Bill thumped him on the back, awaking him from his dazed contemplation of these things. 'Guh-guh-GO!'
Ben went, splashing and stumbling along the verge of the river, his hair hanging in his eyes. He reached the tree - the little root-cave beneath it had been obliterated - and climbed over it, digging his toes into its wet hide, scraping his hands and forearms.
Bill and Richie manhandled Eddie over, and as he stumbled off the tree-trunk, Ben caught him. They both went tumbling to the ground. Eddie cried out.
'You all right?' Ben shouted.
'I guess so,' Eddie shouted back, getting to his feet. He fumbled for his aspirator and almost dropped it. Ben grabbed it for him and Eddie gave him a grateful look as he stuffed it into his mouth and triggered it.
Richie came over, then Stan and Mike. Bill boosted Beverly up onto the tree and Ben and Richie caught her coming down on the far side, her hair plastered to her head, her blue jeans now black.
Bill came last, pulling himself onto the trunk and swinging his legs around. He saw Henry and the other two splashing down the river toward them, and as he slid off the fallen tree he shouted: 'Ruh-ruh-rocks! Throw rocks!'
There were plenty of them here on the bank, and the lightning-struck tree made a perfect barricade. In a moment or two all seven of them were chucking rocks at Henry and his pals. They had nearly reached the tree; the range was point-blank. They were driven back, yelling with pain and fury, as rocks struck their faces, their chests, their arms and legs.
'Teach us to throw rocks!' Richie shouted, and chucked one the size of a hen's egg at Victor. It struck his shoulder and bounced almost straight up into the air. Victor howled. 'Ah say . . . Ah say . . . go on an teach us, boy! We learn good!'
'Yeeeeh-aaaah!' Mike screamed. 'How do you like it? How do you like it?'
The answer was not much. They retreated until they were out of range and huddled together. A moment later they climbed the bank, slipping and stumbling on the slick wet earth, which was already honeycombed with little running streamlets, holding onto branches to stay upright.
They disappeared into the underbrush.
'They're gonna go around us, Big Bill,' Richie said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
'That's oh-oh-okay,' Bill said. 'G-Go on, B-B-Ben. We'll fuh-fuh-follow y-you.'
Ben trotted along the embankment, paused (expecting that Henry and the others would burst out into his face at any moment), and saw the pumping-station twenty yards farther down the streambed. The others followed him to it. They could see other cylinders on the opposite bank, one fairly close, the other forty yards upstream. Those two were both shooting torrents of muddy water into the Kenduskeag, but only a trickle was coming from the pipe sticking out of the embankment below this one. It wasn't humming, either, Ben noticed. The pumping machinery had broken down.
He looked at Bill thoughtfully . . . and with some fright.
Bill was looking at Richie, Stan, and Mike. 'W-W-We g-guh-hotta get the l-l-lid oh-oh-off,' he said. 'H-H-Help m-m-me.'
There were handholds in the iron, but the rain had made them slippery and the lid itself was incredibly heavy. Ben moved in next to Bill, and Bill shifted his hands a little to make room. Ben could hear water dripping inside - an echoey, unpleasant sound, like water dripping into a well.
'Nuh-nuh-NOW!' Bill shouted, and the five of them heaved in unison. The lid moved with an ugly grating sound.
Beverly grabbed on beside Richie and Eddie pushed with his good arm.
'One, two, three, push!' Richie chanted. The lid grated a little farther off the top of the cylinder. Now a crescent of darkness showed.
'One, two, three, push!'
The crescent fattened.
'One, two, three, push!'
Ben shoved until red spots danced in front of his eyes.
'Stand back!' Mike shouted. 'There it goes, there it goes!'
They stood away and watched as the big circular cap overbalanced, then fell. It dug a slash in the wet earth and landed upside down, like an oversized checker. Beetles scurried off its surface and into the matted grass.
'Uck,' Eddie said.
Bill peered inside. Iron rungs descended to a circular pool of black water, its surface now pocked with raindrops. The silent pump brooded in the middle of this, half-submerged. He could see water flowing into the pumping-station from the mouth of its inflow pipe, and with a sinking in his guts he thought: That's where we have to go. In there.
'Eh-Eh-Eh-Eddie. G-Grab on to m-m-me.'
Eddie looked at him, uncomprehending.
'Like a puh-puh-pigger-back. Hold on with y-your g-g-good ah-ah-arm.' He demonstrated.
Eddie understood but was reluctant.
'Quick!' Bill snapped. 'Th-Th-They'll b-b-be here!'
Eddie grabbed on around Bill's neck; Stan and Mike boosted him up so he could hook his legs around Bill's midsection. As Bill swung clumsily over the lip of the cylinder, Ben saw that Eddie's eyes were tightly shut.
Over the rain, he could hear another sound: whipping branches, snapping twigs, voices. Henry, Victor, and Belch. The world's ugliest cavalry charge.
Bill gripped the rough concrete lip of the cylinder and felt his way down, step by careful step. The iron rungs were slippery. Eddie had him in what was almost a deathgrip, and Bill supposed he was getting a pretty graphic demonstration of what Eddie's asthma was really all about.
'I'm scared, Bill,' Eddie whispered.
'I-I-I am, too.'
He let go of the concrete rim and grabbed the topmost rung. Although Eddie was nearly choking him and felt as if he had already gained forty pounds, Bill paused a moment, looking at the Barrens, the Kenduskeag, the racing clouds. A voice inside - not a frightened voice, just a firm one - had told him to take a good look, in case he never saw the upper world again.
So he looked, then began to descend with Eddie clinging to his back.
'I can't hold on much longer,' Eddie managed.
'You w-w-won't have to,' Bill said. 'We're almost duh-hown.'
One of his feet went into chilly water. He felt for the next rung and found it. There was another below that and then the ladder ended. He was standing in knee-deep water beside the pump.
He squatted, wincing as the cold water soaked his pants, and let Eddie off. He drew a deep breath. The smell wasn't so hot, but it was great not to have Eddie's arm wrapped around his throat.
He looked up at the cylinder's mouth. It was about ten feet over his head. The others were grouped around the rim, looking down. 'C-C-Come on!' he shouted. 'Wuh-one at a t-t-time! Be quick!'
Beverly came first, swinging easily over the rim and grabbing the ladder, and Stan next. The others followed. Richie came last, pausing to listen to the progress of Henry and friends. He thought, from the sound of their blundering progress, that they would probably pass a little to the left of this pumping-station, but almost certainly not by enough to make a difference.
At that moment Victor bellowed: 'Henry! There! Tozier!'
Richie looked around and saw them rushing toward him. Victor was in the lead . . . and then Henry pushed him aside so savagely that Victor skidded to his knees. Henry had a knife, all right, a regular pigsticker. Drops of water were falling from the blade.
Richie glanced into the cylinder, saw Ben and Stan helping Mike off the ladder, and swung over himself. Henry understood what he was doing and screamed at him. Richie, laughing crazily, slammed his left hand in the crook of his right elbow and stuck his forearm skyward, his hand fisted in what may be the world's oldest gesture. To be sure Henry got the point, he popped his middle finger up.