Cry of Angels

45

45 BEYOND THE LAST HOUSES ON THE UPPER RIDGE, A BLOBBY SHADOW was descending through the red earthen light. Down the terra-cotta slopes he came like a charging primeval beast, jumping, bouncing, clearing the rain-gutted trenches, howling that inhuman cry. Heads poked out of the supper club's windows. The dog boy on that end of the porch, recovering, raised his gun and braced it against the post. Doc Bobo was on him. "No shooting! No shooting!" On the Indian came, leaping from bank to bank, dead-on across the grassy knolls, sliding down the clay. "Stop him!" Doc Bobo shouted to the frightened people clustered along the way. "You better stop him!" Jojohn built his speed, dodging through the little brown yards and grappling hands, feeble hands, unwilling hands, brushed aside with exploding howls. He burst through the plum thickets onto an apron slope, then off a high bank to the flat below, hit the ground rolling, then was up again, hatless and running, a flicker of khaki through the pines. He 368 B O O K T H R E E circled the marsh beside the supper club and could be heard smashing through the tall reed-thicket, straight on, roaring his coming. Dog boys were crowding to the door of the supper club. Doc Bobo glanced around at them. He beckoned to the one at the other end of the porch. "Cannie!" When the man came, Doc Bobo had him drape his jacket over his pistol. He looked nervously up toward the fairgrounds. "One shot," he said, shaking a finger, "one shot." The dog boy knelt and propped an elbow on one knee. Em Jojohn broke the clearing, the dog boy lowered his chin, sighting, and when he did I whirled and threw myself straight on top of him. The gun exploded in the jacket. The Indian came pounding down the clearing, white-eyed, bellowing . He cleared the low steps and dived, landing inside in a crash of men and furniture. Scrambling to my feet, I ducked into the darkened supper club, watching for the furious dog boy to come after me and at the same time trying to stay out of the commotion inside. Through the window I could see Doc Bobo setting the two on the porch to guard the crowd. The mill-house dance floor was a churning, tumbling pile of arms and legs, with Em in the middle and dog boys, struggling, diving over each other to get at him, making fierce, guttural sounds in their throats. They were rolling across the floor, smashing, tearing clothes, gouging; it was as though Em was being devoured by a many-armed, furious beast. He was fighting defensively, rolling away, trying to get out from under, and they were falling on him from all sides. The walls echoed with the struggle, tables toppling, faces flashing in the light streaks. It seemed the room could not contain the savagery. Suddenly a man squawled like the hogs I had heard in the slaughterhouse, and the Indian rose to his feet. And the sight of him was incredible. It was Jojohn in a fury I had never seen before, fighting as I had never seen before. A head taller than his attackers, he stood against the bar and moved his powerful body in a continuous destructive rhythm, bobbing, weaving, fighting for footing, windmilling blows at the heads below him as though he were demolishing a wall. The mob 369 A C R Y O F A N G E L S lunged and dived in upon him, arms thrusting, making a shock of contact, falling away. Others jumped in over those broken, winded, trying to crawl away from the flying boots; they crowded in, bumping shoulders, working to get him, righting not on orders now, not for fear of Bobo, but in the evangelism of the violence itself. The faceless mob converged upon the furious, battering giant at the bar in an exaltation of fury. Still he stood his ground. A dog boy in a checkered coat arose behind the bar and smashed a wooden ice bucket beside Jojohn's head. The Indian turned and drove a fist through the man's breastbone. A man with a misshapen jaw kept leaping and screaming dementedly, swinging in over the crowd. Jojohn found him and smashed his face. He hit the jukebox and toppled to the floor...