He hears it too.

It sounded again. A bell. . . louder, deeper, more terribly resonant than any church bell in Elm Haven. The first strike had wakened him. The second echoed away in the humid darkness. Then the third made Dale wince, cover his own ears, and hunker down in the bedclothes as if he could hide from the sound. He expected his mother and father to run into the room, shouts from the neighbors, but there was no noise but the bell, no response but his brother and he cowering from the awful noise.

The great bell seemed to be in the room with them as it struck four, struck again, and went on-relentlessly-striking the hour toward midnight.

Dale was playing baseball with the guys on Saturday morning when he heard the news. Chuck Sperling and some of his friends had just ridden up on their expensive bikes.

"Hey, your friend Duane is dead," Sperling called to Dale where he stood on the pitcher's mound.

Dale stared at him.

"You're nuts," said Dale at last, feeling how dry his mouth had suddenly become. Then he realized what they were talking about. "You mean Duane's uncle, right?"

"Uh-uh," said Sperling. "Uh-uh, I'm not talking about his uncle. That was last Monday, right? I'm talking about Duane McBride. He's dead as a roadkill."

Dale opened his mouth but found nothing to say. He tried to spit. His mouth was too dry. "You're a fucking liar," he managed.

"Uh-uh," said Digger Taylor, the undertaker's son. "He's not lying."

Dale blinked and looked back at Sperling as if the tall boy was the only one who could stop the joke.

"No shit," said Sperling, tossing the ball into the air and catching it. "They called Digger's dad out to McBride's farm this morning. The fat kid fell into a combine ... a combine for Chrissakes. It took 'em more than an hour to get his body out of the gears and stuff. Torn to shit. Your dad says it'll never be an open-coffin funeral, isn't that right, Digger?"

Digger said nothing. He was looking directly at Dale with his pale gray eyes showing nothing. Chuck Sperling continued to toss the ball to himself.

"Take it back." Dale had dropped his mitt and ball and was walking slowly toward the taller boy.

Sperling freed his hand and frowned. "What the hell's wrong with you, Stewart? I thought you'd wanna know that. . ."

"Take it back," whispered Dale, but he did not wait for a response. He launched himself at Chuck Sperling, charging with his head down. Sperling got his arms up and bounced a rabbit chop off the top of Dale's head as Dale got inside the other boy's reach and started swinging. He punched Sperling hard in the gut, heard the wind go out of him, and got in three or four hard punches to the ribs, landing one right above the heart.

Sperling exhaled deeply and sagged back against the wire backstop. When his arms came down, Dale started punching him in the face. The second blow sent blood flying from Sperling's nose, the third crunched teeth, but Dale didn't feel the pain of his knuckles being ripped raw. Sperling began to fold up, whimpering and covering his face with his forearms, his hands on the top of his head.

Dale kicked him in the side, twice, very hard. When Sperling's arms came down, Dale got him by the throat and dragged him up against the wire. His left hand was choking him while his right was free and punching again, hitting him in the ear, the forehead, the mouth . . .

There were shouts very far away. Hands pulled and tore at Dale's t-shirt. He ignored them. Sperling swung wildly, slapping at Dale's face with his open palms. Dale blinked and hit the taller boy in the left eye as hard as he could.

Suddenly Dale felt a terrible pain in the kidneys, a hand grabbed under his chin and pulled him back, and he was torn away.

Digger Taylor moved between him and Sperling. Dale shouted something and started to charge through the short boy. Digger dropped his shoulder and punched Dale once, very hard, just above the solar plexus.

Dale went down into the dust, gasping and retching. He rolled up against the wire and toed to pull himself up. His lungs couldn't get any air and it felt as if his heart had stopped.

Lawrence came screaming off the old bench along the fence, launching himself six feet into the air and landing on Digger's back. Digger flipped the eight-year-old into the wire.

Lawrence bounced off and landed on his feet as if the fence were a vertical trampoline. His head was down and his arms were a blur as he waded into Taylor. Digger backed away, trying to hold Lawrence's head down and away. Both of them topped over the wailing Chuck Sperling and went down in a heap, Lawrence still swinging and flinging dirt. Barry Fussner walked in, pranced around the edge of the melee, and toed an effeminate kick at Lawrence's head.

"Hey!" cried Kevin, stepping closer for the first time. He shoved Fussner away. Barry toed kicking Kevin, but Kev grabbed the heavy boy's foot and flipped him into the dirt behind the plate. Bill Fussner shouted something and pranced forward, backing away as Kevin turned to face him. Bob McKown and Gerry Daysinger shouted general encouragement. Tom Castanatti had stayed where he was in the field.

Digger grabbed Lawrence by the t-shirt and swung him into the air, tossing him over the long bench. He picked Sperling up and began backing toward their two bikes. Lawrence leapt to his feet, fists clenched.

Dale staggered away from the fence, still unable to get a breath but not letting that stop him, and raised his fists. He took three steps toward Taylor and Sperling, knowing that this time he wasn't going to go down until they killed him or Sperling took the lie back.

Heavy hands fell on Dale's shoulders from behind. He toed to shrug them off, couldn't, cursed something and kicked backward, turning to fight off this hindrance so he could get at Sperling.

"Dale! Stop it, Dale!" His father loomed over him, holding him with one arm around his middle now.

Dale squirmed for a second, but then he looked up at his dad, saw his father's eyes, and knew. He sagged to his knees in the dirt and only his father's arm around him kept him from falling forward.

Digger Taylor and Chuck Sperling rode off, Sperling's bike wobbling as the boy tried to ride while doubled over and weeping. The Fussners loped along behind. Lawrence was standing at the edge of the parking lot, throwing rocks after them until his father ordered him to stop.

Dale never remembered the walk back to the house. Perhaps he leaned on his father's arm. Perhaps he walked alone. He remembered that he did not cry. Not then. Not yet.

Mike was getting ready to serve as altar boy at an old lady's funeral Mass when he heard about Duane. He'd just pulled his surplice over his cassock when Rusty Ramirez, the only other altar boy to show up that day, said, "Jeez, didja hear about the kid who got killed on a farm this morning?"

Mike froze. Somehow he knew at once what farm, what kid. But he said, "Was it Duane McBride?"

Ramirez told him. "They said he fell into some farm machinery. Maybe early this morning. My dad's on the volunteer fire department and they called them all out there. Couldn't do nothing for the kid ... he was dead . . . but it took 'em a whole bunch of time to get him out of the machine an' all."

Mike sat down on the nearest bench. His legs and arms felt like water. The corners of his vision went sort of dark, so he lowered his head, his elbows on his knees. "You sure that it was Duane McBride?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah. My dad knows his dad. He saw him at the Black Tree just last night. My dad says that the kid musta been drivin' this combine rigged for huskin' corn, you know? Like he was crazy or something. Pickin' in June. An' somehow he fell out and got in the picker part . . . you know where the grinders and stuff are? Dad wouldn't tell me everything, but he said they couldn't get the kid out in one piece and when they tried to pull the arm ..."