'What about Red?' Steve asked.
'He's trying to get into some new waitress at The Cavalier,' Billy said, swinging the wheel and puffing the Biscayne through a juddering racing drift and on to the Henty Road. Red Trelawney was old man Henty's hired hand. He was a heavy drinker and just as handy with the bird-shot as his employer. 'He won't be back until they close up.'
'Hell of a risk for a joke,' Jackie Talbot grumbled.
Billy stiffened. 'You want out?'
'No, uh-uh,' Jackie said hastily. Billy had produced an ounce of good grass to split among the five of them - and besides, it was nine miles back to town. 'It's a good joke, Billy.'
Kenny opened the glove compartment, took out an ornate scrolled roach clip (Chris's), and fixed the smouldering butt-end of a joint in it This operation struck him as highly amusing, and he let out his highpitched giggle again.
Now they were flashing past No Tresspassing signs on either side of the road, barbed wire, newly turned fields. The smell of fresh earth was heavy and gravid and sweet on the warm May air.
Billy popped the headlights off as they breasted the next hill, dropped the gearshift into neutral and killed the ignition. They rolled, a silent hulk of metal, toward the Henty driveway.
Billy negotiated the turn with no trouble, and most of their speed bled away as they breasted another small rise and passed the dark and empty house. Now they could see the huge bulk of barn and beyond it, moonlight glittering dreamily on the cow pond and the apple orchard.
In the pigpen, two sows poked their flat snouts through the bars. In the bar, one cow lowed softly, perhaps in sleep.
Billy stopped the car with the emergency brake - not really necessary since the ignition was off, but it was a nice Commando touch - and they got out.
Lou Garson reached past Kenny and got something out of the glove compartment. Billy and Henry went around to the trunk and opened it.
'The bastard is going to shit where he stands when he comes back and gets a look,' Steve said with soft glee.
'For Freddy,' Henry said, taking the hammer out of the trunk.
Billy said nothing, but of course it was not for Freddy Overlock, who was an ass**le. It was for Chris Hargensen, just as everything was for Chris, and had been since the day she swept down from her lofty collegecourse Olympus and made herself vulnerable to him He would have done murder for her, and more.
Henry was swinging the nine-pound sledge experimentally in one hand. The heavy block of its business end made a portentous swishing noise in the night air, and the other boys gathered around as Billy opened the lid of the ice chest and took out the two galvanized steel pads. They were numbingly cold to the touch, lightly traced with frost
'Okay,' he said.
The six of them walked quickly to the hogpen, their respiration shortening with excitement. The two sows were both as tame as tabbies, and the old boar lay asleep on his side at the far end. Henry swung the sledge once more through the air, but this time with no conviction. He handed it to Billy.
'I can't,' he said sickly. 'You.'
Billy took it and looked questioningly at Lou, who held the broad butcher knife he had taken from the glove compartment.
'Don't worry,' he said, and touched the ball of his thumb to the honed edge.
'The throat,' Billy reminded.
'I know.'
Kenny was crooning and grinning as he fed the remains of a crumpled bag of potato chips to the pigs. 'Doan worry, piggies, doan worry, big Bills gonna bash your f**kin heads in and you woan have to worry about the bomb any more.' He scratched their bristly chins, and the pigs grunted and munched contentedly.
'Here it comes,' Billy remarked, and the sledge flashed down.
There was a sound that reminded him of the time he and Henry had dropped a pumpkin off Claridge Road overpass, which crossed 495 west of town. One of the sows dropped dead with its tongue protruding, eyes still open, potato chip crumbs around its snout
Kenny giggled. 'She didn't even have time to burp.'
'Do it quick, Lou,' Billy said.
Kenny's brother slid between the slates, lifted the pig's head toward the moon-the glazing eyes regarded the crescent with rapt blackness - and slashed.
The flow of blood was immediate and startling. Several of the boys were splattered and jumped back with little cries of disgust.
Billy leaned through and put one of the buckets under the main flow. The pail filled up rapidly, and he set it aside. The second was half full when the flow trickled and died.
'The other one,' he said.
'Jesus, Billy,' Jackie whined. 'Isn't that en-'
'The other one,' Billy repeated.
'Soo-ee, pig-pig-pig,' Kenny called, grinning and rattling the empty potato-chip bag. After a pause, the sow returned to the fence, the sledge flashed, the second bucket was filled and the remainder of the blood allowed to flow into the ground. A rank, coppery smell hung on the air. Billy found he was slimed in pig blood to the forearms.
Carrying the pails back to the trunk, his mind made a dim, symbolic connection. Pig blood. That was good. Chris was right. It was really good. It made everything solidify.
Pig blood for a pig.
He nestled the galvanized steel pails into the crushed ice and slammed the lid of the chest. 'Let's go,' he said.
Billy got behind the wheel and released the emergency brake. The five boys got behind, put their shoulders into it, and the car turned in a tight, noiseless circle and trundled up past the barn to the crest of the hill across from Henty's house.
When the car began to roll on its own, they trotted up beside the doors and climbed in panting.
The car gained speed enough to slew a little as Billy whipped it out of the long driveway and on to the Henty Road. At the bottom of the hill he dropped the transmission into third and popped the clutch. The engine hitched and grunted into life.