The Third Hill North of Town

by Noah Bly

  Jon Tate raised his head to stare across the counter at the open-mouthed gas station attendant.

  “Oh, man,” Sal Cavetti moaned piteously, eyes darting from Jon to the blood-stained sleeve of Julianna’s dress. “Fuck me running.”

  Elijah flew out of the bathroom half a minute later, still attempting to button his pants. Julianna was looking curiously at Sal—who was crouched behind the counter, uttering a remarkably nonpoetic string of obscenities—but Jon was nowhere in sight.

  “Where’s Jon?” Elijah demanded.

  “Oh, Jesus!” wailed Sal. “Please don’t kill me, man!”

  Julianna frowned. “Hush, Larry. You’re behaving like a five-year-old.” She turned her attention to Elijah. “Did you boys have another spat? Jon seemed very upset.”

  Elijah darted out the door without answering and stared wildly around the parking lot in the hot morning sunshine. The Beetle was still by the pump, he noted with relief, but Jon wasn’t in it; it took another few seconds to catch sight of the other boy in the alley across the highway, already a block away and running fast in the opposite direction. Jon’s back was pale in the sunlight, and he was carrying his bag and his shirt in his right hand. Without thinking, Elijah sprinted after him, his arms and legs windmilling furiously. He was a fast runner, but so was Jon; after another block the distance between them hadn’t narrowed by more than ten feet. Elijah willed himself to go faster, panting and gasping, yet no matter what he did he couldn’t close the gap.

  “Jon!” he cried out.

  The gravel under his sneakers seemed to blur as he threw himself forward, but his lungs already felt as if they were on fire, and he was having difficulty getting enough air. Jon had just crossed another street, still more than thirty yards ahead of him. Realizing it was pointless to keep going, Elijah suddenly broke off his pursuit and skidded to a halt.

  “Goddammit, Jon!” he cried, his voice cracking from frustration and sudden anger. “Come back here, you PUSSY!” He bent over and retched, his stomach heaving from exertion.

  Elijah didn’t care that Jon had their only money. The truth was he couldn’t bear the idea of going on alone with Julianna on her mad, disastrous journey. Jon’s departure meant the end of all hope, because at least when the three of them were together it felt as if there were still a slim chance they might eventually figure out a way to somehow survive this nightmare. At least when Jon was there, there was somebody to talk to who actually knew his real name—somebody who tried to take care of him, somebody who shared the responsibility of keeping them one step ahead of the police, somebody who made him feel as if the whole world had not gone absolutely, stark raving mad.

  Somebody he trusted.

  With a twist of pain in his heart, he realized he had begun to think of Jon as a friend. He knew it was stupid to believe this; they’d only met a day ago, and knew next to nothing about each other. Besides that, what Elijah did know about the other boy was hardly reassuring: He’d gotten an underaged girl pregnant, for God’s sake, and robbed a few hundred bucks from an employer.

  Yet he’d also washed Elijah’s shoes and socks for him the night before, and less than five minutes ago had offered Elijah the use of his own toothbrush.

  Elijah lifted his head, startled by a noise in the alley. Jon was standing a few feet away from him, his shoulders and chest wet with perspiration and his face flushed.

  “I’m not a pussy,” he said in a subdued voice. “I was just stretching my legs.”

  Elijah cleared his throat. “I know,” he answered, averting his face. He wiped his eyes as he stood up straight again. “I was just kidding.”

  He looked back at the gas station, two blocks behind them. Julianna was beside the Beetle, looking toward them; the gas station attendant was apparently still cowering inside the station. Elijah thought it was likely the big man had already called the police, but for the moment he couldn’t seem to make himself care. There was a lump in his throat, and he was having trouble seeing Julianna clearly.

  Jon Tate sighed as he stared at the back of Elijah’s head. “Sorry, man,” he mumbled. “I don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing.”

  Elijah nodded, not willing to risk speaking again quite yet. He didn’t look at Jon as they fell in step together, separated only by a strip of green grass growing in the middle of the alley. They picked up the pace together immediately, though, and began to jog toward the Volkswagen. By the time they recrossed the highway, they were running full tilt.

  Interlude

  Sunday Evening, June 24, 1923

  Michael led the ascent to the hayloft, right before sunset, followed closely on the ladder by Ben Taylor and Julianna. Julianna insisted on going last because she was afraid that Ben, who was barefoot, might get a splinter and take a tumble, and she wanted to be sure there was someone under him to cushion his fall. Her worry was for nothing, though; he scooted up the crude ladder and disappeared into the loft in a matter of seconds.

  At fifteen, Benjamin Taylor was shorter than most kids his age, and thin as a postage stamp. He hated having his hair cut, and as a result he had a wild mass of black curls surrounding his head like a dark, fuzzy corona. His face was normally lit by a sunny smile, and even though he was sometimes bullied into crying by classmates who did not care for Negroes, his tears never lasted more than a minute or two. He’d spot a fox or a rabbit darting across the road into the woods by his house, or he’d catch a whiff of bread from the bakery window when he was downtown, and he’d wipe his eyes on his forearm and brighten up again.

  Julianna and Ben were only a month apart in age, and had been friends since they were infants. Emma Larson, eight months pregnant with Julianna and bloated to twice her normal size, had actually helped Doc Colby deliver Ben when Mary Taylor had given birth. Mary’s health had not been good for weeks before Ben was born, and Colby had asked Emma—who had served as a midwife for more than a dozen births in Pawnee—to come with him to the Taylors and lend a hand, just in case things “went poorly” during the delivery. Fortunately, Ben’s birth was free of complications, and Emma and Mary formed an easy friendship that day that eventually extended to their children.

  On the Sunday night before everything changed forever in Pawnee, Julianna scaled the ladder in the barn almost as gracefully as Ben had managed a few moments before. She had almost reached the hayloft when Seth stepped into the barn and started up after her.

  “Hey, baby girl,” he called out, taunting. He and Michael only called her “baby girl” when they wanted to get her goat. “Your panties are showing!”

  Julianna, who was wearing a light blue, knee-length skirt, paused in her climb and looked down at him, unfazed.

  “Thank you, Seth.” She smiled fondly at him. “I’d forgotten how childish you can be.”

  Seth found himself a little taken aback, yet again, by the recent change in her. Until the past few months or so, she would have squealed with indignation over the kind of comment he’d just made.

  “You used to be a lot more fun,” he complained. “Why’d you have to go and get older?”

  Her smile grew. “I’m so sorry.” She stepped off the ladder into the loft. “But if you’re looking for someone to annoy, you can always pick on Michael. He’s even more immature than you are.”

  “Hurry up, you guys,” Michael urged from the other end of the barn. He and Ben had helped themselves to Michael’s hidden stash of chewing tobacco and were standing side by side, leaning out the open half door the Larsons used—when it wasn’t in service as a stargazing portal—for loading and unloading hay. Michael was nearly a foot taller than Ben, but Ben’s Medusa-like helmet of hair narrowed the gap by several inches. “You’re missing the sunset.”

  Seth made it to the loft in time to see Julianna rush over to join the others at the window. He was reassured to notice she still shared Michael’s enthusiasm for things like sunsets and stars; it made her seem more like her old self. Michael and Ben shifted to make room for her between them, an
d Seth wandered over a few seconds later to poke his head out, too.

  The sun looked like a massive, overripe apricot, resting on a hilltop several miles away. The sweltering heat of the day had lessened a little but the sky was still hazy; the red and white clover of the surrounding hayfields covered the earth to the horizon, broken here and there by a dark green carpet of trees, grass, and corn.

  “Oh!” Julianna exclaimed in delight. She took a deep breath and filled her lungs with the humid evening air. Clover, hay, and lilac were the dominant fragrances, but there seemed to be a thousand others, too, floating around and mixing with the pleasant, familiar sounds of a squirrel chittering in a nearby tree, and the mournful, meditative ringing of her mother’s wind chime on the back porch of the house, and the distinctive chirping of a horned lark, high-pitched and sharp like the squeak of rubber shoes on a wooden floor. Julianna absorbed it all and sighed with contentment, but immediately lost her good humor as Michael leaned out farther to spit a mouthful of tobacco juice at the ground.

  “Ugh,” she snapped. “It looks like you’ve been eating cow pies.”

  “Yeah, it’s a disgusting habit, Mikey,” Seth agreed. “Can I have some?”

  Michael laughed and handed over the tin. Ben lowered his head to release a brown stream, too, but then gagged and was forced to spit out the small wad of tobacco from his cheek. He wasn’t as experienced a chewer as Michael and Seth, and still felt like throwing up every time he put a pinch in his mouth. But everything Michael and Seth did, he wanted to do, even if it made him sick to his stomach.

  Julianna frowned and stepped away from the hay door. “If Momma finds out the three of you are doing that, she’ll kill all of you.”

  Michael nodded, unconcerned. “She’ll have to kill Daddy, too. He knows we’ve been doing it and he hasn’t said anything about it.”

  She grimaced. “He would if he knew you were giving it to Ben. He thinks you and Seth are old enough now to make your own choices, even when they’re really stupid choices. But if he knew Ben was rotting out his stomach with you, he’d put a stop to it.”

  Seth laughed, amused by the sour expression on her face. “You should try a pinch, Julianna. You might like it.”

  Julianna ignored this and settled herself in a loose pile of hay. “And if Ben’s parents find out—”

  “They won’t,” Ben interrupted quietly. “Don’t make a fuss, okay?”

  Ben was always quiet. When he was with other people, even Julianna and her brothers, he mostly listened to the conversation without contributing, unless he thought something needed to be said. Consequently, whenever he did speak up, everybody else stopped talking and stared at him, as if a chair in the room had suddenly come to life and begun singing a hymn.

  “Yeah,” Michael said. He leapt to grab a beam a couple of feet above his head, then started swinging his legs back and forth over the floor of the loft. His boots and blue jeans were filthy from working in the fields for most of the day, but he had scrubbed the worst of the dirt from his skin before dinner. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his long, thin torso was reddish brown from the sun. “Quit being such an old lady.”

  Julianna watched him swing for a moment before answering. “Just because I’m trying to keep Ben from being beaten to a pulp by his folks doesn’t make me an old lady.” She turned her attention back to Ben. “And the only reason I said something is because you’re being ridiculous, Ben Taylor.”

  Ben smiled at her, unoffended. He was used to this sort of comment from Julianna, and knew she didn’t mean anything by it. (He also knew she was probably right, but he wasn’t about to admit that in her presence.)

  “Speaking of old ladies,” Michael said, dropping to the floor, “you and Seth didn’t get to hear the story about Nell Cobb that Dad was telling me and Ben tonight.” He glanced over his shoulder at Ben and the two of them grinned at each other.

  “You want to tell them, or should I?” Michael asked. Both boys giggled.

  Ben shook his head. “You go ahead.”

  “What story?” Seth asked. Julianna and Seth had helped Emma clear the table while Michael and Ben went out on the front porch with Eben after supper; they’d heard the three of them laughing uproariously at one point but hadn’t known why.

  “Dad said Luther dropped by to pay his taxes this afternoon.” Michael’s giggling was getting considerably worse, and Ben’s shoulders had begun to shake. “Luther told him . . .”

  Ben’s knees suddenly gave out; he fell to the floor and lay on his back. “Bonk,” he chortled, covering his face with his hands. “Bonk.”

  Julianna and Seth stared at each other, nonplussed, as Ben writhed on the floor. Michael struggled to maintain his composure for a moment longer, even though his face had become mottled and he couldn’t catch his breath.

  “Dad said . . . Dad said he asked Luther how married life was going and Luther told him . . . oh shit, you guys.”

  He collapsed beside Ben, holding his own stomach as tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “Bonk,” he gasped. “Oh, God. Bonk.”

  Michael finally managed to blurt out the full story to Julianna and Seth:

  Until the past spring, Nell Jones had been Pawnee’s oldest spinster. But when Luther Cobb’s first wife passed away in March, he found he didn’t care for living alone one bit, and promptly asked the fifty-three-year-old Nell—the only available woman in town who wasn’t guaranteed to turn him down outright—to marry him. She wasn’t exactly bowled over by the offer; Luther had a potbelly and several missing teeth, and was not a handsome man by any stretch of the imagination. But Nell was lonely, and not much of a looker herself, and she was weary of having no income save for a small monthly allowance she received from a trust fund her parents had left in her name. Luther was honest and kind, and he also owned a profitable apple orchard east of town, and so Nell eventually made up her mind that she could do far worse than to become Mrs. Luther Cobb. The two had tied the knot in mid-May, and taken up residence together in Luther’s house.

  To the best knowledge of anybody in town, however, when Luther kissed Nell at their wedding was the first time Nell had ever been kissed by a man. Nell was a notorious prude, and would suffer no hanky-panky whatsoever during their short engagement. This being the case, when the newlyweds attempted to come together as man and wife in Luther’s bed, it was not exactly what either might have hoped for. Nell was apparently so frightened by the sight of Luther’s naked body she was unable to become aroused; fifty-three years of celibacy and a distaste for all things sexual—not to mention Luther’s potbelly and bad teeth—had ill-equipped her for making love. For his part, Luther was no Lothario; his only previous sexual partner had been his first wife, and while things had gone smoothly enough with her through the years, their copulation had always been quick and businesslike, and taught him nothing he could use to surmount a challenge like Nell.

  As a result, Luther was unable to enter his new bride’s inner sanctum. No matter how gently, or insistently, he requested admission at the barred gate he encountered, it remained closed to him. Nell tried to help; she even forced herself to kiss his nose once or twice and whisper words of encouragement in his ear, unconsciously gritting her teeth and clenching every muscle in her body as she did so. Her good-hearted willingness to share herself with Luther, however, was in the end no match for the aversion she felt about the entire ordeal. Luther was eventually forced to withdraw after the tip of his penis became so swollen and bruised he couldn’t bear to risk another sortie.

  When Luther had confided these painful details of his wedding night to Eben, he was still traumatized. He became inarticulate toward the conclusion of his tale of woe (or so Eben later related to Michael and Ben) and could only demonstrate what had occurred by thrusting his right fist into his left palm again and again, and saying “bonk” each time his hands made contact with each other.

  The effect on Seth of Luther’s story was much the same as it had been for Michael and Ben.
Midway through Michael’s narrative, he had found it necessary to lean against the wall for support, and he was now wiping his eyes and wheezing as Michael and Ben convulsed on the floor. Julianna sat silently in the hay, shaking her head and scowling.

  She cleared her throat. “Daddy should be ashamed of himself for telling you such a thing, and you should all be ashamed, too, for laughing at those poor people like this,” she said primly. “Just imagine how you’d feel if you were Luther or Nell.”

  Michael fought for air. “Sore as hell?”

  “That’s not funny, Michael,” Julianna scolded. Her voice quivered and her chin began to tremble as Seth and Ben hooted. “And by the way, I can’t believe you chose to tell a filthy story like that in my hearing.”

  She looked genuinely upset, and all three boys began to sober as they looked at her. She almost never cried, and none of them were prepared for this sort of emotional reaction from her.

  “Julianna?” Seth straightened. There was a hitch in his voice he couldn’t control, but his smile had all but melted away. “What’s wrong?”

  She met his eyes wordlessly for an instant, then without warning a very unladylike peal of laughter erupted from her lips. She clapped her hands over her mouth in horror and rolled over on her stomach to bury her face in the hay, and the others came undone once again as they watched her kick at the floorboards.

  “Oh, Lord!” Her words came out muffled. “Oh Lord oh Lord oh Lord!”

  Michael had always loved his sister’s laugh. It was full-throated and completely unselfconscious, and it poured out of her like water from a pump.

  “I’d like to hear Nell’s side of the story,” he hiccuped. “Do you think she’d say ‘bonk,’ too?”