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The back door would be locked. I was so sure of this that I almost tumbled off the stoop when the knob turned and it swung outward. I stepped into a kitchen that still smelled of the pot roast Mrs. Du
In his theme, Harry had quoted his mother as saying, “Get out of here with that thing, you’re not suppose to be here.” What I heard her actually say as I ran across the linoleum toward the arch between the kitchen and the living room was, “Frank? What are you doing here?” Her voice began to rise. “What’s that? Why have you . . . get out of here! ” Then she screamed.
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As I came through the arch, a child said: “Who are you? Why is my mom yelling? Is my daddy here?”
I turned my head and saw ten-year-old Harry Du
“No, Daddy, don’t, you’re HURRRTING her!” Ellen shrieked.
I ran through the arch and stopped there with my mouth open. Based on Harry’s theme, I had always assumed that I’d have to stop a man swinging the sort of hammer guys kept in their toolboxes. That wasn’t what he had. What he had was a sledgehammer with a twenty-pound head, and he was handling it as if it were a toy. His sleeves were rolled up, and I could see the bulge of muscles that had been built up by twenty years of cutting meat and toting carcasses. Doris was on the living room rug. He had already broken her arm—the bone was sticking out through a rip in the sleeve of her dress—and dislocated her shoulder as well, from the look. Her face was pale and dazed. She was crawling across the rug in front of the TV with her hair hanging in her face. Du
Ellen was a little dervish, trying to push him back out the door. “Stop, Daddy, stop!” He grabbed her by her hair and heaved her. She went reeling, feathers flying out of her headdress. She struck the rocking chair and knocked it over.
“Du
He looked at me with red, streaming eyes. He was drunk. He was crying. Snot hung from his nostrils and spit slicked his chin. His face was a cramp of rage, woe, and bewilderment.
“Who the fuck’re you?” he asked, then charged at me without waiting for an answer.
I pulled the trigger of the revolver, thinking, This time it won’t fire, it’s a Derry gun and it won’t fire.
But it did. The bullet took him in the shoulder. A red rose bloomed on his white shirt. He twisted sideways with the impact, then came on again. He raised the sledge. The bloom on his shirt spread, but he didn’t seem to feel it.
I pulled the trigger again, but someone jostled me just as I did, and the bullet went high and wild. It was Harry. “Stop it, Daddy!” His voice was shrill. “Stop or I’ll shoot you!” Arthur “Tugga” Du
I caught my balance and fired a third time. This one tore off Du
“Who the fuck’re you?” he repeated, then: “You’re trespassing.” He slung the sledge back and brought it around in a whistling horizontal arc. I bent at the knees, ducking as I did it, and although the twenty-pound head seemed to miss me entirely—I felt no pain, not then—a wave of heat flashed across the top of my head. The gun flew out of my hand, struck the wall, and bounced into the corner. Something warm was ru
Life turns on a dime, and when it does, it turns fast.
“Get out!” I shouted at Troy. “Take your sister and get out! Yell for help! Yell your head o
—”
Du
As Du
“You little bastard! I’ll kill you for that!”
Troy was carrying Ellen to the door. So that’s all right, I thought, I changed things at least that much—
But before he could get her out, someone first filled the door and then came stumbling in, knocking Troy Du
“Out the back door, son. Fast. I’ll hold him off until you—” Frank Du
“That’s for my sister, you fuck,” Bill Turcotte rasped. “That’s for Clara.” 13
Du
One of his feet kicked a single time, then he was still. He looked like he’d died trying to do a push-up.
Everyone was screaming. The air stank of gunsmoke, plaster, and blood. Doris was lurching crookedly toward her dead son with her hair hanging in her face. I didn’t want her to see that—