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That was what she called it, Louis. It was her word. Abomination. And she kind of whispers in my ear, If anything happens, Jud, you just run. Never mind these others; theyll have to look out for themselves. You remember me and bust your hump right out of there if anything happens.

We drove over in Hannibal Bensons car-that son of a bitch got all the A-coupons he wanted, I dont know how. Nobody said much, but all four of us was smokin like chimblies. We was scared, Louis, just as scared as we could be. But the only one who really said anything was Alan Purinton. He says to George, Bill Baterman has been up to dickens in that woods north of Route 15, and Ill put my warrant to that. Nobody answered, but I remember George noddin his head.

Well, we got there, and Alan knocked, but nobody answered, so we went around to the back and there the two of them were. Bill Baterman was sitting there on his back stoop with a pitcher of beer, and Timmy was at the back of the yard, just staring up at that red, bloody sun as it went down. His whole face was orange with it, like hed been flayed alive. And Bill he looked like the devil had gotten him after his seven years of highfalutin. He was floatin in his clothes, and I judged hed lost forty pounds. His eyes had gone back in their sockets until they were like little animals in a pair of caves and his mouth kep goin tick-tick-tick on the left side.

Jud paused, seemed to consider, and then nodded imperceptibly. Louis, he looked damned.

Timmy looked around at us and grinned. Just seeing him grin made you want to scream. Then he turned and went back to looking at the sun go down. Bill says, I didnt hear you boys knock, which was a bald-faced lie, of course, since Alan laid on that door loud enough to wake the to wake up a deaf man.

No one seemed like they was going to say anything, so I says, Bill, I heard your boy was killed over in Italy.

That was a mistake, he says, looking right at me.

Was it? I says.

You see him standin right there, dont you? he says.

So who do you reckon was in that coffin you had buried out at Pleasantview? Alan Purinton asks him.

Be damned if I know, Bill says, and be damned if I care.

He goes to get a cigarette and spills them all over the back porch, then breaks two or three trying to pick them up.

Probably have to be an exhumation, Hannibal says. You know that, dont you? I had a call from the goddam War Department, Bill. They are going to want to know if they buried some other mothers son under Timmys name.

Well, what in the hell of it? Bill says in a loud voice. Thats nothing to me, is it? I got my boy. Timmy come home the other day. Hes been shell-shocked or something. Hes a little strange now, but hell come around.

Lets quit this, Bill, I says, and all at once I was pretty mad at him. If and when they dig up that army coffin, theyre gonna find it dead empty, unless you went to the trouble of filling it up with rocks after you took your boy out of it, and I dont think you did. I know what happened, Hannibal and George and Alan here know what happened, and you know what happened too. You been foolin around up in the woods, Bill, and you have caused yourself and this town a lot of trouble.

You fellas know your way out, I guess, he says. I dont have to explain myself to you, or justify myself to you, or nothing. When I got that telegram, the life ran right out of me. I felt her go, just like piss down the inside of my leg. Well, I got my boy back. They had no right to take my boy. He was only seventeen. He was all I had left of his dear mother, and it was illfuckinlegal. So fuck the army, and fuck the War Department, and fuck the United States of America, and fuck you boys too. I got him back. Hell come around. And thats all I got to say. Now you all just march your boots back where you came from.

And his mouth is tick-tick-tickin, and theres sweat all over his forehead in big drops, and that was when I saw he was crazy. It would have driven me crazy too. Living with that that thing.

Louis was feeling sick