Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [67]
“It’s still light out.”
“Sorrow doesn’t care about the light. Go to bed.” Carlo presses his palm to his forehead. “I’m off to the grocery.”
“I’ll go with you,” says Giuseppe.
“Why?” I ask. “No one will come shopping at night.”
“Let them go,” says Francesco. “It’s better that they should sit there. It’s better that everyone should know we’re in mourning.”
“Everyone knows already,” I say.
“But they have to hear our side,” says Francesco. “They have to know that Dr. Hodge killed our goats. He was supposed to like us. To respect us.”
“Carlo and Giuseppe can’t tell them our side. They don’t speak English.”
“Then you go with them. You be the translator.” Francesco hangs his head that sad way again and shakes it. “He called us ‘you people.’ He said we’re crazy. Dr. Hodge, he said those things. He shot our goats, and he said those things.”
Carlo and Giuseppe and I go back to the grocery. They sit on the step and I walk back and forth on the sidewalk out front. The first stars show through the dusk.
A clattering noise comes from inside the grocery.
“Rats,” says Giuseppe. “I’ll take care of them.” He goes around the rear. I hear him walking inside. He opens the front door and looks out at us.
“You!” shouts Carlo in English from beside me.
I whirl around and look where he’s pointing.
Dr. Hodge is walking along the sidewalk with the man who runs the candy store, Mr. Chehardy. Dr. Hodge looks at Carlo, stops, and stands at attention.
“You broke my little brother’s heart,” Carlo says in Sicilian.
“Don’t speak that mumbo jumbo at me,” says Dr. Hodge.
“You made him think you were his friend,” Carlo says in Sicilian as he walks toward Dr. Hodge. “You fooled him. But you never fooled me. You broke my baby brother’s heart.”
“No one understands you, old man. No one understands any of you. Get out of my way.” Dr. Hodge walks on.
Carlo lunges at him.
“Don’t stab!” yelps Dr. Hodge. He beats Carlo on the head with one fist and pulls out a pistol.
Lord! What’s going on? “Stop!” I shout. “Carlo doesn’t have a knife. He doesn’t have anything.”
Dr. Hodge has the pistol in both hands now and he’s using it like a club, smashing Carlo in the forehead. Smashing and smashing, as if he’s lost his mind. Blood gushes.
I run to grab Dr. Hodge from behind.
“Get out of the way, Calogero!” Giuseppe’s standing in the doorway with a double-barreled shotgun!
Where are you, Lord?
“Look out, Doctor!” calls someone across the street.
Arms grab me from behind. I stumble backward.
“Be quiet,” he says in my ear. It’s Joe Evans. “Run home. Get Francesco.” He lets me go and races off down the first street.
Dr. Hodge shoots at Giuseppe and misses. He slams the pistol even harder on Carlo’s head. Carlo crumples.
“Stay down,” Giuseppe calls to Carlo. “Stay out of the way so I can shoot.”
Dr. Hodge backs into the middle of the road and aims at Giuseppe again. He presses his finger over and over, but his gun won’t shoot. He must have broken it on Carlo’s head. He pulls his cloak closed to hide himself.
Giuseppe aims–bang bang.
Dr. Hodge still stands. Blood runs down his leg. “Someone give me a gun!”
Giuseppe jumps off the step and picks up Carlo. Together we carry him inside the grocery and lay him on the floor. “Go for Francesco,” Giuseppe says.
I run home. “Giuseppe shot Dr. Hodge!”
Francesco jumps off his bed, still fully dressed. “Is he dead?”
“No.”
“Did he shoot back?”
“He shot first, and missed. When he tried again, his gun wouldn’t work. He broke it on Carlo’s head.”
Francesco’s already got his cap on and he’s halfway out the door with Rosario and Cirone right behind. “Where are they?”
“At the grocery.”
“We’ll go to Carlo and Giuseppe. But you, Calogero …” Francesco squeezes my arm. “You go find Father May.”
Francesco and Rosario and Cirone and me, we all go running back toward town.
And there’s Dr. Hodge limping down the street toward his office with a crowd of people in tow.
“Go for Father May,” Francesco shouts to me.
I turn a corner and run.
But I hear the crowd. They surround Francesco and