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They were a rumble of assent and nodding heads, though the air was still tight as a bow string.
He turned to me, taking Priscilla to deposit her in his mom’s arms. “Get her out of here. Take her to Abuela and feed her sopapillas until she busts, but don’t let her out here until we get out of this.”
She nodded, wiping away her worry to play the happy Abuela to Priscilla, who was none the wiser.
“This is bad,” I said as we started for the grandstand.
“It’s exactly what he wanted,” he answered darkly, jerking his chin toward a booth selling popcorn, pretzels, sodas, ice cream.
And the worst of all—beer.
“How long do you think they’ve been drinking?” I asked.
“Long enough to start a fight, I’m sure.” He glanced across the faces of our movement. “I can’t stop them if something gets started.”
My cousins wound their way toward us with Evan in their wake. Evan’s face was even tighter than Sebastian’s.
“The sheriff has his whole posse lined up like they were waiting for us,” Evan said.
Sebastian swore and dragged a hand through his hair. “Should I try to turn us around?”
“It might be too late for that.”
“Then we’d better pray everybody stays calm.”
Evan scanned the crowd grimly. “It might be too late for that too.”
Suddenly, I was wide awake.
We made our way into the park and encircled the yellow shirts, chanting loudly enough to drown out Mitchell’s speech, which seemed to center on all the money and business Goody’s would bring to Lindenbach. The Silverado had a sign in the bed that read—Enter to win this brand-new truck, sponsored by GOODY’S. Their logo was bigger than any of the other text, just in case anybody wondered who was buying their vote.
Yellow shirts turned at the ruckus, beers in half their hands.
“We were here first,” somebody yelled from their side.
“Because you stole our space, Thatcher,” came a voice from ours. “It ain’t fair.”
“Now, now,” Mitchell said from his soapbox. “Come on, y’all. Let’s stay civil.”
“Life ain’t fair,” Thatcher snarled, ignoring Mitchell. “You wanna stop progress, and for what?”
“Easy for you to say—your bowling alley won’t hurt, will it? Meanwhile, the rest of us will lose our shirts.” It was Buchanan who’d taken up the argument, the ex-football player who ran the sporting goods store. If there was one guy you didn’t want to fuck with—besides the sheriff—it was Brian Buchanan.
Thatcher had apparently had enough beer not to realize his peril.
“You oughta lose that shirt anyway. You look like a pussy.”
Buchanan rushed Thatcher, but a handful of our guys stopped him.
Thatcher looked pleased as punch. “Y’all chose the wrong side.” Approval rolled through the yellow shirts, who’d begun to crowd in our direction. “I don’t know if you’re crazy or just stupid, but you can’t fight this one. We’re gonna get cheaper prices, more money for the town, more traffic that’ll come down Main Street and fill up your stores. What kinda dumbasses are you to say no to that?”
“It’s true,” Mitchell chimed in from the mic. “Goody’s isn’t the boogeyman—they’re gonna help our town.”
“That’s just what the devil said to Eve, and look how that turned out,” Uber Stan called out.
The tension in the air was so thick, it drew every hair on my body to attention, even in the insufferable heat. I moved closer to Sebastian.
“Call it off, Mitchell. You can stop this before it gets ugly,” Evan yelled.
Mitchell put his hands in the air, but he wore a smile. “It won’t get ugly unless y’all make it ugly. Now I suggest you all turn yourselves around and congregate somewhere else.”
“We filed for the permits first. We have every right to be here, same as you,” Evan said.
“No, y’all need to go,” Thatcher said. A handful of angry yellow shirts wound their way to back him up.
My gaze flicked to the police as they closed in. Other than the captain, their eyes shifted with uncertainty.
“Bastian,” I warned.
“We’re not goin’ anywhere,” Buchanan spat. “And Goody’s is never gonna land in this town.”
“And who’s gonna stop them?” Thatcher taunted, swaggering closer to our front line.
It happened too fast to know exactly who started it. In a millisecond, the blue shirts and yellow were locked in knots of violence. Women screamed. Sebastian put himself between me and the scuffle, snagging the arms of my cousins.
“Go!” he yelled, pushing us away from the fray.
Wild-eyed, we took each other’s hands and ran.
When we were far enough away, we whipped around to watch in horror as the mob exploded. A clink and a hiss preceded a plume of smoke that spread to more screaming, coughing, and the crowd scuttled away from the insidious smoke.
As they ran, cops grabbed every blue shirt they could get their hands on and zip-tied their hands together, lined them up on their knees in the disturbingly cheerful green grass of the park.
