“You don’t think he’s coming after us?”
“Not us. We’re too obvious.”
“What do you mean ‘not us’? People like Vickers chew up people like us.”
I tried to stand up. Behind my eyelids, I saw Jo Anne on the sunporch of her house, the warm air of the floor fan blowing the hem of her dress. Then I fell sideways as though one of my legs had been chopped off.
Chapter Six
MR. LOWRY DROVE me to the emergency room at San Rafael Hospital and stayed with me while an intern treated the welts on my face and head and stitched a lesion above my ear.
“Somebody attacked you?” the intern said, dabbing a place above my eye.
“Yes,” I said.
“We’ll have to report this to the police,” he said.
“A man named Rueben Vickers hit me with a quirt.”
Showing no reaction, the intern concentrated on the cut, his hand steady. “There,” he said. “Come back in five or six days and we’ll take your stitches out. It’s been nice meeting you.” He left the cubicle.
“This grieves me deeply, Aaron,” Mr. Lowry said.
“It’s not your fault, sir.”
“Why didn’t you defend yourself?”
“Fear.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I fear what I’m capable of, Mr. Lowry. Sometimes I go to a dark place in my head, and I don’t know how to get back.”
“How long have you had this condition?”
“Since I was a little boy.”
I took off my hospital gown and put on my shirt. Mr. Lowry’s eyes were a clear blue, his hair as white as cotton, his skin as soft as a baby’s. “You used a term with Rueben that got to him. What do you know about an incubus?”
“It’s a form of demon from the Middle Ages.”
“I see. You believe in demons?”
“I’ve seen enough evil in people without looking for the devil.”
“After the season, are you going down to the Rio Grande Valley with the other boys?” he asked.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Got a girl on your mind?”
“How’d you know?”
“What young man doesn’t?” he said. “Why have you chosen this kind of life for yourself, Aaron?”
“It’s the one I do the best,” I replied.
The intern pulled back the curtain on the cubicle, the plastic rings rattling. “There’s a police detective named Benbow who wants to talk to you,” he said.