The Third Hill North of Town (42 page)

“My sweet Gabriel,” she murmured. “You look awful.”

Jon Tate, Edgar, and Sam joined the loose circle around Julianna. Edgar knelt beside Julianna and shook his head sadly as he pressed his hands to her wound; Jon sank down beside Elijah with a groan. The Volkswagen had borne the brunt of the explosion, but even so he was coated with dirt and blood; shrapnel from the blast had lacerated his back and his legs in several places and the bullet wound on his chest was bleeding again, saturating his bandages. He was trembling from shock and he put a hand on Elijah’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Hi, stranger,” Julianna greeted him sweetly.

“Hi, Julianna,” Jon husked.

He tried to say more, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. The sound of sirens was getting much closer, and Julianna winced as she became aware of them. She looked at Mary Taylor once again and her brilliant green eyes filled as she studied the older woman more closely.

“I am . . . so sorry, Mary!” she cried. “I tried to . . . save Ben . . . but I couldn’t . . . couldn’t save . . . I killed Rufus . . . but . . . it was . . . I was too late.”

Mary Taylor made shushing noises but she herself was no longer able to speak. Her hand continued stroking Julianna’s face, however, never faltering, her slender, wrinkled fingers occasionally drifting into Julianna’s short hair. Julianna’s mouth filled with blood and she struggled to speak again; Elijah guessed what she was trying to say and said it for her:

“She loved your son very much,” he rasped. “She told us he died trying to stop Rufus from killing her family.”

Mary Taylor’s chin quivered and she bent down to kiss Julianna on the cheek before turning away. Julianna looked at Elijah gratefully, and her eyes then moved to include Jon as she fought to say something else. The boys leaned closer to hear her, their heads touching.

“Thank you, boys,” Julianna whispered. “Thank you for . . . bringing me home.” She looked up at Gabriel again and smiled, thinking she was seeing Lars Olsen, the town blacksmith.

“What . . . are you . . . doing here . . . Lars?” she asked.

 

As Julianna fell silent and stopped breathing, Elijah put his arms around Jon Tate and cried into the older boy’s shoulder. Jon rocked him back and forth, crying now, as well, and Mary and Sam Hunter watched in baffled sadness, feeling useless and more than a little taken aback by the extent of their son’s distress over the death of a woman who had kidnapped him and dragged him halfway across the country. Elijah’s weeping didn’t sound like the child who had been stolen from them less than two days before; there was something in his grief they had never before heard from him, something wholehearted and terrible that made them feel as if they were watching a stranger. Equally disconcerting was that Elijah had turned for comfort to Jon Tate instead of to them; the Elijah they had always known would sooner pet a rabid dog than reach out to someone who wasn’t family.

Mary felt a pang of jealousy she was immediately ashamed of. She told herself she should be glad her son had found other people to love; she reminded herself that after everything that had happened to Elijah it was only natural for him to seek solace from someone who had lived through the ordeal with him. But it was still a very hard thing to stand back and allow the Tate boy to hold him when he was suffering. All she wanted to do was take Elijah in her arms and whisper reassurances in his ear; all she wanted to do was feel his heart beating against hers and his breath against her neck as she had done a thousand times since the moment of his birth. Surely she had more right to be with him and help him through this than Jon Tate did?

No,
Mary told herself sternly.
No, you don’t. Stop acting like a fool, and just be glad he has someone to care for him.
She felt Sam take her hand, and with an aching heart she watched their son grieve without them.

Edgar Reilly, kneeling next to Mary Taylor, was startled to find that his own cheeks were wet. He hadn’t cried in years and had almost forgotten what the sensation felt like. He wanted to speak to Gabriel, but he knew there was nothing he could say that would matter; the other man was in the kind of hell where words have no meaning. Edgar looked over at Elijah Hunter and Jon Tate, envying the innocence of their tears; his own felt contaminated with remorse for having played a part in all that had happened.

Gabriel Dapper raised his head and stared over at the road. Four police cars—two from the south and two from the north—were speeding toward them and would be there shortly; the fire from the Volkswagen on the top of the hill was as bright as a lighthouse beacon, drawing them to it.

Gabriel bent down once more and kissed Julianna’s forehead, then carefully lifted her head out of his lap and slid from beneath her. He reclaimed his pistol and the grenade from the ground and stood up again. He didn’t even glance at the two boys he had nearly killed that night, nor did he make any sign of recognition as his eyes flitted over Edgar Reilly and the Hunters. He turned and walked back toward his Cadillac, ten yards away; the two Marys, Sam, and Edgar all watched in stricken compassion as he got behind the driver’s wheel once again and closed the door behind him.

The headlights on the Cadillac flicked off and left the hilltop in relative darkness, and Julianna Dapper’s son stared through the window of the Cadillac at the moonlit silhouettes of the people circling his mother’s body. His big hands were moving of their own accord as he sat there, and he was almost surprised to find that he had put the Mauser pistol down in the passenger seat. He was still clutching the grenade, however, and he glanced down at it as if he had never seen it before. In one smooth motion he pulled its cord and dropped it in his lap. The five-second fuse on the grenade permitted him just enough time to begin to sob before the inside of the Cadillac turned into a crematorium.

Chapter 16

S
peeding toward the top of the hill in a squad car, Bonnor Tucker swore aloud as he saw his stolen station wagon blocking the road in front of the burning carcass of a Volkswagen Beetle.

“What the hell is this?” he muttered.

An enormous explosion in the cornfield to his left nearly caused him to drive into the ditch. He fought to bring his car back onto the gravel and he gaped at the inferno engulfing Gabriel Dapper’s Cadillac. Twenty feet away from the explosion was a cluster of people all standing or crouching beside somebody lying on the ground; Bonnor immediately spotted Mary and Sam Hunter, and the fat doctor, and an old black woman he didn’t recognize.

It took him another second, though, to notice who else was there, partially hidden behind the old black woman and the fat doctor.

Bonnor slammed on his brakes so fast that the state trooper who was following him up the hill almost rear-ended him. As Bonnor skidded sideways and came to a halt with his headlights pointed at the group in the cornfield, two Missouri squad cars flew over the top of the hill from the other direction and screeched to a stop, too, a dozen yards from the burning Beetle. Bonnor scrambled for his shotgun and threw open his door, praying that Elijah Hunter and Jon Tate would give him the chance to avenge Ronnie Buckley’s death—and his own humiliation.

“Please, please, PLEASE do something stupid,” he muttered, taking cover behind his door. The trooper who had followed him was doing the same thing, as were the others by the Volkswagen.

 

Samuel Hunter dragged his wife to the ground as Gabriel’s Cadillac erupted in fire. Fragments of the car’s windshield rained down in the cornfield all around them; Sam heard Edgar Reilly and Mary Taylor both cry out but was too astonished to do anything except stare at the wall of flame in front of him. An instant later he saw Gabriel Dapper’s body inside the car, burning like a torch, and he recoiled in horror.

“Mother of God!” he gasped. Bile rose in his throat at the sudden, sickly sweet smell of roasted meat.

Mary spoke Samuel’s name, jarring him back to awareness; they got to their knees together and turned as one to check on their son. Elijah was goggling at the fire with Jon Tate but neither of the boys seemed to have sustained any additional injuries. Edgar Reilly was tending to Mary Taylor, using his tie as a tourniquet for her forearm. Edgar himself was bleeding freely from a cut in his cheek, yet he was apparently more concerned with the older woman’s injury.

A harsh, booming voice sounded above the crackle of the fire.

“GET DOWN ON THE GROUND AND PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!”

Across the cornfield four police cars had lined up on the road, one after another; the blaze from the wreckage of the Cadillac was brighter than all their high beams combined. The shouted order came from one of the Missouri state troopers by the Volkswagen, but it was quickly followed by Bonnor Tucker’s equally loud, equally hostile voice, a little farther down the hill.

“BACK THE FUCK OFF, ASSHOLES, THIS IS
MY
GODDAMN ARREST!”

There was a short pause, then the Missouri trooper responded.

“THE HELL IT IS! IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, ASS-WIPE, THIS IS
MISSOURI,
NOT FUCKING
IOWA
!”

Sam glanced down at the revolvers in his belt, deeply regretting having picked them up on the road earlier when he was helping Jon Tate to his feet. Jon had asked him to bring the guns along and Sam had agreed, thinking it might be wise to have them just in case Gabriel Dapper lost his head again. But now that Gabriel was dead and the police had arrived, Sam didn’t want the revolvers anywhere near his family.

“WHO GIVES A RAT’S ASS WHERE WE ARE?” Bonnor Tucker roared back at the trooper. “THE TWO LITTLE ASSHOLES OUT THERE KILLED RONNIE BUCKLEY, SO DON’T PULL ANY JURISDICTION BULLSHIT ON ME! THEY FUCKING BELONG IN
MY
JAIL!”

Mary Hunter’s lips were thin as she sized up the situation.

“I will
not
permit that vile man to take the boys,” she whispered to Sam, tilting her head in Bonnor Tucker’s direction. “If he gets them alone again their lives won’t be worth a plug nickel.”

Her eyes were glinting in the firelight from the Cadillac, and for the first time that evening Sam felt hope stir inside him. He didn’t know if Mary’s mojo could do any good for Elijah at this point, but the menace exuding from her was a welcome sight nonetheless.

Please, Lord,
Sam prayed.
Please don’t let anybody start shooting until she’s had her say.

“MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE LET THEM OUT OF YOUR JAIL IN THE FIRST PLACE, DIPSTICK!” retorted the Missouri trooper, out-shouting Bonnor. “NOW WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP AND LET ME DO MY JOB?”

Elijah Hunter and Jon Tate had released each other but were still sitting side by side near Julianna’s body. Neither of them was particularly interested in the heated exchange between the two policemen; the shock of Julianna’s death and everything else that had happened on the hilltop had left both boys numb to anything so tame as a shouting match. Elijah took one of Julianna Dapper’s limp hands again in his own and held it against his cheek. Her fingers were already growing cold.

“I’m so sorry, Julianna,” he whispered, looking down at her still, pale face. He couldn’t believe how much it hurt to lose her; he felt like he might cry for days. He glanced at Jon and saw tear tracks running through the grime on the older boy’s face; Jon met his eyes, then bowed his head and ran a hand through his hair, sighing. Elijah’s throat constricted and he shut his eyes, wishing he could just as easily shut his ears, too, against all the noise surrounding them.

Bonnor Tucker and the other lawmen ceased bickering at last; Bonnor had apparently lost the battle of wills because it was the first Missouri trooper’s voice that now addressed them across the field.

“ALL OF YOU LAY FACEDOWN ON THE GROUND! I’M GONNA COUNT TO THREE AND WHOEVER ISN’T KISSING THE FUCKING DIRT WHEN I GET TO THREE IS GONNA GET SHOT, SO YOU BETTER LAY THE FUCK DOWN RIGHT NOW!”

“Great,” Elijah Hunter murmured wearily to Jon. “Another cop that likes to count to three.”

“Everybody do what he says,” Mary Hunter said calmly, taking charge. “Elijah and Jon, move as slowly as you can. Make absolutely sure to keep your hands in plain sight, every single second, understand?”

“ONE!”

Elijah let go of Julianna’s hand with an effort and sighed. It no longer felt wrong to surrender; if he and Jon tried to put up a fight or run away at this point, it would only get more people hurt. Besides this, he knew his mother’s tone all too well and he wasn’t about to argue with her. (He may have become braver in the last two days than he’d once imagined possible, but he doubted he’d ever be brave enough for
that.
) He began to stretch out on the ground beside Jon, but as the trooper yelled “TWO,” Bonnor Tucker’s distinctive voice interrupted the proceedings yet again:

“THE NIGGER’S GOT A GUN IN HIS BELT!”

Elijah froze on all fours, suddenly terrified not for himself but for his father, who did indeed have both of the revolvers Jon and Elijah had stolen earlier from the jailhouse. But Samuel was already facedown on the ground with the revolvers tucked securely beneath him; his empty hands were raised high above his head. Why was Bonnor just now making a stink about the weapons if he had seen them before Sam laid down?

“WHICH ONE OF THEM?” demanded the first Missouri trooper.

“WHICH ONE WHAT?” Bonnor roared back.

“WHICH ONE HAS THE
GUN,
DUMBASS?”

“THE KID, YOU STUPID SHIT! THE NIGGER KID!” Bonnor raged. “HE’S GOT IT UNDER HIS SHIRT!”

Elijah’s jaw dropped, not understanding, but beside him Jon Tate began to swear.

 

After Bonnor Tucker had lost the war of words with his colleagues, things had become painfully clear. The two teenagers who had made a fool of him and killed Ronnie Buckley were slipping away from him, and if he didn’t act quickly he would soon be sent back to the Maddox jailhouse with nothing but his own dick in his hands as a consolation prize. He’d be the permanent laughingstock of Creighton County; he’d be called “Boner Toucher” until the day he died.

“HE’S GONNA TRY SOMETHING!” he now screamed, determined to prevent such a fate, no matter the cost. “HE PULLED THIS SAME SHIT WHEN RONNIE AND ME ARRESTED HIM!”

No, I didn’t,
Elijah thought numbly, unsure as to whether he should continue lying down or stay where he was.

“YOU’RE A LYING SACK OF SHIT,
BONER
!” Jon Tate yelled. Jon, like Samuel, was facedown on the ground with his hands in the air, but his head was raised and he was glaring with hatred at the headlights of Bonnor Tucker’s car. “ELIJAH DOESN’T HAVE A GUN, AND YOU KNOW IT!”

“FUCK YOU!” Bonnor screamed back. “WHAT I
KNOW
IS THAT YOU TWO LITTLE COCKSUCKERS LIKE TO KILL PEOPLE THE SECOND THEIR BACKS ARE TURNED!”

“Hush, Jon!” admonished Mary Hunter, also from a prone position. “Elijah, don’t move an inch! Don’t even blink till I tell you!”

Elijah was the only one by Julianna’s body who wasn’t stretched out on the ground; he wanted to lie down with the rest of them so he wouldn’t feel quite as vulnerable. Emotional and physical exhaustion was making it impossible to think, and he glanced down at Julianna again, envying the peaceful expression on her face. The flickering firelight on her dress almost made it look as if she were still breathing. He hoped it was quieter wherever she was than on that hilltop; he desperately wanted to go to sleep himself, but everybody kept yelling at him.

“MY SON IS UNARMED, AND HE’S GOING TO LAY DOWN JUST LIKE YOU TOLD HIM!” Mary hollered to the first Missouri trooper. “PLEASE,
PLEASE
DON’T LET THAT
STUPID
MAN SHOOT HIM!”

“Can you tell if the kid has a gun?” This same Missouri trooper called softly to his compatriot by the Volkswagen. “I don’t think he’s got one.”

The second trooper shook his head. “I think Boner’s full of shit,” he called back, snorting.

“ARE YOU SURE YOU SAW A GUN, BONNOR?” yelled Walling, the Iowa trooper on Bonnor’s other side. “I DON’T SEE ANYTHING!”

“ARE YOU ALL RETARDED?” Bonnor yelled back. “I ALREADY TOLD YOU IT’S UNDER HIS SHIRT! YOU CAN’T SEE IT, BUT TRUST ME, THE FUCKING THING IS THERE!”

The Missouri trooper’s temper was beginning to fray.

“I DON’T CARE IF HE’S GOT A GODDAMN ATOM BOMB TIED TO HIS SHORT HAIRS!” he bellowed at Bonnor. “AS LONG AS HE LAYS DOWN ON THE GROUND AND KEEPS HIS HANDS UP, WHAT THE
FUCK
DOES IT MATTER?” He waited for a response but Bonnor remained gratifyingly silent. The trooper took a few deep breaths to regain his equilibrium, then turned back to Mary Hunter.

“NOBODY’S GONNA SHOOT YOUR KID, LADY! JUST HAVE HIM LAY DOWN NICE AND SLOW, AND EVERYTHING’S GONNA BE PEACHY, OKAY?”

Mary glanced at Sam for a moment and waited for him to nod, then she whispered to their son to do as he’d been told. Elijah obeyed immediately and started to lower himself into a spread-eagled position, keeping his hands as far from his waist as he could. Jon Tate hissed at him to slow down, and Mary nearly smiled in spite of herself. Elijah was already moving like a turtle; if he moved any slower he’d be at a standstill.

“HE’S REACHING FOR HIS GUN!” Bonnor roared.

 

Jon Tate had listened to Bonnor’s accusations about Elijah with growing distress, not believing what he was hearing. That the trollish deputy from Creighton County was mean enough to pull the trigger was a given, of course, but that he’d actually think he could get away with committing murder in front of an audience boggled the mind. Jon heard the Missouri trooper who was in charge tell Elijah’s mother that no one was going to shoot her son; he then heard Mary Hunter tell Elijah to lie down. The younger boy began to obey, moving too quickly for Jon’s liking; Jon snapped at him to slow down, unable to remain silent.

“HE’S REACHING FOR HIS GUN!” Bonnor bawled as Elijah lowered himself to the ground incrementally.

Jon couldn’t bear it any longer: Julianna’s death was bad enough but losing Elijah was unthinkable; he felt certain Bonnor was going to pull the trigger any second. He sprung up and flung himself on top of Elijah, dragging him to the ground and shielding him with his own body.

And Bonnor Tucker, who had been praying for just this kind of precipitous, foolish move, pulled the trigger.

 

Coincidence had saved some of Its best material for last.

The daughter of one of Bonnor Tucker’s neighbors in Maddox was a seven-year-old tomboy called Candace Perona-Schonhorst who loved to play with toy soldiers. She was especially fond of the tiny green riflemen, and owned hundreds of them; she liked to line them all up on the porch railing of her home and shoot them down one after another with rubber bands, often engaging in this activity for hours at a time until the skin of her right index finger was bloody from the friction of the rubber skimming across it.

Candace Perona-Schonhorst was equally enthralled by real guns.

The day before Bonnor fired his shotgun in that Missouri cornfield, he was sitting on his front porch during his lunch break, cleaning his weapons—which he did as ostentatiously as possible, savoring the wary looks from passersby. Candace was out playing in her own yard at the time, and she skipped across the grass to watch Bonnor oil and fondle both his shotgun and his revolver. Bonnor pretended to ignore her, of course, but he enjoyed having the small girl as a spectator for this almost daily ritual of his, mistakenly believing she was admiring him and not only his weapons.

He had just set the shotgun down after cleaning it and was moving on to the revolver when a cheeky carful of Maddox’s teenagers drove past the house and screamed “BONER TOUCHER!” through their open windows. Bonnor instantly leapt to his feet and raced to the road with his revolver to put the fear of God in the disrespectful miscreants, but they had the good sense to not stick around and wait for his arrival. He was gone from the porch for just forty seconds or so, and his back was only turned away from his home for no more than twenty of these.