'You're a stinking liar,' he said. 'Ferd's - '
Heck Bast hit him. Jack went sprawling on the floor. Boys scattered away from him. From somewhere, Donny Keegan hee-hawed.
There was a roar of rage. Jack looked up, dazed, and shook his head in an effort to clear it. Heck turned and saw Wolf standing protectively over Jack, his upper lip pulled back, the overhead lights sending weird orange glints off his round glasses.
'So the dumbhead finally wants to dance,' Heck said, beginning to grin. 'Hey, all right! I love to dance. Come on, snotface. Come on over here and let's dance.' Still growling, saliva now coating his lower lip, Wolf began to move forward. Heck moved to meet him. Chairs scraped across linoleum as people moved back hurriedly to give them room.
'What's going on h - '
From the door. Sonny Singer. No need to finish his question; he saw what was going on here. Smiling, he pulled the door shut and leaned against it, watching, arms crossed over his narrow chest, his dark narrow face now alight.
Jack switched his gaze back to Wolf and Heck.
'Wolf, be careful!' he shouted.
'I'll be careful, Jack,' Wolf said, his voice little more than a growl. 'I'll - '
'Let's dance, ass**le,' Heck Bast grunted, and threw a whistling, country-boy roundhouse. It hit Wolf high on the right cheekbone, driving him backward three or four steps. Donny Keegan laughed his high, whinnying laugh, which Jack now knew was as often a signal of dismay as of glee.
The roundhouse was a good, heavy blow. Under other circumstances, the fight would probably have ended right there. Unfortunately for Hector Bast, it was also the only blow he landed.
He advanced confidently, big fists up at chest height, and drove the roundhouse again. This time Wolf's arm moved upward and outward to meet it. Wolf caught Heck's fist.
Heck's hand was big. Wolf's hand was bigger.
Wolf's fist swallowed Heck's.
Wolf's fist clenched.
From within it came a sound like small dry sticks first cracking, then breaking.
Heck's confident smile first curdled, then froze solid. A moment later he began to shriek.
'Shouldn't have hurt the herd, you bastard,' Wolf whispered. 'Oh your Bible this and oh your Bible that - Wolf! - and all you have to do is hear six verses of The Book of Good Farming to know you never . . . '
Crackle!
' . . . never . . . '
Crunch!
'NEVER hurt the herd.'
Heck Bast fell to his knees, howling and weeping. Wolf still held Heck's fist in his own, and Heck's arm angled up. Heck looked like a Fascist giving a Heil Hitler salute on his knees. Wolf's arm was as rigid as stone, but his face showed no real effort; it was, except for the blazing eyes, almost serene.
Blood began to drip out of Wolf's fist.
'Wolf, stop! That's enough!'
Jack looked around swiftly and saw that Sonny was gone, the door standing open. Almost all of the boys were on their feet now. They had drawn away from Wolf as far as the room's walls would allow, their faces awed and fearful. And still the tableau held in the center of the room: Heck Bast on his knees, arms up and out, his fist swallowed in Wolf's, blood pouring onto the floor from Wolf's fist.
People crowded back into the doorway. Casey, Warwick, Sonny Singer, three more big guys. And Sunlight Gardener, with a small black case, like a glasses-case, in one hand.
'That's enough, I said!' Jack took one look at the newcomers and raced toward Wolf. 'Right here and now! Right here and now!'
'All right,' Wolf said quietly. He let go of Heck's hand, and Jack saw a horrible crushed thing that looked like a mangled pinwheel. Heck's fingers stuck off at jagged angles. Heck mewled and held his destroyed hand against his chest.
'All right, Jack.'
The six of them grabbed Wolf. Wolf made a half-turn, slipped one arm free, pushed, and suddenly Warwick went rattling against the wall. Someone screamed.
'Hold him!' Gardener yelled. 'Hold him! Hold him, for Jesus' sake!' He was opening the flat black case.
'No, Wolf!' Jack shouted. 'Quit it!'
For a moment Wolf went on struggling, and then he slumped back, allowing them to push him to the wall. To Jack they looked like Lilliputians clinging to Gulliver. Sonny looked afraid of Wolf at last.
'Hold him,' Gardener repeated, taking a glittering hypodermic out of the flat case. That mincing, almost coy smile had come onto his face. 'Hold him, praise Jesus!'
'You don't need that,' Jack said.
'Jack?' Wolf looked suddenly frightened. 'Jack? Jack?'
Gardener, headed for Wolf, pushed Jack as he went by.
There was good whipcord muscle in that push. Jack went reeling into Morton, who squealed and shrank away as if Jack were contaminated. Belatedly, Wolf began to struggle again - but they were six, and that was too many. Perhaps, when the Change was on him, it wouldn't have been.
'Jack!' he howled. 'Jack! Jack!'
'Hold him, praise God,' Gardener whispered, his lips skinned back brutally from his teeth, and plunged the hypodermic into Wolf's arm.