Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(68)

The two boys turned northward on the wide sidewalk. They crossed Third Street and looked in the furniture store window at the velvet couches and the wood rockers, and the Holt Mercury offices and the hardware store, both dark inside, and crossed Second Street and passed the café whose lunch tables were all set in place and the chairs turned up, and the Coast to Coast and the sports store and the sewing shop, and then they stepped over the shiny railroad tracks at the crossing, the grain elevator down the way looming up white and shadowy, as massive and terrific as a church, before turning homeward onto Railroad Street. They went along the empty street under the trees that were beginning to swell though the air was still sharply cold at night, and they were not yet as far as Mrs. Lynch’s house when a car suddenly pulled up in front of them. They recognized the three people inside at once: the big redheaded boy and the blond girl and the second boy, from the room with flickering candles at the end of Railroad Street five months ago in the fall.

You little girls want a ride? the redheaded boy said from behind the wheel.

They looked at him. The side of his face was yellow, lit up by the dashlights.

Bobby, Ike said. Come on.

They tried to walk across the street, but the car rolled ahead in their way.

You never answered my question.

They looked at him. We don’t want a ride, Ike said.

He turned and spoke to the other high school boy. He says they don’t want a ride.

Tell him it’s tough shit. They’re going to get one anyway. Tell him that.

The redhaired boy turned back. He says you’ll get one anyway. So what do you want to do? Want to call your daddy? Does that * know where you are?

Russ, the girl said. Let them go. Somebody’s going to see us. Leaning forward, watching what was happening, she sat in the front seat between the two boys, her hair framed like cotton candy about her face. Russ, come on, let’s go.



Not yet.

Let’s go, Russ.

Not yet, goddamn it.

You want me to get em in? the other boy said.

They don’t act like they want to get in by their own selves.

I’ll get em.

The other boy got out of the car on the far side. He stood out in the street and came around, and they began to back up. But now the redhaired boy was out of the car too. He was strong and as tall as their father. He was wearing his high school jacket.

Bobby, come on, Ike said.

They turned to run but the redhaired boy grabbed them by their coats.

Where you think you’re going?

Leave us alone, Ike said.

He held them by their coats and they kicked and swung at him, hollering, trying to turn around, but he held them away at arm’s length and the other boy grabbed Bobby and twisted his arms up behind him and Ike was lifted off his feet, and together they were shoved into the backseat. The big boys got in the car again. Ike and Bobby sat behind them waiting.

You better let us go. You better quit this. We didn’t do anything to you.

Maybe you didn’t, you little shits. But somebody did.

Russ, the girl said, what are you going to do? She was half-turned in the seat, watching them.

Nothing. Take em for a little ride.

She faced forward again, looking at him. Where to?

Just shut up. You’ll find out when they do.

One of them little f*ckers kicked me, the other boy said.

Did he get your nuts?

He’d like to.

The redheaded boy put the car in gear and it jumped forward, leaning over as it spun gravel and turned completely around, the wheels squealing, and rushed back up Railroad Street, then squealed again, onto Ash Street and north onto a dirt road heading into flat open country.

Outside through the car windows it was just blue-black. The flare of the headlights pointed forward on the road, fanned out along the ditches on both sides, picking up brush and weeds and fence posts, and beyond, only the blue farmlights in the dark country. In the front seat they were drinking beer. The one boy drank, then turned the window down and flung the can out, hollered and turned the window up again. Ike and Bobby sat in back watching them, as still as country rabbits, waiting, and pretty soon the girl turned around once more and peered at them, then she turned back.

They’re scared, she said. They’re just little boys, Russ. They’re afraid. Whyn’t you let them go?

Whyn’t you just shut up like I told you, he said. He looked at her. Fuck’s wrong with you tonight anyway?

He drove on. The gravel pounded up under the car. They topped a little rise and abruptly he slid the car to a stop. This is far enough, he said.

He got out as the other boy did on his side, and they bent into the back and pulled them from the car onto a low hill in the night. The snow was gone but the wind was blowing, and they were out on a dirt road with sagebrush and last year’s dry bluestem sticking up from the new grass behind the barbed-wire fences on both sides, all of it pale and cold-looking, showing dim and shadowy in the blue light of the high white stars.

Russ, the girl said.

What?

Russ, you won’t make them walk from here.

I’m going to, he said. It’s not even five miles. Now shut your mouth like I told you. Or maybe you want to walk back with em yourself. Do you?

No.

Then keep out of this.

He looked at the two boys standing next to each other against the car, waiting for what was going to happen, their eyes like outsized coins in the night. The car was still idling and the headlights were pointed forward along the dirt road, showing the washboards and the uneven grading.