"Hank," Henderson said. "Because you've already, in the short time I've known you, so thoroughly impressed me with your sincerity and commitment to the cause, I am going to allow you a great privilege I've heretofore denied both myself and my other men. Hank, I am going to let you kill a Jew."
And with that, Jim Henderson presented Rob with a knife he pulled out of his own boot.
A lot of things when through my mind then. I thought about how much I loved my mom, even though she can be such a pain in the ass sometimes, with her weird ideas about how I should dress and who I should date. I thought about how mad I was going to be if I didn't get to stick around to find out if Douglas ever did anything about his crush on Tasha Thompkins. I thought about the state orchestra championship, and how for the first time in years, I wouldn't be bringing home a blue ribbon cut in the shape of the state of Indiana.
It's strange the things you think about right before you die. I don't even know how I knew I was going to die. I just knew it, the way I knew that eventually, all that snow outside was going to melt, and it would be spring again someday. Rob and I were going to die, and the only thing we had to make sure of was that they didn't try to kill Seth along with us.
"Well," Henderson was saying to my boyfriend. "Go on. Take my knife. Really. It's okay. He's just a Jew."
Seth Blumenthal, I have to say, was being pretty brave. He was crying, but he was doing it quietly, with his head held high. I guess after what he'd been through, death didn't seem like such a bad thing. I don't know how else to explain it. I kind of felt the same way. I wasn't scared, really. Oh, I didn't want it to hurt. But I wasn't scared to die.
All I wanted was to take as many True Americans down with me as I could.
Rob reached out and took the knife from Jim Henderson.
"Thataboy," Henderson said, smiling in a sickly way beneath his mustache. "Now go ahead. Show us you are true believer. Stick it to the pig."
So Rob did the only thing he could. The same thing I'd have done, in his situation.
He threw an arm around Jim Henderson's neck, brought the knife blade to his jugular vein, and said, "Anybody moves, and Jimbo here gets it."
C H A P T E R
14
Have you ever been to a football game where the higher ranked team was so certain of winning, there wasn't even a doubt in the minds of their fans that they wouldn't? And then, through some total miscalculation on the part of the superior team, the underdog got the upper hand?
The faces of the True Americans looked like the faces of the fans of the winning team, seconds after their team mangled some play so horribly, their opponent, against all odds, scored a touchdown.
They were stunned. Just stunned.
"Thanks," I said to Red Plaid Jacket, as I relieved him of his rifle. "I'll take that."
I had never held a rifle before in my life, but I had a pretty good idea how one worked. You just pointed at the thing you wanted to hit, and pulled the trigger. No big mystery in that.
Of course, if you thought about it, there was no reason in the world for us to be so cocky. Okay, so yeah, Rob had a knife to a guy's throat, and I had a rifle. Big deal. It was still about fifty to two. Well, three, if you counted Seth. Four, if you included Chigger, who was still following me around, hoping for more mashed potatoes, even though I'd put down the bowl.
But hey, we had the upper hand for the moment, and we were going to take advantage of it while we could.
"Okay," Rob said, as the blood slowly drained from Jim Henderson's face. Not because Rob had poked a hole in him or anything. Just because the leader of the True Americans was so very, very scared.
"Okay, now. Everybody just stay very calm, and no one is going to get hurt." Hey, he had me convinced. Rob seemed totally believable, as far as knife-wielding hostage-takers went. "Me and the girl and the kid and Jimbo here are going to take a little walk. And if any of you want to see your fearless leader live through this, you're going to let us go. Okay?"
When no one objected, Rob went, "Good. Jess. Seth. Let's go."
And so started what had to have looked like one weird parade. With me leading the way, rifle in hand and dog at my heels, a dazed-looking Seth following me, and Rob, with his arm around Henderson, taking up the rear, we made our way down the length of the barn. I wouldn't want to give you the impression that Mr. Henderson was playing the silent martyr in all of this, however. Oh, no. See, people who haven't the slightest qualm about doing unspeakably horrible things to others are always the ones who act like the biggest babies of all whenever anybody in turn threatens them.
I'm not kidding. Jim Henderson was practically crying. He was wailing, in a high-pitched voice, "You may think you're gonna get away with this, but I'll tell you what. The people are gonna rise up. The people are gonna rise up and walk the path of righteousness. And traitors like you, boy—traitors to your own race—are going to burn in hellfire for all eternity—"
"Would you," Rob said, "shut up?"
Only Jim Henderson was wrong. The people weren't going to rise up. Not all at once, anyway. They were too shocked by what was happening to their leader even to think about lifting a finger to help him. Or maybe it was just that they really did believe that if they tried anything to stop us, Rob would slit their beloved Jim Henderson's throat.
In any case, the people did not rise up.
Just one person did.
Kerchief-Head, to be exact.
I should have seen it coming. I mean, it had been way, way too easy.
But I'll admit it. I got cocky. I started thinking that these people were stupid, because they had these stupid ideas about things. That was my first mistake. Because the scariest thing about the True Americans was that they weren't stupid. They were just really, really evil.
As became all too clear when I heard, from behind me, the sound of breaking glass.
I realized my second mistake the second I turned around. The first had been in assuming the True Americans were stupid. The second had been in not covering Rob's back with the rifle.
Because when I spun around, what I saw was Kerchief-Head standing there with two broken pieces of my mashed potato bowl in her hands. The rest of the pieces were all over the floor … where Rob also lay. The bitch had snuck up behind him and cracked his skull open.
Hey, I didn't hesitate. I lifted that rifle, and I fired. I didn't even think about it, I was so mad … mad and scared. There was a lot of blood coming out of the gash in Rob's head. More was pouring out every second.
But I had never fired a rifle before. I didn't know how they kicked. And it is not like I am this terrifically large person or anything. I pulled the trigger, the gun exploded, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor, with Chigger licking my face and about a million and one handguns pointed at my face.
Whatever else the True Americans might have been, lacking in firearms was not one of them.
The worst part of it was, I didn't even hit Kerchief-Head. I missed her by a mile.
I did, however, manage to do some major damage to the "Don't Tread On Me" flag.
"If you've killed my boyfriend," I snarled at Kerchief-Head, as a lot of hands started grabbing me and dragging me to my feet, "I'll make you regret the day you were ever born. Do you hear me, placenta breath?"
It was childish, I knew, to stoop to name-calling. But I'm not sure I was in my right mind. I mean, Rob was lying there, completely unconscious, with all this blood making a puddle around his head. And they wouldn't let me near him. I tried to get to him. I really did. But they wouldn't let me.
Instead, they locked me up. That's right. In that little room Seth had been locked in. They threw me right in there. Me and Seth. In the dark. In the cold. With no way of knowing whether my boyfriend was dead or alive.