The Spiked Heel

He tried to pull his hand back now, but McQuade’s grip was firm, and he felt his knuckles yield to the pressure and suddenly he knew what he wanted to shout. He wanted to shout, “Don’t be afraid! God damn it, don’t be afraid!” and when the words came to him, he tried to put them on his tongue.

They rolled into his mouth, but only a single word escaped his lips, and that word was “Don’t!”

McQuade seemed not to hear him. He saw the horrible look on the Southerner’s face, and in that same instant he felt himself being pulled from the car, his body powerless to stop the pulling force of McQuade’s grip.

McQuade gave a sudden yank, and he toppled from the driver’s seat and onto the pavement, trying to break his fall with his suddenly released hand. The full weight of his body landed on his right hand, and for a second he thought the hand was broken. Dizzily, he got to his knees, and that was when McQuade kicked him.

The foot seemed to materialize out of the darkness, speeding for Griff’s face. He gasped when he saw the foot, and then he tried to bring up his hands to stop the kick, but it was too late. He felt the excruciating agony of the blow, and he fell back against the side of the car, feeling the blood spurt hotly from his nose.

McQuade hovered over him, his fists clenched.

“Get up, you bastard!” he roared.

Griff shook his head, trying to clear it. He saw McQuade stoop, and then McQuade’s fist tightened in his shirt front, lifting, pulling, dragging him to his feet. McQuade struck him, and Griff’s arms flailed back as he slammed into the car again. Again McQuade hit him, and again and again. He felt McQuade’s heavy blows, felt the terrible power of his fists, and curiously he thought, This is it, now it will be all over. He felt as if he were falling for a very long time from someplace very high up, and then his back hit the hard, unyielding substance of the lot, and he lay there breathing heavily, his shirt torn, his nose bleeding, his eyes puffed and swollen.

And then McQuade shouted something different: “Get up, frat boy!”

He did not understand McQuade’s words. He lay on the concrete, watching the Southerner. Strangely, he felt very calm. Strangely, behind his battered face, his mind was functioning quite calmly, and his mind was echoing his own words, and the words said, “We allowed him to grind one man, and once he’d done that, he’d ground us all.”

He sat up slowly. His face ached, and his hand ached, but he sat up slowly, and he looked at McQuade, and he said very softly, “What’s the worst you can do, McQuade? Kill me?”

McQuade grinned. “I like spunky little bastards,” he said, and he reached down for Griff and yanked him to his feet. He swung, and his fist ripped flesh from Griff’s cheekbone, and Griff staggered back a few paces and then stood his ground, planting his feet, clenching his fists.

“That’s what you’re gonna have to do,” he said. “You’re gonna have to kill me, McQuade, do you hear? Come on, McQuadel Come on!” he shouted. “Kill me! Come kill me, you dirty son of a bitch! I’m not afraid of you any more. Can you hear me?”

McQuade charged, swinging wildly, infuriated by Griff’s sudden show of defiance. Griff swung at McQuade’s middle, catching him solidly. McQuade grunted and then doubled over, his arms circling his abdomen. Griff brought his fist up from the ground in a powerful swinging uppercut that caught McQuade on the jaw and opened him up like a jackknife.

The blow hurt. McQuade whirled with a shocked, pained look on his face, and then the shock fled because Griff was swinging again. McQuade saw the punch coming, and his eyes opened wide, and then the fist collided with his mouth, and he backed off and said, “Hey!” involuntarily, and suddenly he was spitting blood, and just as suddenly Griff was hitting him again.

“Hey!” he said again, and Griff pounded at his face, and McQuade shook his head. “Don’t!” he shouted, but Griff would not let up. He had seen something in McQuade’s eyes the moment McQuade had whirled, and he knew what that something had been. He knew because he had recognized it.

Fear.

And so he punched out at McQuade’s face until McQuade brought up his hands in surrender, and then he seized McQuade’s jacket front and began shaking the Southerner, shaking him until his head wobbled back and forth on his shoulders, shaking him as if he would shake the very soul out of him, shaking him with a deadly cold, contained fury until his wrists and his arms ached. And then he pushed McQuade away from him.

“Get out of here,” he said hoarsely. “Get out.”

McQuade wiped the blood from his mouth. He stared at Griff for a moment, and Griff shouted, “Get out!” and then McQuade turned and started off across the lot.