Hill kicked me again, and I crawled some more, and he screamed, “Crawl, motherfucker.” I crawled another six feet toward the door, and he kicked me in the side, and this time I didn’t see it coming, couldn’t roll, and a couple of ribs went. You can feel ribs when they break because the muscles between them go into spasm. The pain can bend you in half.

I went down on my face and thought: Keep breathing. Keep breathing, keep your arms around your head, LuEllen’s out here somewhere; maybe she’s gone for help

And I had an image of the Fanny slowly slipping off the revetment and downstream, LuEllen cutting the boat loose, satisfied that she hadn’t been seen.

When I went down on my belly, Hill flew into a fury, kicking me in the legs, the hips, and along the side. Most of the kicks to the side hit my arm. Somewhere along the nightmare crawl to the door, the arm broke below the elbow. I didn’t realize it until he kicked it a second time in the same place, and the pain ripped out as a groan out of my chest.

“That’s right,” Hill brayed. “Let’s hear it, motherfucker, what you done to us, you oughtta hurt

“

St. Thomas was as excited as Hill, out of his mind, waving the pistol, and as Hill was kicking me, he fired a shot into the ground next to my head. Dirt blew up into my face, embedding itself in my cheek, but by then I didn’t care

Six feet from the open door Hill, impatient, grabbed me by the hair on the back of my head and dragged me into the building. My broken arm bumped over the concrete doorsill, and I may have fainted.

Water splashed off my face. Hill was pouring it out of a paper cup. It was cold, out of a bottle cooler, and trickled off my forehead, down across my nose and chin onto my neck. I opened the one eye that still seemed to work, and found myself lying on my back on the concrete floor, my legs spread, my head propped up against the wall.

“Can you see, motherfucker? I want you to see,” Hill brayed. I could see and tried to say something. St. Thomas was there, still grinning, still waving the gun, though he didn’t need it. “Look at this. You see this? This is the vacuum chamber, motherfucker.”

Directly across from me was the Plexiglas door of the killing cage. Hill pounded it with his hand.