The Third Hill North of Town (29 page)

“The fuckin’ feds always ruin everything,” he kept saying mournfully to the boys.

Meanwhile, down the hall in the jail cells, Jon’s whispered remarks about the deputy’s name had taken several seconds to penetrate Elijah’s consciousness. The brutal beating earlier that had left him gasping for air and cradling his crotch on the floor of his cell had also stopped his mind; he had no memory of crawling on his bed afterward, nor could he recall what he’d been thinking or feeling as he stared up at the ceiling for the better part of four hours. As Jon’s hushed voice now brought him back to their grim surroundings, despair beyond anything he’d ever known threatened to overwhelm him, and he immediately tried to sink back into the oblivious, restful state he’d been in before Jon disturbed him.

“Go away, Jon,” he murmured, turning on his side. Every muscle in his body burned with pain, and he almost hated his friend for trying to rouse him. “Just let me be, okay?”

He continued staring into space for a little bit, but he could feel Jon watching him, and he began to feel bad for making the other boy fret. He stirred at last on his bed, sighing, then rose gingerly from his mattress and shuffled over to the cell door, wincing with every step. Jon was directly across from him as he came to a halt, and the two gazed at each other for a long time, both leaning against the bars of their cells.

Elijah was shocked by Jon’s appearance. The harsh glare of the single fluorescent bulb on the hallway ceiling didn’t extend all the way into the cells, but now that they were closer to each other Elijah could see the other boy’s injuries in lurid detail. Jon’s left eye—swollen shut and circled by a hideous raccoon-like black ring—was especially gruesome, but his entire face was a patchwork of cuts and bruises that were nearly as bad, and his chest and shoulders were scraped raw in places from being thrown on the gravel during the arrest. Elijah’s wounds, however, looked equally bad to Jon: A sickly yellowish bruise on the younger boy’s jaw was the worst of it, but there was also matted, dried blood under his nose and on his chin, and the welt on his left arm looked like some kind of ghastly, plague-related boil.

Neither boy knew what to say; the bleakness of their situation had stricken them both dumb. Elijah finally cleared his throat—after making sure the deputy had resumed speaking on the phone in the office—and gave voice to the only thing that seemed worth talking about.

“Yeah, Bonnor
is
a dumb name,” he whispered. His jaw was throbbing and he was having difficulty standing upright because of the pain in his groin, but he could see Jon was hurting, too, so he tried to grin for the other boy’s sake. “Wanna bet everybody called him ‘Boner’ when he was a kid?”

Jon attempted to smile, too, even though the hopelessness in Elijah’s face made his own heart ache. “Yeah, I bet you’re right,” he answered.

“I mean it!” howled Bonnor Tucker, slamming the receiver down on a semi-senile Ardell Watley in midsentence. Bonnor couldn’t hear what his captives were saying, but he didn’t care for their whispered conversation one little bit. “I swear to God I’ll break your goddamn heads open if you don’t shut the fuck up right now and sit your asses back down on your beds!”

Jon and Elijah grimaced at each other, wanting to keep talking but knowing it would be foolish to do so. The unfairness of their plight became unbearable for Elijah, and his dark eyes filled with tears. Jon’s throat tightened, and without thinking he reached through the bars of his cell door, awkwardly twisting his upper body and stretching his handcuffed wrists toward the younger boy as far as he could, wanting to offer comfort but not knowing how. Elijah understood what Jon was trying to do, and began to cry harder. He put his own arms out in the hall a second later, trying to grasp Jon’s hands in his own. Both boys strained as hard as they could, but the metal bars of their cages made it impossible to extend their arms into the hallway much past their elbows. Jon cursed under his breath in frustration and Elijah bit back a sob when their fingertips remained several inches apart in spite of all their effort.

“Ahhh, if that ain’t the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen, I’ll eat my own fuckin’ jockstrap,” Bonnor Tucker mocked. “But what part of ‘sitting your asses down on your beds’ did you two little fudge-packers not understand?”

The two boys talking was bad enough, to Bonnor’s way of thinking, but actually reaching across the hall and trying to hold hands like a couple of lovesick fairies was an unforgivable breach of jailhouse etiquette. He picked up his nightstick and lumbered down the hall, relishing the effect each heavy footfall he took had on the boys’ faces as he approached them. Even from fifteen feet away he could smell their fear; the reek of their sweat permeated the whole first floor of the building.

I can only give them a couple of love taps this time,
he reminded himself.
The fuckin’ feds always ruin EVERYTHING.

Jon and Elijah quickly backed away from their cell doors, looking at each other in dismay as Bonnor drew even with them, reaching for the key ring on his belt. He inserted a large skeleton key in Elijah’s door, and the teenager stumbled backward, his eyes huge.

“Jesus Christ, man, he’s sitting down, okay?” Jon pleaded from behind Bonnor.

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” Bonnor snapped over his shoulder. On impulse he withdrew the key from Elijah’s cell door and turned around. “On second thought, maybe I’ll start with you this time, pecker-breath.”

He unlocked Jon’s cell door and it swung open on its hinges, creaking. Jon backed away from the hallway until he could go no farther, holding his hands up.

“But we haven’t done anything wrong!” he cried out. His desperation turned to rage as Bonnor kept moving forward. “Why are you being such a fucking ASSHOLE?”

Bonnor’s blood rose immediately; he didn’t appreciate being called names. “It looks like you need another lesson in manners, fucknuts,” he said, reattaching the keys to his belt. “Calling me a bad name like that is gonna cost you a few teeth.”

Bonnor figured he could always tell the feds that Jon had tried to grab him as he was walking by the cell.

With an almost casual motion, he knocked Jon’s arms out of the way and half turned the younger man, exposing his bare back. The nightstick came down instantly, striking Jon just above the left kidney. As Jon screamed and fell against the wall, Bonnor struck him twice more on the left flank, and then spun him around again and popped him in the mouth with a glancing blow of his fist. The poorly aimed jab didn’t have as much force as Bonnor had intended, but Jon’s head still snapped back and hit the concrete wall; he sprawled on the floor, dizzy with pain. He tried to crawl away from the deputy, but Bonnor bent down and flipped him on his back as easily as if he were a turtle.

“Just think of me as your friendly neighborhood dentist,” Bonnor said amiably, taking careful aim at Jon’s mouth with the tip of his nightstick.

“HEY, YOU FAT FUCKING PILE OF SHIT!”

The shout that came from behind Bonnor was stupefyingly loud, as if someone had put a megaphone over his entire head and bellowed into it. Bonnor jerked upright and spun around, forgetting all about his desire to deprive Jon of his teeth.

“THAT’S RIGHT,
BONER,
YOU PISS-DRINKING COCKSUCKER, I’M TALKING TO YOU!” Elijah continued wailing at the top of his lungs. “WHY DON’T YOU GET YOUR FAT ASS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW? I’VE GOT A NICE HOT STEAMING PILE OF NIGGER SHIT FOR YOU TO EAT, YOU BUTT-UGLY, RETARDED SON OF A BITCH!”

Elijah Hunter had never been more afraid in his entire life.

What am I DOING?
he thought in astonishment. There wasn’t a flicker of doubt in his mind that he was signing his own death warrant, yet he couldn’t seem to make himself stop.

Courage, Elijah had always believed, was a character trait he had been born without. And as much as he might despise himself for what he saw as a lack of spine, he had long since accepted that being a hero was simply not part of his makeup. Yet as he had watched Bonnor Tucker beat Jon without mercy, something unprecedented had occurred: He had found himself willing to do anything, anything at all, to protect somebody he cared about.

Even if it meant getting himself killed.

“WHAT’S IT LIKE TO HAVE THE STUPIDEST FUCKING NAME IN THE WHOLE GALAXY,
BONER
?” he bellowed, giddy with recklessness. “DID YOUR MOM CALL YOU THAT ON PURPOSE, OR WAS SHE EVEN MORE RETARDED THAN YOU ARE?”

Bonnor Tucker was no longer enjoying himself in the slightest. The sense of having Jon and Elijah in his power was completely gone, lost in the mind-numbing effrontery of Elijah’s taunts.

“YOU’RE DEAD, NIGGER!” he screamed, belatedly lurching into motion. He charged out of Jon’s cell and flung himself at Elijah’s door, grappling for his keys with one hand and banging the nightstick on the iron bars with the other.

Elijah knew he couldn’t last two seconds against Bonnor, but the wrathful elixir coursing through his veins had stolen every ounce of his reason. Now that he’d gotten Bonnor away from Jon, the only thing he cared about was having the opportunity to try to dig Bonnor’s eyes out of their sockets with his thumbs before the deputy killed him.

“SPEAKING OF YOUR MOM, I HEAR SHE KNOWS MORE ABOUT BONERS THAN ANY WOMAN ALIVE!” he raged, ramming his handcuffed fists through the bars straight at the deputy’s large head. Bonnor dodged aside and attempted to grab Elijah’s arms, but Elijah leapt away. “JESUS CHRIST, BONER, I’M FROM MAINE, AND EVEN I’VE HEARD ALL ABOUT YOUR OLD LADY! SHE’S A GODDAMN LEGEND!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Bonnor howled. He couldn’t get the key in the lock; his hand was shaking too badly from the overmastering need to kill Elijah right
now.
He ducked another two-fisted attack from Elijah and aimed a kick through the bars at the teenager’s shins; the kick missed and the toe of his boot clanged into a bar instead.

“GODDAMMIT!” he yelped, dancing in agony. “YOU’RE GONNA PAY FOR THAT!”

Jon Tate stirred on the floor of his cell, shaking his head woozily. He felt as if he were hallucinating: Elijah was standing behind his own cell door, laughing like a madman at the enraged Bonnor Tucker, who was hopping around the hallway on one foot. The younger boy seemed oblivious to the danger he was in, but one glimpse at the side of the deputy’s murderous face was all it took for Jon to grasp just how far the man was willing to go to exact vengeance.

Jon forced himself to sit up, looking around wildly for a weapon. Bonnor had left Jon’s own cell door wide open in the rush to get to Elijah, but Jon was in no shape to take him on unarmed; the simple act of sitting up had almost made him pass out. Yet Bonnor was already back at Elijah’s cell, and this time when Elijah tried to strike him, Bonnor was finally able to land a blow, jabbing the boy in the sternum with his nightstick and sending him reeling. Bonnor got the key in the lock and began to turn it, and Jon, frantic and weaponless, did the only thing he could think of.

“HEY, BONER-BITER!” he shrieked. “WHY DON’T YOU COME ON BACK OVER HERE?”

Bonnor’s head spun around. He seemed amazed to see Jon’s cell door standing wide open and Jon rising slowly to his feet; he stared back down at the skeleton key he was using to open Elijah’s lock, as if he could no longer remember what it was for.

“THAT’S RIGHT, YOU MORON!” Jon resumed, trying not to let his face give away how frightened he was. “I’M GETTING READY TO WALTZ OUT THE DOOR WHILE YOU JUST STAND THERE LIKE THE DUMBEST GODDAMN DOUCHE BAG THAT’S EVER LIVED!”

Bonnor took a step toward Jon, then froze and looked over at Elijah once more before swinging his head back to Jon. The deputy was apoplectic by this point, but the inability to choose who to kill first had briefly rendered him incapable of action. Elijah reentered the fray immediately, fearing for Jon’s safety yet again.

“HEY, BONER! DID YOU FORGET ABOUT ME? I’M RIGHT IN HERE, YOU GOAT-FUCKER! COME ON IN HERE AND EAT MY—”

“NO WAY, BONER!” Jon interrupted. “COME OVER HERE SO WE CAN TALK ABOUT GIVING YOU A NICER NAME! HOW ABOUT BUNGHOLE TICKLER? DO YOU LIKE THAT? HOW ABOUT BUTTLICK TURDMUNCH? HOW ABOUT . . .”

The stereophonic abuse proved too much for Bonnor Tucker. His self-control utterly gone, he dropped his keys and seized the handle of the revolver on his belt, ripping it free of its holster and pointing the gun straight at Jon’s head. The young man shut up with gratifying speed, and Elijah, too, fell silent behind Bonnor, his breath deserting him as he watched the deputy cock the hammer of the weapon.

“Say something else, shithead,” Bonnor whispered to Jon. “I dare you.”

Jesus Christ,
Jon thought dumbly.
This guy is even crazier than Julianna.

“You can’t kill us,” he said unsteadily. “We’re both handcuffed, and in our cells. There’s no way you could justify shooting us like this.”

Bonnor’s finger whitened on the trigger of the revolver. “Let me tell you a little story, asshole. Once upon a time, you and the nigger tried to escape, so I blew your fuckin’ heads off and everybody else lived happily for fuckin’ ever. The End.”

Elijah’s heart was racing. The deputy was within his reach, but grabbing him at this point would almost certainly get Jon killed. Yet doing nothing seemed an equally terrible option: Bonnor was likely to pull the trigger at any second, and Jon would be just as dead. He stared with feverish intensity at an inflamed pimple on the back of Bonnor’s neck, right above the starched shirt collar of the man’s uniform, and he began to pray harder than he ever had in his life.

Across the hall, Jon Tate’s eyes grew enormous as he watched Elijah’s long, handcuffed arms snake through the bars of his cell and hover in the air just behind Bonnor’s crewcut head.

“Not so smart now, are you, fucknuts?” Bonnor goaded, attributing the anxiety in Jon’s face to his last remarks. “Your brains are gonna look real pretty on that goddamn wall behind you, boy.”