Free The Angry Dream by Gil Brewer

was being dragged across ground.
    “Get him over this damned fence!”
    They quit dragging me. I lay there and I could feel the cold snow-wet ground. Something tore at my shoulder. For some reason my head was a lot clearer and there wasn’t so much pain.
    I heard somebody breathing. I looked up and there were two of them standing there in overcoats. Then I heard somebody walking.
    A hand reached down and grabbed my hair and jammed my face into the ground. Somebody kicked me in the side.
    I worked one knee under me and came up running again. I ran straight at them, working my fists. One dodged and swung, catching me in the stomach. Snow fell on my face.
    “All right,” one of them said, “well fix him right, then.”
    I got up, lurched around, trying to see them, trying to make out where I was. The snow came down thickly and there was a strong wind howling.
    “Take his coat off.”
    Hands grabbed me from behind, a knee caught me in the groin. I bent over and something hit my head again and my coat was ripped off.
    “Take his shirt off.”
    It seemed as if I should know that voice. I tried to think but I couldn’t.
    They began, coming in at me with everything they had. Somehow I stood there. I couldn’t lift my arms. The first blow with the jack-handle had done something to my head. I wanted to do something, but my arms wouldn’t move. And then I was on the ground again, on hands and knees.
    “Give it to him good,” the voice said.
    A foot landed in my face. The foot struck again and again and I couldn’t seem to move my head out of the way. It smashed into my jaw and something cracked in the back of my neck. Hands grabbed at my arms and stood me up. I couldn’t hold my head up. They started hitting me again. Then I knew they weren’t hitting with fists—they had clubs.
    “Haul him over to the gully.”
    “In the water?”
    I ran. I thought I was running fast across the valley.
    They laughed.
    “Will you look at that? Ever see anything like it?”
    “He thinks he’s running away. Kick him in the gut, he’ll quit.”
    Somebody kicked me and I became very sick, with my face in the hard cold ground.
    They were dragging me. Things ripped and tore at my bare back, then I went through the air, rolling downhill, hitting things. A tree stopped me.
    It was very quiet. I lay there, every part of me a big blinding ache. Then it began to be cold and I started shaking and being sick again, wrapped around the tree. I lay there panting, trying to listen. There was no sound, just falling snow.
    “You’re all right, Harper. You’re not dead.”
    A man was standing above me, fifteen feet away on a rim of earth, outlined against whirling snow and pale sky. A large man with his hands jammed into the pockets of his coat, shoulders hunched.
    “Can you listen to me now?” he said.
    I started shaking again.
    “Know who I am?”
    “Yes.” I suddenly knew who he was, standing up there against the flying snow. “Sam Gunther.”
    “That’s right, Al. That’s right.”
    “Thanks for telling me.”
    “It’s all over with, Al. You’re finished. Understand?”
    “You’re going to a lot of trouble.” I tried to move but couldn’t. I hung onto the tree. I couldn’t stop shaking; it came in waves now, my teeth chattering and the shaking deep in my bones. I kept thinking how Sam Gunther wasn’t going to get away with whatever it was he was doing. I didn’t want any help now—not from anybody.
    “You were a fool to come back here,” he said, standing up there. I could see his face now, a little gray—the flat planes, the narrow eyes, the straight line of the lips. He was smiling. “A fool,” he said. “Come poking around here, like you have. Nobody wants you here, Harper. Somebody had to see that you realized that. I was appointed.”
    “You’re lying like hell.”
    The pain was very bad inside me. I tried to rise again, but I couldn’t.
    “We don’t want you around.”
    “Why?”
    “Because we don’t like