Chapter 10 Chapter 9

Sometime after sunset they attacked him.He was traveling along State Highway 27 at the time.The road is about a mile from Main Street, which runs through the town.A mile or two further and he would turn west onto Route 63, from where he would begin the long journey north.Probably because he drank two bottles of beer just now, he felt a little sluggish, but he already realized that something was wrong.Just as he was trying to remember the four or five locals lying on the other side of the bar, they emerged from their hiding places and rushed towards him. Nick tried his best to resist desperately.He knocked one down, and punched another hard enough to break the nose, bleeding out.Once or twice he even thought he had hope of repelling them.His silent struggle unnerved them somewhat.They were not ruthless. They probably didn't encounter any trouble when they did this kind of thing before. Of course, they didn't expect that they would encounter such fierce resistance from this skinny young man with a backpack on his back.

There was a blow to his chin, someone had broken his upper lip with a signet-like ring, and a stream of blood gushed warmly into his mouth.He staggered back, and his arms were twisted.He struggled desperately, just as he broke free with one hand, another punch landed on his cheek like a falling moon.Before closing his right eye, he saw the ring again, gleaming faintly in the starlight.Venus flew around in front of his eyes, and he felt that his consciousness began to drift away, drifting away, and he didn't know where he landed. Shocked and frightened, he struggled even more desperately.The man with the ring came up to him, and Nick was afraid of being hit again, so he lifted his foot first and kicked him in the stomach.The man's breathing became rapid, he kicked again, and there was another breathless panting sound, like a dog with laryngitis.

The others flanked them, and in Nick's eyes they were just a group of shadows, a group of muscular shadows, wearing gray shirts with sleeves rolled up, showing strong dark biceps.She wears stubby work shoes, and her messy, greasy hair hangs over her eyebrows.It all began like a nightmare just as the last rays of daylight were fading.Blood trickled into his wide-open eyes.The backpack was ripped off, fists rained down, and he became a boneless rag doll, trembling on the wire rope that was about to break.He's not completely unconscious yet.The only sounds in my ears were the rapid panting of fists falling, and the crisp cry of nightingales in the dense pine forest nearby.

Ring stood up unsteadily. "Grab him," he said, "get him by the hair." Several hands grasped his arm simultaneously, and one dug into Nick's shaggy black hair. "Why doesn't he bark?" asked another uneasily. "Why doesn't he bark, Ray?" "I said don't call me by my name," said Ring. "How the hell did I know why he didn't. I'm going to give him some color. Just kicked me. Damn it, fuck it." The fist drew an arc and fell down.Nick's head jerked sideways, the ring cutting his face. "Grab him, I'll say it again," Ray yelled, "what do you eat?"

The fist came down again, and Nick's nose was like a battered, dripping tomato.Breathing heavily like a cow.Consciousness is left as a thin line.He had to open his mouth and breathe the night air in big gulps.The nighthawk cries again, a sweet solo.Nick didn't hear as much this time as he did last time. "Get him," Ray said, "get him, damn it." Another punch.The two front teeth were knocked out with the swing of the fist.His greatest pain was his inability to cry out.His legs were no longer able to support his body, and he slumped little by little, and the hands behind him grabbed him like a flour bag.

"Ray, that's enough, do you want to kill him?" "Grab him, you fucking kicked me just now, I want to show him some color!" The road is full of lights, and the bushes on both sides are mixed with tall old pine trees. "Oh, Lord!" "Throw him away, throw him away!" It was Ray's voice, but he seemed to have moved away.Nick was vaguely thankful that most of what was left of his consciousness was taken up by the excruciating pain in his mouth, the splintered teeth felt on his tongue. Several hands pushed and shoved him into the middle of the road.The oncoming light enveloped him completely, like an actor standing in the middle of a stage.Screeching brakes.Nick shook his arms and tried to move his legs, but they just wouldn't work.They handed him over to Death.He fell on the gravel road, and there was a series of screeching brakes and tires rubbing all around him.He waited numbly for the wheels to roll over his body, at least, he would no longer feel the pain in his mouth.

A few splashed stones hit his face, and he watched a tire stop less than a foot away from his face. A small white stone was embedded in the seam of the car tire, like a bullet caught between his fingers. coin. Shards of quartz, fragmented concepts flashed through his mind, and he passed out. When Nick woke up, he found himself lying on a bunk.The bed board was very hard. In the past three years, he had slept on a bed board harder than this.He opened his eyes with difficulty.The eyelids seemed to be glued together, and the right eye that was hit could only be half-closed. He stared at the cracked gray concrete ceiling.There are several pipes under the ceiling that have electrical tape wrapped in a zigzag pattern.A large beetle was busy crawling up and down one of the pipes.His field of vision was divided in half by a chain.He lifted his head slightly, and in an instant a fatal headache passed, and he saw another chain from the end of the bunk to a bolt in the wall.

He turned his head to the left (another pain, but less horribly) and saw a rough concrete wall, also streaked with cracks.There are writings all over the walls, some of which are still wet, some of which are written a long time ago, and most of them do not make sense. There are bed bugs in this place.Luis Lagonsky, 1987. I love putting it in the ass. Doctor of Divinity is ridiculous. George Prine masturbates. I still love you, Susan. This place is called Sax.Jerry Lied, 1981. There were paintings on the walls of drooping penises, gigantic breasts, and crudely drawn vaginas.All of this tells Nick that it's a prison cell.

Carefully propping himself up on his elbows, he stretched his feet (thin slippers on his feet) over the edge of the bed, and then changed to a sitting position.The pain all over his body shook his head again and again, his spine made a terrible creaking sound; his stomach curled up in fear in his stomach, and a faint nausea hit him, the most palpitating and breathless nausea. God cried out, begging God to let this pain pass quickly. He didn't cry out, though—he couldn't—Nick put his head on his lap, his face in his hands, and waited for the nausea to pass.He noticed that there was plaster on one cheek, and he wrinkled that cheek a few times, trying to figure out how many stitches the doctor had put there.

He looked around.The size of the cell is small, shaped like an upside-down biscuit box, and the bedside is a door with bars.At the foot of the bed was a toilet with no lid or ring.Turning his stiff neck very carefully, he saw a small barred window above his head. After sitting on the edge of the bed for a while, making sure he wouldn't pass out, he grabbed his shapeless pajama pants that were frayed at the knees, squatted on the container, and began to pee.This process lasted at least 1 hour.Then he leaned on the edge of the bed and stood up, looking old-fashioned.He looked back at the urine bucket, worried that there was blood in the urine, but luckily he didn't find any red.He ran water to wash the urine away.

He walked carefully to the door with iron bars, looked out, and there was a long corridor outside.On the left is a mixed cell that smells of alcohol. There are 5 beds in it, and an old man is lying on one of the beds, with one hand hanging down to the ground like a wooden stick.To the right is a hallway with an open door at the end.A lamp hung in the middle of the corridor, giving off a dim, greenish glow, like the kind he'd seen in the swimming pool. A shadow gradually elongated, hovering over the open door at the end of the corridor, and then a tanned man in khaki walked in.He was wearing an armed belt and a huge pistol.He put his thumb in his trouser pocket, stared at Nick, and didn't speak for a full minute.Then he said, "When we were kids, we shot a cougar up in the mountains and dragged it back to town 20 miles over dirty, hard rock. When we got home, all the strength of the animal I can only move my eyes, and I have never seen such a pitiful look. Except for this, your eyes are the most pitiful, child." Nick felt he had prepared his words, carefully crafting them, for the hicks and bums behind the biscuit-box fence. "What's your name, Baba Luga?" Nick put a finger on his cracked and swollen lips and shook his head.Putting his hand over his mouth again, he raised his hand and gently drew a diagonal line in the air, then shook his head again. "What? Can't talk? Are you trying to lie to me?" His tone was quite friendly, but Nick couldn't discern the change in tone.He grabbed an invisible pen from the air and wrote a few words. "Want a pencil?" Nick nodded. "Even if you are dumb, how come you don't have the same certificate?" Nick shrugged.He dug out his empty pockets, clenched his fists and swung them into the air. This action gave him another headache, and his stomach was overwhelmed.He tapped his temples lightly with his fist, rolled his eyes upwards, and lay on his stomach against the fence.Finally, he pointed to his empty pocket. "Snatched?" Nick nodded. The man in khaki went out.He came back from his office a moment later with a thick pencil and a pad.He stuffed the two things into the fence.The note began with "Memorandum" and "Office of Sheriff John Baker." Nick turned the note upside down, tapped the name on it with a pencil, and raised an eyebrow inquiringly. "Yes, it's me. Who are you?" "Nick Andros," he wrote.Then he stuck his hand out over the fence. Baker shook his head. "I'm not going to shake your hand. Are you still deaf?" Nick nodded. "What happened at night? Dr. Soames and his wife nearly ran into you like a groundhog, boy." "I was hit and my stuff was taken. About a mile from a hotel on Main Street." "A kid your age shouldn't be in that place. You're not old enough to drink." Nick shook his head resentfully. "I'm 22 years old," he wrote. "I drank two beers. Should I be beaten, smashed and robbed by them?" After Baker saw it, a bitter and funny expression appeared on his face. "That doesn't mean you'll end up in Suyo. What are you doing here, boy?" Nick tore off the first page of the pad, crumpled it up, and threw it on the floor.He was about to use his pen to answer the question, when an arm quickly reached into the fence, and a pincer-like hand grabbed his shoulder.Nick looked up quickly. "My wife cleans these cells," Baker said. "I don't see why you need to litter here. Go, throw it in the toilet." Nick bent over, wincing involuntarily from the pain in his back, and he managed to pick up the ball of paper from the floor, carried it to the toilet, and threw it in.Then raised his eyebrows and looked up at Baker.Baker nodded. Nick turned back.This time he wrote a lot, the pencil was flying on the paper.Baker thought that teaching a deaf and dumb child to read and write must be very learned, and this Nick Andros must have some talent to master the mysteries.Those guys never learned anything real in Showtown, Arkansas, and a lot of them just knew how to hang out in saloons.But he thought again, how could this boy who just broke into town be expected to know these things. Nick handed the pad over the fence. "I traveled here, but I'm not a bum. Today I work for a man named Rich Ellerton, about six miles west. I clean out his warehouse and stack a load of hay to the In the hayloft. Last week I was hauling fence in Watts, Oklahoma. The guys who beat me robbed me of a week's wages." "Are you sure you work for Rich Ellerton? You know, I can find out." Baker tore off the explanation written by Nick, folded it into the size of a photo, and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. Nick nodded. "Have you seen his dog?" Nick nodded. "What does that dog look like?" Nick gestured for the pad back. "A German Setter," he wrote, "but friendly and not aggressive." Baker nodded, turned and returned to the office.Nick stood by the fence, watching anxiously.After a while, Baker came back with a large key ring.He unlocked the cell and pushed open the door. "Come to the office," Baker said. "Would you like some breakfast?" Nick shook his head and made a gesture of pouring water. "Coffee? All right. Would you like cream and sugar?" Nick shook his head. "Drink something, look like a man, huh?" Baker smiled, "Come on." Baker walked down the aisle, talking all the time, but Nick was behind him and couldn't see his mouth and couldn't "hear" what he was saying. "I don't mind a company. I'm an insomniac. I don't sleep more than three or four hours at night. My wife wants me to go see a reputable doctor in Pine Bluff. If this goes on, I really have to go." Check it out. I mean, look at - 5 o'clock in the morning, before daybreak, and I'm here, sitting there, eating eggs and home fried stuff, and the truck's been stuck all this time Highway." At the last sentence, he turned, and Nick caught half of the sentence "... that truck has been blocking the road."He raised his eyebrows and shrugged in bewilderment. "Never mind," Baker said, "that's not what you should say to a young man like you." In the outer office, Baker poured him a cup of espresso from a large thermos.The sheriff was halfway through his breakfast, and the cutlery lay on the desk on the prisoner's record book, and he pulled the breakfast plate towards him.Nick sipped his coffee, his mouth aching, but the coffee tasted good. He patted Baker on the shoulder, Baker looked up, Nick pointed to the coffee, touched his belly, and blinked solemnly. Baker smiled, "You mean it's delicious. My wife Jenny cooked it." He stuffed half a hard-fried egg into his mouth, chewed, and pointed at Nick with his fork. "You're good. Like a mime. I dare say you don't have much trouble getting someone to understand you, don't you?" Nick raised his hand in an up and down motion in the air.So-so. "I'm not going to detain you," said Baker, rubbing butter on a piece of toast, "but let me tell you, if you're lucky, maybe we can help you find your robber. Want to try your luck?" Nick nodded and wrote, "Do you think I'll get my week's wages back?" "That's no way," Baker replied bluntly. "I'm just a redneck administrator, boy. If you want your money back, you have to go to Oral Roberts." Nick nodded and shrugged again.He put his hands together and made a movement of a bird flying away. "Yes, that's right, how many of them are there?" Nick held up four fingers, shrugged, and held up five more. "Can you recognize any of them?" Nick held up a finger and wrote, "Tall, blond hair. About your build, maybe a bit bigger. Gray shirt and gray pants. Wears a large ring. On the middle finger of his right hand. Purple diamond. Diamond scratched me." When Baker read these words, the expression on his face changed, first concerned, then angry.Nick thought the anger was directed at him, and was frightened again. "Oh, Jesus Christ," said Baker, "that's all too obvious. Are you sure?" Nick nodded reluctantly. "What else? What else did you see?" Nick pondered for a while, then wrote: "Small scar. On his forehead." Baker looked at the writing. "It's Ray Booth," he said, "my brother-in-law. Thank you, boy. It's only five o'clock in the morning and my day is over." Nick's eyes widened slightly, and he made a cautious gesture of sympathy. "Well, it's nothing," Baker said, more to himself. "He's a bad actor, and Jenny knows that. Ray used to hit her a lot when she was a kid. But they're still brother and sister, and I think I can take it for a while this week." Forget about my wife." Nick looked down, a little embarrassed.After a while Baker shook his shoulders, letting him watch him talk. "Probably won't do anything, anyway," he said. "Ray and his cronies will deny it. When they hit you, did you fight back?" "Kicked this Ray in the stomach," Nick wrote, "and punched another guy in the nose, probably bleeding." "Ray hung out with Vince Hogan, Billy Warner, Mike Childress," Baker said. "Maybe I could get Vince alone to get him over with. Vince's a coward, nothing Spineless bastard. If you can catch him, you can follow the trail to Mike and Billy. Ray got that ring in the LSG fraternity. He got kicked out of school for failing grades in sophomore year." He paused and tapped his finger on the rim of the bowl. "If you're okay with this, it's a good chance, boy. But let me warn you, we might not get them. They're as vicious and timid as a pack of dogs." , but they're from the town, and you're a deaf-mute bum. And if they get away, they'll come after you." Nick pondered his words.The appearance of myself at that time kept appearing in my mind, a bloody scarecrow, being pushed back and forth by them, Lei's lips conjured up a sentence: I want to give him some color, kick me like a dog.He seemed to feel his backpack - an old friend of two years' wandering life - being ripped off again. He wrote 3 words on the pad, and then underlined: "Try it." Baker sighed and nodded. "Okay. Vince Hogan works at the sawmill. . . well, that's not quite right, it's more like he hangs out at the sawmill a lot. Let's drive there around nine, you're fine Question. Maybe we can do a surprise attack, and he might slip up by accident." Nick nodded. "How's your mouth? Dr. Soames left some pills. He says it'll be enough for you." Nick nodded dejectedly. "I'm going to catch 'em. Then..." He paused, and Nick, in his silent film world, saw the Sheriff sneeze several times into the handkerchief. "That's another story," he continued, but he had turned away now, and Nick caught only the first word. "I've got a bad cold. Isn't life wonderful, Jesus Christ? Welcome to Arkansas, boy." He took the pill and went back to where Nick was sitting.He handed Nick the pills and a glass of water, and touched lightly at his Adam's apple, which was visibly swollen and sore.Swollen glands, coughing, sneezing, low-grade fever.Really, it would have been a wonderful day.