The Third Hill North of Town (40 page)

“Whew,” she whispered, suddenly wrinkling her nose. “Momma won’t let you boys in the house smelling like
that.
You can wash up by the well.”

Momma’s dead,
she corrected herself at once, recalling with an effort where she was—or more accurately,
when
she was. Elijah /Ben spoke her name; she could feel his throat moving against the side of her face. She was too tired to talk, but her well-ingrained manners wouldn’t allow her to just ignore him.

“Mmm?” she replied.

He paused. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head on his shoulder and hoped that would suffice for an answer.

Jon Tate spoke softly to Elijah. He was saying something about needing to get back to the car, but Julianna paid him no heed. She had no intention of going anyplace else tonight, no matter what Jon said; it was late, and her parents and her brothers were waiting for her and Ben just inside the house.

They’re all dead,
Julianna Dapper whispered.
There is no house.

Don’t be ridiculous,
Julianna Larson snapped back.
Ben is right here with me, and everybody else is waiting up for us in the living room.

She felt Ben’s arm go rigid around her.

“Shit!” he gasped.

Jon Tate swore, too, and she forced herself to open her eyes. Both boys were staring south, toward Pawnee; from their current position on the hill, it was possible to see most of the gravel road between the Larson farm and the town. The headlights of two cars almost a mile away seemed to be what had alarmed the others, but Julianna didn’t understand why this should be the case. She was mildly curious about who might be out and about at this hour of the night in Pawnee—only a few people in town owned cars, after all—yet the boys were scrambling to their feet as if somebody had lit a fire in their pants.

“You’re a bad influence on Ben, Jon,” Julianna complained. “He never used to curse before he met you.”

She didn’t notice the grimness of her friends’ expressions as they gazed at her, because she was now watching the approaching cars with more interest. The headlights were getting closer very quickly; she hadn’t known it was possible for automobiles to move at such speeds.

“Whoever they are, they’re certainly in a hurry, aren’t they?” she asked.

Chapter 15

“T
his is insane!” Mary Taylor protested, glancing nervously over her shoulder at the headlights of the car that was gaining on them even though Sam Hunter was driving at a suicidal speed on the bumpy county road. “I don’t have any idea how this crazy woman you’re trying to find knows the name of my son—or anything at all about Pawnee—but whoever she is, she is
not
Julianna Larson, and that man behind us is
not
Julianna Larson’s son. Julianna Larson died when she was
fifteen,
and I promise you she never had a child!”

The two Marys were in the backseat of Bonnor Tucker’s “borrowed” station wagon, gripping their respective door handles to keep from being tossed around in the seat as Sam floored the accelerator and swerved madly left and right in a futile attempt to avoid the biggest potholes in the gravel beneath their wheels. Edgar Reilly was in the front passenger seat, clutching his own door handle and moaning to himself.

Mary Hunter—who had spent the past two minutes or so filling in the older woman on why Gabriel Dapper was pursuing them—spoke calmly over the rumble of the station wagon’s engine. “Did you ever learn what happened to the man who killed your son and the Larson family? I know you said he was never caught, but did you ever hear anything else about him?”

Mary Taylor shook her head, marveling that the younger woman could remain so poised while being flung about like a rag doll.

“The Larsons’ car was abandoned up in Iowa someplace, but the police never found a trace of Rufus,” she answered. “I’ve prayed every day of my life for news of that man, because if there was ever a soul on this earth who deserved to hang for what he’s done, it’s Rufus Tarwater. Nobody ever proved he did all the killing, but he disappeared the night of the fire, and everybody knew how much he hated Eben Larson.”

“What if he kidnapped Julianna instead of killing her?” Mary Hunter asked, forcing herself to concentrate. She was steeling herself for a showdown with Gabriel Dapper and had little energy to spare for a decades-old murder mystery. “What if he took her somewhere else and she managed to get away from him?”

Mary Taylor shook her head and stole another glance through the rear window.

“They found the remains of all five of the Larsons, along with my boy,” she said. “The coroner had an awful time because the bodies were so badly burned, but there were definitely six of them. Ben was . . .” Her voice thickened and she paused to swallow. “The three bodies they found at the front of the house were Ben and the Larson boys. The fire didn’t get quite as hot there and you could still see enough to . . . to guess who they’d been. But there was almost nothing left of Eben and the two women. The coroner said the one on the lawn was most likely a man, so he figured it was Eben—which meant that the two in the kitchen
had
to be Julianna and her mama. But the kitchen was where the fire was hottest, and the body on the lawn had been . . .”

She fell silent, staring at nothing.

Edgar Reilly’s curiosity temporarily overrode his fear for his life, and he turned around in the front seat. “Julianna’s father didn’t die in the house with the others?”

“No.” Bitter lines formed at the corners of Mary Taylor’s mouth. “Rufus singled Eben out for special treatment, or at least that’s what the sheriff guessed. There was an empty barrel of gasoline next to Eben’s body, and the coroner said Rufus must have used every drop of it on Eben.” She looked down at her lap. “I’ll give Rufus Tarwater one thing: That man sure knew how to hate.”

Sam spoke over his shoulder. “How much farther until we’re there, Mrs. Taylor?”

She peered over the seat through the windshield. “The Larson farm was right on top of that hill yonder.” Wonder was slowly dawning on her face, warring with her doubt and sadness. “If by some miracle it turns out that Julianna Larson really
is
this person you’re looking for, I would dearly,
dearly
love to see her again.”

Edgar Reilly cleared his throat. “I’m afraid she might not recognize you,” he cautioned. “Julianna’s memory is highly selective, and quite unreliable.”

Mary Taylor nodded. “I’d still like to see her.” A glimmer of a smile touched her face. “She and my Ben thought the world of each other, and even if she can’t answer questions about how he died, it would be good just to hear somebody else say his name. I thought I was the only one left on this earth who even knew a boy named Ben Taylor once existed.”

The third large hill north of Pawnee loomed in front of them, and Sam floored the accelerator of the station wagon to make the ascent. Gabriel’s Cadillac was less than a hundred yards behind them and closing the gap by the second, and the younger Mary in the backseat leaned forward anxiously, searching the darkness ahead of their own headlights for any sign of Elijah and the others. If Elijah was indeed on top of the hill, she was somehow going to have to find a way to keep him away from Gabriel until they got everything sorted out. She and Sam had no weapons, and if Gabriel wanted to hurt their son, she didn’t know how she could prevent it.

“It will be all right, Mary,” Edgar Reilly said, surprising her. “It will all work out.”

She glanced over at him and managed a tense smile. Julianna’s overtly neurotic psychiatrist was trembling with anxiety about the coming conflict, yet there was a resolve in his voice she hadn’t heard before.

“Yes,” she murmured, oddly reassured. “Yes, it will. Thank you, Edgar.”

Edgar smiled back, resisting an impulse to offer her an M&M.

The headlights of the station wagon suddenly revealed the rear bumper of a lime-green Volkswagen on the right side of the road, fifty or sixty feet ahead of them.

“There!” Mary Hunter cried out, reaching over the front seat to seize her husband’s shoulder.

Sam shot a quick look at the rearview mirror to gauge how soon Gabriel would catch up to them. The Cadillac was barreling up the hill toward them and was almost on their bumper.

“Gabriel’s right behind us!” Sam snapped. “What should I do?”

Mary Hunter didn’t have time to respond. The instant she opened her mouth, she saw a thin white boy leap from the cornfield on the left side of the road up ahead, running for the Volkswagen. He was wearing khaki shorts and a pair of sneakers; there were white bandages on his chest and back.

“There’s someone!” Edgar squealed. “Is that the Tate boy?”

“Don’t let Gabriel get around us, Sam!” Mary Hunter yelled, flinging an arm out in an attempt to prevent Mary Taylor from being injured. “Block the road!”

Obeying, Sam slammed on the brakes and spun the steering wheel to the left, causing the station wagon to skid to a dramatic halt twenty feet away from the green Beetle. The Cadillac behind them veered for the left side of the road and bounced violently across the cornfield ditch in a flanking maneuver, but it stalled out and came to a full stop seconds later, its high beams pointing west into the cornfield at the top of the hill.

The same cornfield where Elijah and Julianna were standing side by side, shielding their eyes from the glare of the lights.

 

Exactly thirty-nine years before the moment when Gabriel Dapper saw his mother and Elijah standing together in a Missouri cornfield, Mary Taylor had awakened her husband, Silas, from a deep sleep to tell him she wanted to bring their son, Ben, home from the Larsons’ farm, on the other side of Pawnee. She and Silas loved the Larson family dearly, but after hearing about Rufus Tarwater’s assault on Julianna Larson the day before, Mary knew she wouldn’t be able to get any sleep herself until Ben was home safe and sound in the room next to hers. Silas tried to reassure her that Ben had probably just lost track of time and would be back soon, but she had been adamant, and Silas had at last gotten out of bed to hitch their horse to a buggy.

They didn’t get far.

As they were leaving their home they smelled smoke in the air and saw the glow of an enormous fire over downtown Pawnee. Silas urged the horse into a gallop and they raced into town, where they spent the next several hours doing what little they could to help fight the conflagration. They were both still worried about their son, of course—especially when none of the Larsons showed up to assist with the fire—but they reasoned that the distance between town and the Larsons’ farm had probably prevented Ben and the others from even knowing what was happening. Mary was still determined to bring her boy home later that night, however. But since Ben was far safer with his friends than he would be in Pawnee itself, she was willing to wait until she and Silas were no longer needed by those trying to contain the blaze.

This being the case, the Taylors didn’t turn into the driveway of the Larsons’ farm until nearly sunrise. By then there was nothing left on the hilltop but smoking ruins and dying coals; even the grass was black with soot and ash. Silas had to physically restrain Mary from doing harm to herself, and counted himself lucky when the force of her grief finally caused her to pass out in his arms. He drove the buggy back into town to get the sheriff, who was still investigating the town fire, and it would be several hours before the county coroner arrived and the remains of Ben Taylor and all of the Larsons could be dealt with.

Thus ended the first act of the tragedy that was Pawnee.

It’s over,
Elijah thought in despair as he, Jon, and Julianna all watched the cars drawing closer to the hill. Elijah assumed, as did Jon, that the vehicles belonged to the police; the absence of flashing lights and sirens was no doubt only an attempt to escape detection until the last possible moment.

“We can’t outrun them,” he said quietly. His heart was beating fast and his stomach had a knot in it, but the sheer terror that had plagued him all his life whenever anything bad happened was remarkably absent. “Even if we got into the Bug right now, they’d catch us in a mile or two.”

Jon Tate heard the hopelessness in Elijah’s voice and felt the same way himself.

“So what do we do?” he asked, fighting a nearly irresistible urge to flee on foot into the cornfields. He had no idea how the police had found them so quickly; it was as if they knew precisely where to look. “Should I get the guns?”

Julianna was frowning. “It’s much,
much
too late for visitors. Momma’s going to be mad as a hornet if they wake her up at this hour.”

Elijah swallowed past a lump in his throat as he gazed into Julianna’s confused face. “I’ve never fired a gun in my life,” he said, turning to Jon. “And I don’t think I can shoot anybody.”

Elijah had guessed things were going to end like this eventually, but now that the actual moment was there he didn’t care for his choices. Back at the jailhouse, things had seemed easier; Julianna had needed to get to the end of her journey, and that was that. But the circumstances had changed, and Elijah was no longer sure what was best for her—or for himself and Jon, either. Maybe it would be okay to let the cops take her back to the hospital now; maybe he and Jon had done all they could.

Jon was looking at the younger boy with desperation. “We’ve gotta do
something,
man,” he pleaded. Jon hated the idea of shooting somebody as much as Elijah did, but he couldn’t just stand around and wait for the police to haul them all off again. “Shouldn’t we at least try to bargain with them or something?”

Elijah had no illusions about the outcome of any sort of standoff with the police involving guns: He and Jon would end up dead within minutes. Yet if Jon wanted to try for a better outcome he wasn’t going to argue with him; a life in prison—or the hangman’s noose—was all they had to gain by letting themselves be caught and led away like a pair of sheep.

He met the other boy’s gaze with a bleak nod and swallowed hard.

Jon bolted for the car at once, not needing any other encouragement. “Stay here with Julianna!” he ordered over his shoulder. “I’ll be right back!”

Elijah and Julianna watched him sprint through the cornfield, moving very fast in spite of his wounds. The cars were on their way up the hill now, and Elijah almost yelled out for Jon to come back, not sure at all that the older boy would be able to beat the police to the Volkswagen, even though the Beetle was only fifteen yards away from where he and Julianna were standing.

Julianna stirred. “You boys don’t know how lucky you are to run around all summer long without having to wear a shirt,” she murmured. “It’s so unfair.”

 

Gabriel Dapper saw Jon Tate leap into the road at the same moment the Hunters did, but his elation at finally spotting one of the boys who had taken his mother was short-lived.

“Shit!”

The station wagon he’d been chasing suddenly skidded to a halt and effectively blocked the road in front of him. Gabriel shot out into the cornfield, trying to go around the other vehicle, but his Cadillac bottomed out in the ditch and the engine stalled as Gabriel bashed his forehead against the steering wheel, opening a cut over his left eyebrow.