Boys Life

He was going right to where Biggun Blaylock crouched by the Cadillac holding a loaded double-barreled shotgun.
    “Cease this violence!” the Moon Man intoned in a soft, almost childlike voice. I had never heard him speak before. “Cease this violence, for the sake of all that’s good!” His long legs stepped over Wade without hesitation.
    “Keep away from me, you nutty nigger!” Biggun warned. But the Moon Man would not be halted. Dad shouted, “Come back!” and started to get up, but Sheriff Amory’s hand closed on his forearm.
    “I’ll blow you to voodoo blazes!” Biggun said, indicating that he indeed knew the reputations of the Moon Man and the Lady. Biggun’s eyes had taken on the wet glint of fear. “Stay away from me! Stay away, I said!”
    The Moon Man stopped in front of Biggun. The Moon Man smiled, his eyes crinkling up, and he held out his long, slim arms. “Let us search for light,” he said.
    Biggun aimed the shotgun at the Moon Man at point-blank range. He sneered, “Well, light one for me!” and his thick finger wrenched both triggers at once.
    I flinched, my eardrums already cracking from the blast.
    But there was no blast.
    “Stand up and walk like a man,” the Moon Man said, still smiling. “It’s not too late.”
    Biggun gagged and gasped at the same time. He wrenched the triggers again. Still, no blast. Biggun snapped the shotgun open, and what was jammed into the chambers came spilling out over his hands.
    They were little green garden snakes. Dozens of them, all tangled together. Perfectly harmless, but they did some damage to Biggun Blaylock, and that’s no lie.
    “Gaaaaakkkk!” he choked. He knocked the snakes out of the chambers, reached into his ammo bag, and his hand came out full of rippling green bodies. Biggun made a noise like Lou Costello coming face-to-face with Lon Chaney Junior’s werewolf-“ Wo wo wo wo wo!”-and suddenly that monstrous bulk was up on its feet and showed that he might not walk like a man but he sure could run like a rabbit. Of course, in such cases the reality of physics must eventually intrude and Biggun’s weight crashed him to the concrete before he got very far. He struggled and thrashed like a turtle turned on its shell.
    Tires shrieked. A pickup truck loaded with men roared into the gas station. I recognized among them Mr. Wilson and Mr. Callan. Most of the men held baseball bats, axes, or guns. Close behind them came a car, followed by another car. Then a second pickup truck skidded to a stop. The men of Zephyr-and many of the Bruton men, too-leaped out ready to bust some heads. “I’ll be,” Sheriff Amory said, and he stood up.
    They were sorely disappointed, to say the least, that it was all over. I later learned the noise of the shootout had thawed their guts and brought them out to defend their sheriff and their town. They had all thought, I suppose, that someone else would shoulder the responsibility, that they could stay home and be safe. A lot of wives had done a lot of crying. But they had come. Not all of the Zephyr and Bruton men, by far, but more than enough to take care of business. I imagine that seeing the crowd of wild men with butcher knives, Louisville Sluggers, hatchets, pistols, and meat cleavers, the Blaylocks thanked their lucky stars they weren’t going to jail in snuffboxes.
    In all the confusion, I came out from hiding. Mr. Owen Cathcoate was standing over Wade, lecturing him about the straight and narrow path. Wade was listening with only half an ear. My dad was with the Moon Man, over by the Blaylocks’ Caddy. I walked to him, and he looked at me and wanted to ask what I was doing there, but he didn’t because the answer to that would lead to a whipping. So he didn’t ask, he just nodded.
    Dad and I stood together, staring down at Biggun’s shotgun and the ammo bag. Green garden snakes wriggled around each other like a big mass of seaweed, overflowing from the bag.
    The Moon Man just grinned. “My wife,” he said. “She one craaaaazy old lady.”

XXIV – From the Lost World
    THE BLAYLOCKS, IT MAY BE SAFE TO SAY, WENT DIRECTLY TO jail. They did not have a Get Out of Jail Free card, they did not collect two hundred dollars, and their mean monopoly was smashed. I understood that they were as tight-lipped as clams at first, but then the family ties began unraveling as the state investigators drilled them. Wade learned that Donny had stolen a large chunk of his moonshine profits, Bodean found