Danny was in the doorway, shouting something, yelling at Craig. She saw Craig step in close to him, then lash out with his right foot. Danny buckled, clapping his hands to his groin and groaning, his face contorted with pain. The edge of Craig’s hand came down in a deadly chop and caught Danny on the side of the throat. The boy fell all the way down, landing in a crumpled heap on the barn floor.
“Get dressed,” Craig snapped. “These churls won’t bother us. They have us outnumbered, but that won’t do them any good.”
She dressed quickly, putting on the clean dry clothes Danny had gotten from his sister. April tried not to look at Craig while she dressed. She felt terrible, but there was nothing else for her to do. She had had one chance — Bill Piersall — but she had muffed it. And you did not get a second chance.
“Come on,” Craig said.
They were in the Mercedes now. The other boys were milling around, trying to get up the courage to try to get their prize away from Craig. But they did not have enough time. Craig started the sleek sports car and spun around in a fast U-turn, heading back toward 68. He put the accelerator on the floor and the car was a streak in the night.
April noticed another noise, another car spinning around in a tight U-turn and coming after them. She looked over her shoulder, and her heart leaped up into her throat and she could not swallow it down again.
The car was a hot-rod.
The driver was Bill Piersall.
12
“Who,” said Craig, “is that?”
She was still staring, open-mouthed in wonder. It’s my knight in shining armor, she wanted to say, my knight on a charger of nuts and bolts.
She said: “It’s Bill.”
“Bill?”
“Bill Piersall,” she said. “The boy who made his own hot-rod. I was telling you about him.”
“And what’s he doing?”
“Chasing us,” she said.
Craig laughed. “Chasing a Mercedes in a home-made job? He must be out of his mind.”
Craig had the accelerator on the floor but the rod was coming on in hot pursuit. They were pulling away from Bill, moving away, and she felt almost as though she were being torn in two. Because she realized all at once that she wanted Bill to catch them, to draw ahead of them and force the Mercedes to stop. Bill still loved her, she thought. He still wanted her.
“I’ll show that whelp what a real car can do,” Craig was saying. “Watch this, April.”
She was watching the hot-rod instead. She thought of the way she had contrasted Bill and Craig by contrasting their cars. But she had had it all wrong, she knew now. Craig was a rich man’s son who bought the car he wanted with money he had inherited. But Bill had built the car he wanted, had put it together with his own hands and his own sweat. Any rich man could buy a Mercedes and drive hell out of it. Not everyone could build a rod like Bill’s.
And, amazingly, the rod was gaining on them. She stared at it, saw Bill at the wheel, concentrating on his driving with single-minded attention. He was pulling almost even with the Benz, his hands riveted to the steering wheel. It amazed her that a car so sloppy in appearance could be capable of such a burst of speed.
Well, appearances were deceiving. She had misjudged Bill’s car just as she had misjudged Bill, and now she was just beginning to see the light when it was almost too late to do any good. They were careening down the dirt road now, the rod just a few feet behind the Mercedes, with Route 68 not far ahead.
“Dammit!” Craig was shouting. His face was flushed and the effort was telling on him. “That little bastard—”
Craig swerved sharply to his left, brushing the nose of the rod in an effort to spin the rod off the road. But Bill held on, sweeping to his left and putting on an extra burst of speed to draw even with the Mercedes. He went out in front, then slashed sharply across in front of the Benz. April saw the look of horror on Craig’s face, saw the nose of the Benz moving toward the tail of the rod, and she knew they were going to crash.
The rod did it neatly. Bill tickled the Mercedes’ nose, then spun forward. But Craig did not make it. The car careened out of control, spilling over the side of the road.
April held her breath...
She was thrown up over the side of the car and into a pile of brush at the side. Her arms and legs were scratched and her head ached but she was alive and more or less unhurt. She raised herself onto one elbow, and then she saw Bill.
His car was parked on the road ahead, miraculously unhurt. And Bill was at the Mercedes, working feverishly. He managed to lift the unconscious Craig, dragged him off to one side.
The Mercedes burst into flames, burning like a beacon at the roadside. The racy automobile was no longer a dream car, no longer a car at all — just flaming metal and leather.
She ran to Bill, calling his name.
Sweat coursed down his face. He lowered Craig into wet grass and stood for a moment, looking at him. He checked Craig’s pulse, listened to his heart beat.
“He’ll live,” he said.
“Bill—”
“Are you all right, April?”
“I’m all right.”
“Are you positive?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m positive.”
“I wanted to tear Danny’s head off,” he said. “When he told me what he was setting up I blew my top. I wanted to take him apart and throw the parts away.”
“He told me.”
“I had to find you. He didn’t tell me where he was keeping you and I started chasing around looking in likely spots. I remembered the barn and got here just when you and this jerk were pulling away.” He sighed. “I guess I got here just in time, huh?”
She could say nothing. She looked at Bill, remembering the hurtful things she had said to him, and realizing how wrong she had been about him from the beginning. He was a good person, a fine person. He was not Danny Duncan and he was not Craig Jeffers.
He was something special.
“I’d better get you home,” he said.
“I can’t go home.”
“Why not?”
Haltingly she told him about the pictures. At first she was sick with embarrassment, but as she talked she realized that she would never have to be embarrassed with Bill. He respected her; moreover, he was able to accept her for what she was and at the same time to honor her for what he felt she could be. She explained how impossible it would be for her to stay in Antrim.
“I can see that,” Bill said. “You can’t stay here. And neither can I, April.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have to be where you are, April. I can’t be alive unless I’m with you. See?”
“Bill—”
“I love you, April.”
She started to say something but his mouth stopped her words before they could be spoken. All at once he was holding her, his hands damp with sweat, and he was kissing her, his mouth hard against hers. She did not love him. But love was not the most important consideration now.
He gave her an out. If Bill took care of her everything would be all right. She could stay with him, marry him if that was what he wanted, and she would be out of Antrim and safe somewhere else.
Would it be fair to him? It would, she told herself. She could be a good wife whether she loved him or not. She would be faithful and warm, and he would never know that she was not in love with him.
She stayed close to him. He smelled of sweat and axle-grease and masculinity, and she buried her face in his chest and hugged him as hard as she could.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get going, April.”
“Where to?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
“What about — him?”
“The jerk with the Merc? To hell with him, April. He’s alive. He’ll get back home somehow. His kind always manage. They step on people and grind them into the dirt and they always come out of it smelling like a rose. You don’t have to worry about him, April. He’ll get along.”