Free The Dead Man: Hell in Heaven by Lee Goldberg, William Rabkin Page A

then got to his feet. No one noticed as he made his way toward the door.
    Almost no one.
    “He’s taking the girl!” Mouse shouted. “Stop him!”
    But they couldn’t hear her. The blood had stopped their ears.
    Matt slipped out into the night.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
     
    The girl slept in the bed in Joan’s guest room. Matt hadn’t wanted to bring her here, hadn’t ever wanted to come back to this house. But he was afraid that the warring tribes would remember the cause of their fight and come looking for her. He couldn’t take a chance of being found on the road with nowhere to hide except for woods that everyone here knew much better than he did. He had a feeling they’d think twice before coming here, even if they were sure Joan was truly dead. He’d brought the girl here and put her to bed, then doubled back to retrieve his pack and his axe from Orfamay’s place.
    He thought the girl was in shock. Her eyes were dilated and he could hear her shallow, gasping breaths from the living room, where he’d stretched out on the couch. Matt had tried talking to her as he carried her away from the barn, but she didn’t seem to hear him. Her lips moved continually, but no sound came out. Finally he was able to understand what she was trying to say:
    It wasn’t rape .
    Then what was it? Young love? Forbidden love? Cal Gilhoolie and Tally Vetch’s daughter, teenagers from warring tribes, in love despite their families, despite their knowledge of what would happen if they were caught. Romeo and Juliet in the Cascades.
    Had they been lovers for long, sneaking around behind barns and in woodsheds in this tiny town? He thought of the trickle of blood that had been running down her leg when her uncle threw her onto the floor. Of the small red spot on the boy’s penis before the giant had ripped it off and held it up as a trophy.
    This was their first time.
    And their last.
    The boy was dead or dying. Matt had no idea if the girl would make it through the night. For all he knew what he took as shock was evidence of massive internal injuries. She could be bleeding to death right now, and there was nothing he could do about it.
    There had been. One moment he could have stopped everything. They had asked him to step in and take the role of lawgiver. If he had, maybe that boy would still be alive. Maybe that girl wouldn’t be gasping for breath in the next room.
    Or if he’d never taken the highway exit to Heaven. If he hadn’t gone home with Joan. Hadn’t killed her. Before he came, there had been a lawgiver to enforce the rules. To make sure everything was even between Vetch and Gilhoolie. What would Joan have done if she’d found out about these two? Something worse than the burning the two families desired, he suspected. And they all knew it, and they all kept their passions in check. All their passions.
    That’s why the girl had been a virgin until tonight. That’s why the boy had been alive until hours ago.
    He’d killed a monster, but in doing so had he set free something worse? He thought of places like Yugoslavia and Iraq where warring tribes had been ruled by the iron fist of a dictator. Only when that despot was removed did anyone realize that he’d been the only thing keeping the sides from killing each other.
    He was supposed to step in for Joan. He had killed her, and he was supposed to rule in her place. And with her methods. That’s why Ezekiel Vetch and Alwyn Hoggins had accepted his settlement in their fight. Because if they didn’t, they believed he would have done something to them … something terrible.
    Now that fear was gone, and there was nothing holding them back. The last sight he’d had of the Grange was the assembled clans locked in combat as the flames grew around them. They were all so intent on killing each other, no one seemed to notice the barn was on fire. Matt assumed that wouldn’t last for long. They’d feel the heat and run out into the night, and once they were separated they’d