“Hey,” I start, and he fires the rifle in the air.
My face jerks back from the noise and I pull the handlebars hard to the right, wheeling and angling the bike sharply and careening off the road and smashing into the bent cornstalks. I tumble off the bike, watch Houdini bounce out of the basket. I scrabble for cover with my hands over my head. Two more shots. Each of them a loud, distinct kaboom, like he’s shooting at me with a cannon.
“Hold on now,” I call out from the ground, clutching the sides of my head, shouting. “Please.” Crawling among the stalks and the sheets of rain. Heart pounding. The dog raises himself unsteadily, soaked by rain, looks around and barks.
The shooting has stopped. I’m on the ground. I’m unhit, unharmed, getting rained on, half hidden among the rows. I can see the horse hooves clopping toward me, splashing into puddles.
“Go,” calls the stranger.
“Wait,” I say.
“Go now.” I grab the white T-shirt the dog had been sitting on, pull it from the basket and wave it, signaling surrender, peace, hang on a damn second. The hooves are still coming toward me, faster, cutting through the rows—Houdini barks at the wondrous size of the horse.
“Wait—” I say again, and throw my hands up before my face as I realize what’s happening, but it’s too late—horse and rider are directly above me, and the huge front hoof arcs across the sky and slams into the side of my chest like an iron. For a second or two I feel nothing, and then suddenly everything, my whole body detonates with furious sparking pain, and I am in motion, flipping over like a pancake, rolling over fast, front to back.
My forehead lands in the dirt, facedown, like the girl in the clearing, that dead girl we found who turned out not to be dead.
What was her name? Lily. Her name was Lily. No—it—wait—what was it—it’s dark out here. I taste dirt in my mouth. I’m losing consciousness. I can feel it. I grit my teeth and push back against darkness. I hear the dog barking, shouting, the rain splashing in sheets all around us.
The pain seizes me again and I scream, but the man on the horse can’t hear me—he’s way up there, Zeus in the saddle, and me all the way down here, my head all gummed up, one thick pulse of pain. I flip myself over, blink up at the dark storm-filled sky. The man with the black hat, he’s got the rifle in one hand, the horse’s reins in the other hand, he’s like a painting from a battle scene, cavalry charge, avenging horsemen. “My name is Palace,” I try to say, just moving my mouth, my tongue lolling free, and rain falls into my mouth and I think about those turkeys you hear of that die from drowning, staring idiotically, open-mouthed, up into the rain. The horse shuffles agitatedly to and fro, the man steadies him with the reins. My dog is dodging confusedly around the feet of the larger animal. Wild pinpricks of light are exploding across the black horizon of my vision, and my mouth gapes open, rain pouring in.
I fumble again for words and fail, can’t speak.
My assailant, the Amish man in the black hat, is saying “easy, girl, easy” to his horse, and then he slides down off the saddle and his boots land in front of my eyes in the dirt. I am staring at his boots. Feeling new tenderness in my side. A broken rib. Maybe a number of them.
“You must leave,” says the man, crouching down, his face filling my vision. Big eyes, thick black chinstrap beard streaked with gray.
“I just need to ask you a couple of questions,” I say—try to say—I don’t know if I say it or not. I gurgle.
The man pulls back, stands up straight. Along with the gun he carries a pitchfork on a strap across his back. A long wooden handle with three pointed tines, a simple, brutal implement. He towers over me Satanlike: the beard, the pitchfork, the glare. I just need to ask him a couple of questions. I open my mouth and my mouth fills with blood. Blood is washing down my face; my forehead must have split on a stone on the path. This is bad. This is a problem. Blood on my face from a cut in my head, blood choking up to drown me from my insides. Blood on the knives and in the sink.
The man takes the pitchfork down off his back, jabs me in the chest with one curving prong, like a cop rousting a drunk. It’s definitely more than one rib. I can feel them, clawing my insides like spiny fingers.
“You must leave,” he says again.
“Wait, though,” I manage, heaving breath, peering up at him. “Wait. I need to ask you a couple of questions.”
“No.” His brows darken. Rain drips down around the brim of his hat. “No.”
“I’m looking for a man or men who—”
“No. Stop.” He pushes at me again with the pitchfork, right in the chest, and the pain dances up my rib cage, into my brain, like a fork of lightning. I picture myself pinned to the road, wriggling, stuck into the ground like an insect. Still, I talk, I keep talking, I don’t know why.
“I’m looking for someone who did some concrete work.”
“You must leave.”
The man starts muttering to himself in a foreign language. Swedish? No. I try to remember what I know about Amish people. German? The man bows his head, clasps his hands together and keeps talking in the low, guttural stream of speech, and while he is doing that I struggle to my feet, get dizzy, fall down.
Blood covers my eyes now, and I wipe it away with my knuckles. I lean forward and heave awful breaths, my throat as dry as insulation, my stomach clenching and unclenching. I’m wondering where the Asian guys are, his employees or friends. I shake my head to try and clear it, and I am rewarded with a new pulse of pain and disorientation. “I’m looking for some men who did concrete work at a police station, up in Rotary.” I talk slowly, word by word, while blood dribbles out of the sides of my mouth, like I’m a monster who just ate something.
The Amish guy doesn’t answer, he keeps talking to his joined hands. He’s praying, or maybe he’s crazy, maybe he’s just talking to himself, channeling voices. He appears to be a man teetering on the edge of something. He’s tall and sturdily constructed, with a wide chest that looks as if built with broad wood beams. Thick beard, thick gray hair beneath the hat. Wide, strong neck. A face stern and lined, the face of the underground king in a scary tale for children.
The rain comes down in billowing curtains, blowing hard across his face. The pitchfork trembles in his clenched fist.
“Please,” I say, but then the man lowers the pitchfork and raises the rifle instead.
“Forgive me,” he says. “Jesus Christ, forgive me.”
I bury my chin in my chest, wriggle my head away from the nose of gun. Still—still I am afraid to die. Even now. I smell it, the rank smell of my own terror, billowing up around me like a fog.
“Jesus Christ, forgive me,” he says again, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t asking me to forgive him, he’s not saying “Jesus Christ” for emphasis. He’s asking Jesus Christ to forgive him, for whatever he’s done, for what he’s about to do.
“Sir,” I say, as quickly and clearly as I can manage. “My sister is missing. I have to find her. That’s all. I have to find her before the end of the world.”
The old eyes widen, and he crouches and puts his face right down next to mine. Lays down the rifle and gingerly wipes blood from around my eyes with his fingertips. “You mustn’t say those words.”