitched mocking laughter greeted every underdone bon mot dropped into the deep fry of our fear and confusion.
Now the van was bumping along at good speed.
“Coulda sworn he’d stink,” one of the men said. “I expected dead rat or wet dog, somethin’ foul anyway.”
“Not this one,” Puddicombe replied. “This one wears English Leather or he don’t wear nothin’ at all.”
The woman guffawed. From where I sat, it was impossible to tell to which robed body the guffaw belonged, only that it was nervous and feminine. After a mile or two, though, I arbitrarily assigned it to the penny loafers.
Our van bounded from rut to rut. We did not seem to be on paved highway. Once, our driver sounded his horn. The sour bleating blast of another horn, undoubtedly that of Teavers’s pickup, answered it. We slowed and turned. The penny loafers guffawed, a high-pitched outburst with no apparent antecedent.
“Where are we going?” RuthClaire asked.
No one answered. Adam had his arm linked in mine. Occasionally he looked from side to side as if trying to sort out the pecking order among our captors. I don’t think he was scared. Both RuthClaire and I were near, and with his free hand he absentmindedly groomed my ex, picking tiny knots out of the shingled strands of her hair.
Eventually the van skewed to a stop. Its sliding door popped back like the lid of a capsized jack-in-the-box. Puddicombe, minus his nylon stocking, forced us outside. We stood in the beams of E. L. Teavers’s pickup truck’s headlights, virtually blinded by their moted yellow glare. The van backed away, executed a wild turn on the edge of a trail rut, and vanished into the night with all its robed cargo but Puddicombe.
This frightened me far worse than anything that had happened so far, including even the first burst of brick against glass in the West Bank. RuthClaire, Adam, and I were stranded in the middle of nowhere with the Zealous High Zygote and his chief lieutenant. I looked up. Stars freckled most of the sky, but a migrating coal sack of clouds had begun to eat big chunks of the western heavens. A bottomless abyss opened over my head and under my feet, and the chill of this sensation spookily disoriented me.
The headlights cut off.
From across the weed-choked field, Teavers said, “Bring the hibber here, Craig.”
“Why?” RuthClaire asked. “What do you mean to do?”
I closed my eyes, opened them, and closed them again. When next I peered about, though, the landscape seemed familiar. We stood on Cleve Snyder’s land not far from Paradise Farm, on a piece of isolated acreage that had never been used to grow beans, cotton, corn, or any other crop—not over fifty or sixty years, anyway. Early in the century, a brick kiln had operated here. What was left was a series of red-clay mounds surrounding cistern-like vats that plunged into the earth seemingly without bottom.
Eight years ago, according to the skinnydipper’s horrified playmates, a child from White Cow Creek had fallen into one of the vats. An attempt to locate and raise him had concluded with the absolute frustration of those who had gone down after him in winch-assisted harnesses. Although afterward there had been some community agitation to cap or fill in the pits, Cleve Snyder had offered to build a barbed-wire barricade with warning placards on it, and this offer had quieted the angry uproar. Tonight, glancing about me, I realized that either Snyder had never fulfilled his promise or else the vigilantes of the Kudzu Klavern had undone his efforts to make the place safe. We were in the foothills of a miniature mountain range, far from succor, civilization, or warning signs.
Adam, looking at RuthClaire, made a bewildered hand gesture.
“I don’t know,” she replied, shaking her head.
Puddicombe slapped Adam’s
Now the van was bumping along at good speed.
“Coulda sworn he’d stink,” one of the men said. “I expected dead rat or wet dog, somethin’ foul anyway.”
“Not this one,” Puddicombe replied. “This one wears English Leather or he don’t wear nothin’ at all.”
The woman guffawed. From where I sat, it was impossible to tell to which robed body the guffaw belonged, only that it was nervous and feminine. After a mile or two, though, I arbitrarily assigned it to the penny loafers.
Our van bounded from rut to rut. We did not seem to be on paved highway. Once, our driver sounded his horn. The sour bleating blast of another horn, undoubtedly that of Teavers’s pickup, answered it. We slowed and turned. The penny loafers guffawed, a high-pitched outburst with no apparent antecedent.
“Where are we going?” RuthClaire asked.
No one answered. Adam had his arm linked in mine. Occasionally he looked from side to side as if trying to sort out the pecking order among our captors. I don’t think he was scared. Both RuthClaire and I were near, and with his free hand he absentmindedly groomed my ex, picking tiny knots out of the shingled strands of her hair.
Eventually the van skewed to a stop. Its sliding door popped back like the lid of a capsized jack-in-the-box. Puddicombe, minus his nylon stocking, forced us outside. We stood in the beams of E. L. Teavers’s pickup truck’s headlights, virtually blinded by their moted yellow glare. The van backed away, executed a wild turn on the edge of a trail rut, and vanished into the night with all its robed cargo but Puddicombe.
This frightened me far worse than anything that had happened so far, including even the first burst of brick against glass in the West Bank. RuthClaire, Adam, and I were stranded in the middle of nowhere with the Zealous High Zygote and his chief lieutenant. I looked up. Stars freckled most of the sky, but a migrating coal sack of clouds had begun to eat big chunks of the western heavens. A bottomless abyss opened over my head and under my feet, and the chill of this sensation spookily disoriented me.
The headlights cut off.
From across the weed-choked field, Teavers said, “Bring the hibber here, Craig.”
“Why?” RuthClaire asked. “What do you mean to do?”
I closed my eyes, opened them, and closed them again. When next I peered about, though, the landscape seemed familiar. We stood on Cleve Snyder’s land not far from Paradise Farm, on a piece of isolated acreage that had never been used to grow beans, cotton, corn, or any other crop—not over fifty or sixty years, anyway. Early in the century, a brick kiln had operated here. What was left was a series of red-clay mounds surrounding cistern-like vats that plunged into the earth seemingly without bottom.
Eight years ago, according to the skinnydipper’s horrified playmates, a child from White Cow Creek had fallen into one of the vats. An attempt to locate and raise him had concluded with the absolute frustration of those who had gone down after him in winch-assisted harnesses. Although afterward there had been some community agitation to cap or fill in the pits, Cleve Snyder had offered to build a barbed-wire barricade with warning placards on it, and this offer had quieted the angry uproar. Tonight, glancing about me, I realized that either Snyder had never fulfilled his promise or else the vigilantes of the Kudzu Klavern had undone his efforts to make the place safe. We were in the foothills of a miniature mountain range, far from succor, civilization, or warning signs.
Adam, looking at RuthClaire, made a bewildered hand gesture.
“I don’t know,” she replied, shaking her head.
Puddicombe slapped Adam’s
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