“Hit the road, man.” Floyd held the bat high, ready. Dwight pulled himself up on his elbow and got enough air to let out a long groan before he coughed and tried to catch his breath again. Olin still had Chick by the throat. Both Chick’s arms were hanging at his sides now and the muscles in his blue face were relaxed, his eyes only partly open. Leo turned and ran around the van. When he reached the bottom of the road he was going so fast he couldn’t make the turn without falling so he slid on purpose, scraping his left leg on the gravel. He pushed himself up and was going again, and he had never run so fast or so hard and still it wasn’t enough. He could see the covered bridge down the road through the trees, the police station just on the other side of it, but Chick’s face had looked so bad, there wouldn’t ever be enough time. For a heart-streaked second Leo thought of a dive and swim across the river to the floodwall behind the courthouse, but he didn’t want to slow himself thrashing through the trees and brush down to the water so he kept running, his lungs screaming heat as he finally reached the bridge, hit his shoulder against the frame, and headed through to the other side, up the road, around the corner, and over the courthouse steps.

Sergeant Mike sat at his desk behind the wood counter and partition that Leo half threw himself on, gulping air and nodding his head, trying to speak as the new cop in town came over from the other side of the room.

“They’re ki—, they’re killing him.”

“Show me.” The officer’s nameplate said F. PETRUCCI and that’s all Leo got a look at because the cop was already walking fast through a side door to the parking lot where the cruiser was. Leo ran after him out into a wind that had made it down the hill and across the river to whip warm rain into his face and chest. He pulled shut the cruiser’s passenger door and yelled for the young officer to take a right over the bridge and he would want his gun because there’s three of them and they’ve got a bat and they’re killing my boss.

19

Officer Petrucci put on his blue lights but left the siren off. He drove fast over the bridge planks, but took the turn slow, sped up for the river road stretch, then took the right up the hill slow again, too slow, Leo thought, still breathing so hard his breath misted a spot on the windshield that was already hard to see out of with all the rain. The flatbed was up ahead with both doors wide open. No blue van though. No Floyd, Dwight, or Olin.

And no Chick.