He came within six feet of them: Billie Jean stopped whispering, gave him an arch look and stood up. Mitch pointed the gun at them. “You two gentle down.”
Billie Jean started to walk back along the porch toward the door. “You figure just wait here till the cops come, Mitch? What do you hear from your head lately?”
She stopped at the door. Her plump face was turned toward Mitch—but her hand darted out, clamped around Terry’s wrist and yanked Terry out onto the porch. Terry’s little cry brought Mitch up on the porch; he extended the gun before him and said, “Let her go!”
Billie Jean’s sensuous mouth formed a pouting leer. Terry grabbed her hand and tried to pry it loose. Mitch took another step toward them—and Theodore landed on him like a cement bag.
They had set it up between them—Billie Jean’s distraction, Theodore’s leap: he had fallen for it like an idiot. He had time for that disgusted thought in the instant when he felt the rush of wind from Theodore’s charging attack. Then he was pitching forward, agony exploding in his back where Theodore’s knee had rammed him; spinning, his wrist caught in Theodore’s fist. He went down with Theodore on top of him and the gun fell somewhere. The tumble, and Theodore’s weight, knocked the wind out of his lungs; a curse, savage but weak, escaped his mouth. Theodore grunted and twisted something and Mitch’s face was pushed down against the splintered porch boards. He felt something rip along the side of his jaw; only then did he begin to react. He was not a fighter but there was enough screaming panic in him to inject strength: he flailed his body, striking back with both heels, and hit some part of Theodore, enough to make Theodore shift his weight and cry out. Mitch got one elbow under him and heaved, rolling them both over. Theodore switched his grip from Mitch’s wrist to his torso and pinned one arm against his side in a cruel hug. Nothing was in focus or balance; Mitch couldn’t see through the red wash of outrage and terrified frustration that filled his eyes. Agony pulled at his mouth. Kicking blindly, he got purchase against a post and heaved again. It threw him off the porch. There was a sickening instant in mid-air, rolling over, like a dream of falling. They spun together and hit the dusty earth with a whacking thud. Somehow Mitch was on top of Theodore. The fall broke Theodore’s grip and Mitch felt himself rolling free. Stunned and spastic, he whipped around on hands and knees, scrabbling to get his feet under him.
He brought things into focus and saw several things at once. On the porch both girls were diving toward the fallen gun. On the ground before him Theodore was rolling toward the kitchen knife which must have fallen out of Mitch’s belt.
Mitch felt needles in his legs. With a cry he launched himself forward: he brought his hand up with deathly panic behind it, whacking the heel of his hand up under Theodore’s nose. It lifted Theodore off the ground: he heard the crush of cartilage, felt the spurt of blood on his palm; Theodore windmilled, off balance, and slammed his back against the edge of the porch. Behind Theodore the girls were a blur of swirling flesh, a cacophony of shrieks.
Theodore roared and bounced forward, his eye glittering. Light raced along the blade of the knife in his sweeping fist. Horror froze a knot in Mitch’s throat. He tried to dodge and his heel slipped on the loose pebbles of the street and as he fell his right leg whipped out for balance. Theodore tripped over it and sprawled, still roaring. Mitch reached for the edge of the porch to lift himself to his feet; as he got to his knees he saw, at eye-level, the revolver come skittering across the boards—kicked by one of the girls’ thrashing feet.
Unwilled, automatically, his fist closed around the gun and he wheeled in time to see Theodore rushing toward him with the knife outstretched at groin level, ready to rip him up the belly. In unthinking reaction Mitch yanked the gun around and jerked the trigger, and kept jerking the trigger with deliberate, methodical, mechanical pulls.
The gunshots were earsplitting roars; the bullets sprayed out, making the gun pitch and buck in his fist; more than one of them, fired point-blank, struck Theodore. Red spots started to show up on his shirt even before he stopped moving. A dark disk appeared on his face just above his bad eye, rimmed at the bottom by droplets of crimson froth. In slack-mouthed disbelief Mitch watched him turn aside like a puppet and take a dozen jerky disjointed steps and topple—dead, clearly, by the way he fell.
The firecracker scent of cordite was a vicious bite in Mitch’s nostrils. Blood dripped from the scraped side of his jaw. He had a stitch in his ribs; he stood soaked in his own juices, staring down at the trail of blood spots that marked Theodore’s last few steps.
Dull amazement washed through him; he was not ready to credit the reality of it. It was only after some time that he thought to turn around—he almost lost his balance—toward the porch where the girls had been struggling.
They stood a little distance apart, staring. The gunshots must have broken up their fight. Terry slowly sat down and buried her face in her hands; her body lurched but she made no sounds. Billie Jean waited a long time before she climbed down off the porch and walked past Mitch as if he weren’t there and stood over Theodore’s crumpled body. She prodded Theodore with her toe. There was a reflexive muscle-jerk that made Theodore’s leg clatter; Billie Jean jumped back in terror. Mitch bent down by her and felt for a pulse but he wasn’t sure where to look: he tried the wrist and the throat. He peeled back the lid of Theodore’s good eye but blood filled it immediately; he wiped his hand on the sandy ground and backed away, and ran to the corner of the barn, where he bent over and threw up.
He was a long time sick. Finally he wiped his mouth furiously on a handkerchief and came back across the street, taking a long detour to avoid going near Theodore. Billie Jean was crouching below the porch, watching Theodore anxiously as if she was waiting for him to get up.
Full of fury Mitch kicked her in the thigh and when she looked up he said, “It’s your fault! You killed him!” His voice trembled.
Billie Jean looked at him with a slowly changing face; with childish petulance she said, finally, “Bullshit.”
He looked past her, up across the porch. Terry looked bleak and glazed. He climbed up and went over to her and sat down beside her. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t even look at him. There was a long livid scratch down her cheek and her clothing was torn, her hair a matted tangle. She was sucking on a broken fingernail.
At the edge of the porch Billie Jean got up, rising into sight like a porpoise coming up from the sea. She said in a practical voice, “Let’s don’t just leave him out there in the middle of the street like that.”
Mitch thought about it sluggishly. “Do what you want to do.”
“I can’t move him by myself. He weighs too much.”
Unreasonable and loud, he shouted, “What the hell do you want me to do? Bury him with full military honors? Embalm him and build a thousand-dollar casket? Leave me alone!”
Very businesslike, Billie Jean only waited out his tirade patiently and then said, “Do the same thing he did with Georgie.”
Mitch resisted it for half an hour but in the end he did what Billie Jean wanted because it was the only thing he could do. He didn’t know where Theodore had put Georgie and he didn’t want to find out. He put Theodore around back of the store near an anthill and left him there bloody and naked. He carried Theodore’s clothes inside and stuffed them into a knapsack with Georgie’s things. Working mindlessly, doing what Floyd had ordered last night, he policed the place, picked up every last scrap and carried everything across the street into the barn. The trunk of the sports car was not locked; he put everything into it and had to sit on the lid to close it.