A Maidens Grave

decided he hated Art Potter even more than he’d thought.
    He ambled back to Wilcox and Bonner, pulled the remote control out of the canvas bag, and channel-surfed on the tiny battery-powered TV that rested on an oil drum. All the local stations and one network were reporting about them. One newscaster said this would be Lou Handy’s fifteen minutes of fame, whatever the hell that meant. The cops had ordered the reporters so far back from the action that he couldn’t see anything helpful on the screen. He remembered the O. J. Simpson case, watching the white Bronco cruise down the highway, park at the man’s house. The choppers were close enough to see the faces of the guy who was driving and the cop in his driveway. Everybody white in the prison rec room thinking, Blow your fucking brains out, nigger. Everybody black thinking, Go, O.J.! We’re with you, homes!
    Handy turned down the sound on the TV. Fucking place, he thought, looking around the slaughterhouse. He smelled rotting carcasses.
    A voice startled him, “Let them go. Keep me.”
    He wandered over to the tiled room. He crouched down and looked at the woman. “Who’re you?”
    “I’m their teacher.”
    “You can do that sign language stuff, right?”
    “Yes.” She gazed at Handy with defiant eyes.
    “Uck,” Handy said. “Freaky.”
    “Please, let them go. Keep me.”
    “Shut up,” Handy said, and walked away.
    He looked out the window. A tall police van sat on the crest of a hill. He bet that was where Art Potter was sitting. He took his pistol from his pocket and aimed at a yellow square on its side. He compensated for the distance and the wind. He lowered the gun. “Coulda nailed you, they wanted to,” he called to Wilcox. “That’s what he told me.”
    Wilcox too was gazing out a window. “There’s a lot of ’em,” he mused. Then: “Who was he? Th’asshole you were talking to.”
    “FBI.”
    Bonner said, “Oh, man. You mean we got a Feebie out there?”
    “Was a federal prison we broke outta. Who the fuck you think they’d have after us?”
    “Tommy Lee Jones,” Bonner said. The big man kept his eyes on the teacher for a moment. Then on the little girl in the flowered dress and white stockings.
    Handy saw his eyes. That cocksucker. “Nup, Sonny. Keep it inside them stinky jeans of yours, you hear me? Or you’ll lose it.”
    Bonner grunted. When accused of doing just what he was guilty of Bonner always got pissed. Fast as a hedgehog rolls up. “Fuck you.”
    “Hope I gave one of ’em a new asshole,” Wilcox said, but in his lazy-as-could-be voice, one of the reasons why Handy liked him.
    “So what’ve we got?” Handy asked.
    Wilcox answered, “The two shotguns. And close to forty shells. One Smitty only six rounds. No, make that five. But we’ve got the Glocks and beaucoup de ammo there. Three hundred rounds.”
    Handy paced around the slaughterhouse floor, dancing over the pools of standing water.
    “Damn cryin’s getting on my nerves,” Handy snapped. “It’s fucking with my mind. That fat one, shit. Lookit her. And I don’t know what’s going on out there. That agent sounded too slick. I don’t trust his ass. Sonny, you stay with our girls. Shep ’n’ me’re gonna poke around.”
    “What about tear gas?” Bonner looked out the window uncertainly. “We shoulda got some masks.”
    “They shoot tear gas in,” Handy explained, “just piss on the canisters.”
    “That works? To stop it?”
    “Yep.”
    “How ’bout that.”
    Handy glanced into the tiled room. The older teacher gazed at him with her muddy eyes. Sort of defiant, sort of something else.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Donna Harstrawn. I—”
    “Tell me, Donna, what’s her name?” he asked slowly, pointing to the oldest student, the pretty one with the long black hair.
    Before the teacher could answer, the girl lifted her middle finger toward him. Handy roared with laughter.
    Bonner stepped forward, lifting his arm. “You little shit.”
    Donna scrambled in front of the girl, who drew back her fists, grinning. The little girls made their fucking spooky bird noises and the scared blond teacher held up a pitiful, pleading hand.
    Handy grabbed Bonner’s hand and pushed him away. “Don’t hit ’em ’less I tell you to.” He pointed at the teenager and asked the teacher, “What’s her fucking name?”
    “Susan. Please, will you—”
    “And what’s hers?” Pointing at the blond, the younger