I smelled hay and cow manure and silo corn and prairie night; I saw hill and creek and railroad tracks shining in the moonlight.

And then we were pulling off the road, and he was parking, and they were walking up the hill to the woods that would lead them to the shack and the well.

I gave them a ten minute start on me, and then I was out of the car and walking toward the woods.

It was spookier than I'd thought it would be.

Monsters didn't bother me. But killers did. You weren't safe anywhere these days. Just last year there'd been a guy in the adjacent county who'd kidnapped an eleven year old girl and chopped her up and ate her.

By the time I reached the end of the woods, they were already down by the cabin.

I couldn't tell what they were saying but their words were harsh and angry.

He shoved her, and then he hit her.

I could see it all clearly in the moonlight.

She sank to her knees, touching her jaw where he'd slammed his fist into her moments before.

Their words continued harsh and loud but I still couldn't quite understand them.

I wanted to go down there but I knew better. She might appreciate the fact that I saved her from him but she'd never forgive me for following them in the first place.

And then she was on her feet, and pushing him.

I was surprised at her strength, surprised that he didn't hit her again.

The first time the spasm took him, he was a few feet from the well.

My first impression was that he was joking. I've seen boys try to scare their girlfriends by throwing themselves to the ground and pretending that they're having some sort of seizure.

That's what this looked like.

He started doing a sort of dance, his arms fluttering crazily in the air, his torso snapping and jerking as if in rhythm to violent music.

Then he screamed.

That's when I knew for sure that he wasn't kidding.

The spasms got even more violent over the next few minutes, and so did the screaming.

She just watched.

Didn't try to stop him or comfort him in any way.

As if she knew what was happening here and had just decided to let it run its course.

He fell to his hands and knees and, in silhouette against the blood red harvest moon, he resembled an animal, a wolf maybe, there on the ground by the well.

And then he began sobbing.

This was worse than his screaming, the way it frightened and moved me.

In the Army, I saw a man go berserk after he'd learned that his wife had left him. He took a straight razor to his wrists in the shower. We found him huddled in the corner, beneath the water, weeping.

Myles reminded me of that forlorn mana"only Myles sounded much sadder and more desperate, more primal and animal-like.

She got him to his feet somehow, and then she took him to her as if he were her child rather than her lover.

And the odd thing was, I didn't feel my usual jealousy now, seeing him in her arms this way.

For the moment anyway, I wanted her to soothe and succor him. I was being selfish. I couldn't take hearing any more of his strange wailing.

Gradually, his sobbing began to wane but still she held him, even rocking him back and forth a little, gently, gently, once again as if she were the mother and he the child.

It ended then as abruptly as it began. Myles looked spent and dropped to the ground on his knees. There was nothing more to seea"or nothing more I cared to see anyway.

Had something in the well set Myles off? Or was he simply caught up in her mood as I'd been when I imagined the voices.

I laughed out loud.

Certainly, it had been nothing in the well. There was nothing in the well but water, and dirty, undrinkable water at that.

So he'd been more imaginative than I'd given him credit fora"so imaginative that he fell victim to himselfa"imagined that something had possessed him, and overwhelmed him.

But his cries had been pretty convincing.

d.a.m.ned convincing.

I was glad to be out of the woods, and in my car, and heading back home.

Popcorn and Pepsi and Late Night With David Letterman sounded d.a.m.ned good about now.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

But they didn't work for me, neither popcorn nor David Letterman.

I sat on the moonlit screened-in back porch. It was mild as a spring night and it was November. I wanted to be a kid again. I wanted to be anybody but who I was at that moment.

I thought about her and how I'd never be able to love anybody ever again the way I loved her. My first affair and it had lasted all of a week.

There had been a basketball game tonight. I should have gone to that, seen Josh play. It was heading to midnight now. He was likely out with his girlfriend.

A weariness overcame me. I felt a kind of paralysis. The night air was so sweet and sentimental, I didn't want to go inside.

I put my head back and closed my eyes.

I tasted her, tasted her mouth, tasted her s.e.x. I didn't think I'd done especially well at oral s.e.xa"I really was a virgina"despite her claims that I'd been "wonderful."

A car pulled into the driveway, headlights illuminating the closed white garage door. Josh.

He put the car away, shut up the garage, and walked up on the back porch.

"How's it going, Romeo?"

That's what he'd started calling me after he found out I was taking Cindy out.

He sat in the chair next to mine.

"You shouldn't call me that anymore."

"No? How come?"

"She dumped me."

"Dumped you? s.h.i.t, you've only had about four or five dates with her." He grinned. "n.o.body could get sick of you that fast."

I had to smile, though it was painful. "She went back with Myles."

"You're kidding. He beat her up all the time."

"I know."

"You sure about that?"

"I saw them together. And Garrett told me."

"Garrett the cop?"

"Yeah," I said.

"No offense, but when I was a little kid and he was always hanging around herea"I thought he was the biggest dweeb of all."

"Yeah, I guess I did, too."

"And he grows up to be a cop." He grinned again. "I saw him strutting around downtown in his uniform yesterday. Always got his hand on the b.u.t.t of his pistol. Like a western gunfighter."

"Yeah, I noticed that."

He stuck out his very long legs.

"Give her a call tomorrow," he said.

"Who?"

"Who? Cindy."

"Call her?"

"d.a.m.ned right call her. Tell her it's Sat.u.r.day and you want to meet her downtown on your lunch hour. No offense, Romeo, but you've got to be forceful with women."

Once again, it was little brother giving big brother advice.

"It's pretty embarra.s.sing sometimes," I said.

"Look, brother, one thing you've got to understand about women. They like it when you embarra.s.s yourself over them. That way they know you care about them. Maybe that's all it'll take."

"Just calling her?"

"Yeah, and showing that you really care about her."

I felt a loopy exhilaration. Everything would be fine. I'd call her and after a little initial reluctance she'd be glad to hear from me and she'd agree to have lunch and when she saw me at the restaurant she wouldn't be able to help herself any more. She'd rush into my arms and things would be right between us again. The way they had been last week.

"I also got somebody to take care of Myles for you."

"You did?"

"Yeah, there's a soph.o.m.ore fullback named Nick Reynolds. He can bench press 350. He's also a boxer. When he was a freshman, Myles gave him a lot of s.h.i.t and Reynolds never forgot it. I was telling him about you and Myles over some brewskis the other night and he said he's been looking for a reason to punch out Myles for a long time. He says Myles gives you any more s.h.i.t about Cindy, you just tell me and I'll tell Reynolds and Reynolds'll punch his face in."

"Sort of like a hit man?"

He laughed. "Yeah, kind of, I guess."

He looked at me and then did something that surprised me, leaned over and gave me a little hug. "You look like you're pretty sad, brother."

I was afraid I was going to cry. I was a wuss enough already. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"f.u.c.k her. That's the att.i.tude you've got to take with women. I got my heart broke in tenth grade and I'll tell you, man, never again. Now I do everything I can for them but if they want to d.i.c.k me around and break my heart, I just say f.u.c.k 'em and walk away. That's all you can do. It really is."

I'd felt good for a moment there, felt that I was going to make things right with Cindy, but now I felt bad again.

I couldn't say f.u.c.k you to Cindy and walk away. I couldn't and I knew it.

"You think you'll ever get around to asking me about the game tonight, Romeo?"

"Hey, I forgot."

"I noticed."

"You win?"