The Beet Fields by Gary Paulsen Read Free Book Online

bar, turned now and hit Bill first on the back of the head with his fist find then took another swing at the second man, catching him in the forehead.
    Had they been sober any of the blows would have caused severe damage but they were all slow and their punches were flabby. The boy scrambledout of the way and was going to watch until it was over but as the three men pushed and swore and bled and hit at each other they came rolling past the boy. Bill saw him and said through his teeth, “The money, get the goddamn money!“
    The boy nodded and moved to the bar and grabbed the money. There was too much for his pockets, so he tucked his T-shirt in and jammed it down inside past his neck until the front of his shirt bulged with it.
    The fight had moved toward the door and the bartender waited until the exact right moment and opened the door and kicked-pushed the men outside.
    “I don't care what you do outside,” he said, turning back into the bar, “but I'm sick of you wrecking my bar.”
    The boy ducked through the door after them, holding his arms across his belly to keep the money in, and watched the fight. But moving outside had changed the battle—with space around them they backed off, weaving drunkenly and holding their fists the way they thought fighters should hold their fists, taking ineffective jabs and trying footwork that couldn't be done sober in work bootsuntil finally Bill said, “Jeez, forget it, I'm going home,” and climbed in his pickup, started the engine" backed out and drove off, leaving the boy.
    For a moment the boy stood there, realized that he had all the game money inside his T-shirt, and before they could figure that out he moved to the grain truck, started it and after some gear grinding backed it into the street, turned and followed the taillights of Bill's pickup moving away from town.
    Bill stopped about four miles out of town and pulled over and was leaning on the fender of the pickup, vomiting, when the boy caught up with him. The hqy stopped the truck, put it in neutral, set the brake and climbed down.
    “It goes away when I puke—always has,” Bill said when he stood up. “You got the money?”
    Except for some vomit on his bib overalls and those sunken eyes Bill now looked stone-cold sober. The boy dug die money put of his shirt and handed it to Bill. “I never saw a game like that— so much money.”
    “Last year it was Oleson's turn. It just goes around How pissed is she?”
    “Who? Oh, you mean Alice.”
    “Yeah.”
    “She's mad. She called you a son of a bitch and said she'd handle you.”
    “Ahh—that bad. Well, let's not tell her about the money. It would just confuse the whole thing for her.” Bill was lining up the bills and stacking them on the hood of the pickup and he held out a handful of money to the boy. “Here—your pay for the evening.”
    The boy took the money and glanced at it in the light from the grain truck's headlights. He saw a fifty-dollar bill and many twenties and some tens and thought, Jeez, it must be at least two hundred dollars! He jammed it in his pocket and climbed up into the truck, waited for Bill to start off arid followed the pickup back to the farm, shifting loosely, easily, his arm propped on the window of the truck, driving with one hand, singing a Hank Williams song in harmony with the engine, his pockets full of money, and he thought, Hell, there ain't nothing to look back for—thinking it in melody like a country-and-western song, thinking, I've got it now, I've got it by the balls, and he smiled because he thought that was the way a man would think it, not a boy but a man.

FIVE

    T HE BOY HAD JUST PUT HIS HEAD DOWN ON HIS rolled-up pants that he used for a pillow, his pants with the money in the pockets, when he heard pounding on the trailer door and Bill was standing over the bunk with a flashlight.
    Sleep was still in his mind and the boy opened his eyes and looked up into the light and said, “What's wrong?”
    “Wrong?