But it is not enough. Judy’s voice says it’s not, and Ty might know it, anyway. He has hurt the old man—has given him what Ebbie Wexler would undoubtedly call “a fuckin’ rupture”—but it’s not enough.
He lets go and turns to his left, pivoting on his shackled hand. He sees the old man swaying before him in the shadows. Beyond him, the golf cart stands in the open door, outlined against a sky filled with clouds and burning smoke. The old monster’s eyes are huge and disbelieving, bulging with tears. He gapes at the little boy who has done this.
Soon comprehension will return. When it does, Burny is apt to seize one of the knives from the wall—or perhaps one of the meat forks—and stab his chained prisoner to death, screaming curses and oaths at him as he does so, calling him a monkey, a bastard, a fucking asswipe. Any thought of Ty’s great talent will be gone. Any fear of what may happen to Burny himself if Mr. Munshun—and the abbalah—is robbed of his prize will also be gone. In truth, Burny is nothing but a psychotic animal, and in another moment his essential nature will break loose and vent itself on this tethered child.
Tyler Marshall, son of Fred and the formidable Judy, does not give Burny this chance. During the last part of the drive he has thought repeatedly of what the old man said about Mr. Munshun—he hurt me, he pulled my guts—and hoped he might get his own opportunity to do some pulling. Now it’s come. Hanging from the shackle with his left arm pulled cruelly up, he shoots his right hand forward. Through the hole in Burny’s shirt. Through the hole Henry has made with his switchblade knife. Suddenly Ty has hold of something ropy and wet. He seizes it and pulls a roll of Charles Burnside’s intestines out through the rip in his shirt.
Burny’s head turns up toward the shed’s ceiling. His jaw snaps convulsively, the cords on his wrinkled old neck stand out, and he voices a great, agonized bray. He tries to pull away, which may be the worst thing a man can do when someone has him by the liver and lights. A blue-gray fold of gut, as plump as a sausage and perhaps still trying to digest Burny’s last Maxton cafeteria meal, comes out with the audible pop of a champagne cork leaving the neck of its bottle.
Charles “Chummy” Burnside’s last words: “LET GO, YOU LITTLE PIIIIG!”
Tyler does not let go. Instead he shakes the loop of intestine furiously from side to side like a terrier with a rat in its jaws. Blood and yellowish fluid spray out of the hole in Burny’s midsection. “Die!” Tyler hears himself screaming. “Die, you old fuck, GO ON AND DIE!”
Burny staggers back another step. His mouth drops open, and part of an upper plate tumbles out and onto the dirt. He is staring down at two loops of his own innards, stretching like gristle from the gaping red-black front of his shirt to the awful child’s right hand. And he sees an even more terrible thing: a kind of white glow has surrounded the boy. It is feeding him more strength than he otherwise would have had. Feeding him the strength to pull Burny’s living guts right out of his body and how it hurt, how it hurt, how it dud dud dud hurrrrr—
“Die!” the boy screams in a shrill and breaking voice. “Oh please, WON’T YOU EVER DIE?”
And at last—at long, long last—Burny collapses to his knees. His dimming gaze fixes on the Taser and he reaches one trembling hand toward it. Before it can get far, the light of consciousness leaves Burny’s eyes. He hasn’t endured enough pain to equal even the hundredth part of the suffering he has inflicted, but it’s all his ancient body can take. He makes a harsh cawing sound deep in his throat, then tumbles over backward, more intestines pulling out of his lower abdomen as he does so. He is unaware of this or of anything else.
Carl Bierstone, also known as Charles Burnside, also known as “Chummy” Burnside, is dead.
For over thirty seconds, nothing moves. Tyler Marshall is alive but at first only hangs from the axis of his shackled left arm, still clutching a loop of Burny’s intestine in his right hand. Clutching it in a death grip. At last some sense of awareness informs his features. He gets his feet under him and scrambles upright, easing the all but intolerable pressure on the socket of his left shoulder. He suddenly becomes aware that his right arm is splashed with gore all the way to the biceps, and that he’s got a handful of dead man’s insides. He lets go of them and bolts for the door, not remembering that he’s still chained to the wall until he is yanked back, the socket of his shoulder once more bellowing with pain.
You’ve done well, the voice of Judy-Sophie whispers. But you have to get out of here, and quick.
Tears start to roll down his dirty, pallid face again, and Ty begins to scream at the top of his voice.
“Help me! Somebody help me! I’m in the shed! I’M IN THE SHED!”
Out in front of the Sand Bar, Doc stays where he is, with his scoot rumbling between his legs, but Beezer turns his off, levers the stand into place with one booted heel, and walks over to Jack, Dale, and Fred. Jack has taken charge of the wrapped object Ty’s father has brought them. Fred, meanwhile, has gotten hold of Jack’s shirt. Dale tries to restrain the man, but as far as Fred Marshall’s concerned, there are now only two people in the world: him and Hollywood Jack Sawyer.
“It was him, wasn’t it? It was Ty. That was my boy, I heard him!”
“Yes,” Jack says. “It certainly was and you certainly did.” He’s gone rather pale, Beezer sees, but is otherwise calm. It’s absolutely not bothering him that the missing boy’s father has yanked his shirt out of his pants. No, all Jack’s attention is on the wrapped package.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” Dale asks plaintively. He looks at Beezer. “Do you know?”
“The kid’s in a shed somewhere,” Beezer says. “Am I right about that?”
“Yes,” Jack says. Fred abruptly lets go of Jack’s shirt and staggers backward, sobbing. Jack pays no attention to him and makes no effort to tuck in the tail of his crumpled shirt. He’s still looking at the package. He half-expects sugar-packet stamps, but no, this is just a case of plain old metered mail. Whatever it is, it’s been mailed Priority to Mr. Tyler Marshall, 16 Robin Hood Lane, French Landing. The return address has been stamped in red: Mr. George Rathbun, KDCU, 4 Peninsula Drive, French Landing. Below this, stamped in large black letters:
EVEN A BLIND MAN CAN SEE THAT COULEE COUNTRY LOVES THE BREWER BASH!
“Henry, you never quit, do you?” Jack murmurs. Tears sting his eyes. The idea of life without his old friend hits him all over again, leaves him feeling helpless and lost and stupid and hurt.
“What about Uncle Henry?” Dale asks. “Jack, Uncle Henry’s dead.”
Jack’s no longer so sure of that, somehow.
“Let’s go,” Beezer says. “We got to get that kid. He’s alive, but he ain’t safe. I got that clear as a bell. Let’s go for it. We can figure the rest out later.”
But Jack—who has not just heard Tyler’s shout but has, for a moment, seen through Tyler’s eyes—doesn’t have much to figure out. In fact, figuring out now comes down to only one thing. Ignoring both Beezer and Dale, he steps toward Ty’s weeping father.
“Fred.”
Fred goes on sobbing.
“Fred, if you ever want to see your boy again, you get hold of yourself right now and listen to me.”
Fred looks up, red eyes streaming. The ridiculously small baseball cap still perches on his head.
“What’s in this, Fred?”
“It must be a prize in that contest George Rathbun runs every summer—the Brewer Bash. But I don’t know how Ty could have won something in the first place. A couple of weeks ago he was pissing and moaning about how he forgot to enter. He even asked if maybe I’d entered the contest for him, and I kind of . . . well, I snapped at him.” Fresh tears begin running down Fred’s stubbly cheeks at the memory. “That was around the time Judy was getting . . . strange . . . I was worried about her and I just kind of . . . snapped at him. You know?” Fred’s chest heaves. He makes a watery hitching sound and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down. He wipes an arm across his eyes. “And Ty . . . all he said was, ‘That’s all right, Dad.’ He didn’t get mad at me, didn’t sulk or anything. Because that’s just the kind of boy he was. That he is.”