The man was still distracted. He was whimpering incoherently. He had not heard a word John uttered.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” John shouted. “I’m getting out of here. I’m not going to stay and have you frame me with the local small-town cops. I’m going to get back to my own territory, call my lawyer, and tell my own police department the whole story. I advise you to settle down. I haven’t hurt you or damaged anything of yours. If I knew how to unload this gun, I’d leave it here. As it is, for my own safety, I’ll take
it along and hide it someplace outside. I’ll even call back later and tell you where.”
He waited a moment for any kind of response from the quivering man, but received none. He went down the stairs as quickly as he could, the firearm held firmly in both hands. When he reached the yard he had to decide quickly which way to flee, for surely the police would be coming by the road, which therefore was out of the question for his use—he could not know from which direction they would arrive. That left the field full of stubble, which could provide no cover, or the woods across the road.
To reach the trees he had to climb a slope that proved steeper than it looked. Despite the possible danger in so doing, he used the gun as a staff. He was weary after half a day of more exercise than he had taken in years. The crest of this ridge could not have been more than twenty feet above the road, yet on gaining it he was so exhausted that had he not heard the distant wail of a siren he might have lost all strength to go farther before resting. As it was, he kept going. This was a place with as much undergrowth—clutching, clinging, tearing—as trees. It scratched his skin, and so as not to tear his clothes, he halted frequently to pluck himself free. In an effort to avoid the densest thickets, he soon lost all sense of direction. After what probably seemed longer than it actually was, he suspected he was wandering in circles. As he might well emerge into the hands of his pursuers, he had nothing to lose and perhaps something to gain by taking the rest he needed so badly.
Also, once he stopped fighting the bushes, perhaps he could hear some orienting sounds from the outside world. He found a clear patch at the base of one of the larger trees and sat down on the earth. It proved to be, just under the thinnest of dry surfaces, a damp seat. For all he cared! He was in
terrible trouble. He had nearly been killed by a man to whom he had done nothing but ask for the brief use of a telephone. All right, so he had been erroneously thought a criminal: even so, should such a person be shot point blank when offering no resistance? Then, what might have happened, when he grappled with the man, if the gun had discharged and killed its owner? Could he ever have proved his innocence?
Could he prove it
now
, though he had not touched the man even in the struggle, nor pointed the gun at him? He had been scrupulous in that regard. But the man had demonstrated the characteristics of a bully and a coward, and might find it necessary to misrepresent the situation in the interests of pride.
John felt so alone, so defenseless, that he would have welcomed the company of Richie at the moment, even though Richie was the source of all his troubles—but being so, was uniquely capable of clearing his name, at least in everything up to the moment they had parted ways. John would still be on his own as to the matter of the country gentleman, but he would be much more believable if it could be established that he bore no personal responsibility for being in this area in the first place.
He knew a sudden access of hope, as if lifted on a rising wave: it was by no means too late to set everything right, if he could only manage to get someone in authority not to jump to conclusions but rather listen to his voice of reason. He realized this might be unlikely were he to appear before such an authority looking as he did now. He
must
get home somehow. He had no money or credit cards, and given his appearance would certainly not have done well at hitchhiking—even if he had not been a wanted man for whom the police would be looking on every highway. He did have the gun.
That he could ever consider pointing a firearm at a human being, for any purpose whatever, would have been impossible throughout his life up to this moment. Of course he had played with toy weapons as a kid, shooting rubber-tipped darts at brothers and friends, but had had no difficulty, however young, in distinguishing a game from reality, even though that reality had been purely theoretical: he had never seen a real gun being fired, for in movies and TV though the firearms were genuine, the bullets were not, as everyone, even small children, had always recognized. He had not grown up to be one of those adults who suppose killers get their start by training on water pistols in childhood, or believe that owning a popgun at the age of six created a warmonger who in later life would be eager to nuke the world. Take him: he disliked guns, yet here he was, holding one that he had taken with force from its owner so as to save his own life. So far so good, but he had not discarded it. It was the one thing of value at hand. It looked expensive, like the rest of the gentleman farmer’s possessions. Perhaps he could sell the weapon or use it as security for enough money to get home. No, that was wrongheaded: his only hope now was to get back in contact with Joanie and have her come to pick him up. Even if he found the fare, he could not risk using any form of public transportation.
He felt worse the longer he rested. Not only did certain delayed reactions to the struggle for the gun now make themselves known, but his sore knee had returned. The back of his left hand was deeply scratched: had adrenaline served to numb him to damages received in the struggle to control the gun? Or were the scratches due to the thicket through which he had lately plowed? He pulled himself to his feet.
Walking was painful, but he had been strengthened by a resolve to take no more abuse. Although he might have something
to explain, he had nothing for which to apologize, and he was determined neither to forget the distinction nor to permit anyone else to do so. In future encounters he must deal with the probability that strangers would think the worst of him because of his appearance alone. If in addition they had heard the same broadcast as the gentleman farmer and would take him for the wanted man, no argument of his was likely to be listened to. And in a rural area like this, he had to face the possibility that other locals would routinely keep guns at hand.
He could not have said how far he walked, having anesthetized himself against time and distance, but eventually he cleared the woods, and there, at the edge of a meadow, on the far side of which some black-and-white cattle were grazing, was a plain clapboard structure that needed a new roof, and beyond it what would seem to be, from the rusty equipment nearby and the dusty, strawy dim reaches of the interior visible through the open and sagging doors, a working barn.
John liked a real barn. As a child he had once visited an upstate farm owned by a man who had been a pal of his father’s in the army, and got to sit on the back of a real horse and in a barn had watched a cow being milked. The fresh milk, however, tasted from a dipper plunged into the pail, was disgustingly warm. But it gave him an affectionate feeling to remember that visit.
It was precisely such pretexts for softening that he must guard against now, when he had decided he had no choice, if he expected ever to get out of this morass: he must use not violence—he was no criminal—but force, by which he meant the threat or potential thereof.
When he knocked at the door, prepared to point the gun at whoever responded, his plan was ruined by the appearance of a bright-eyed young boy.
“Season’s not open yet,” said the boy, speaking through the screen door. He was full of energy and looked about twelve. “If you want to shoot clay pigeons, use the west field.” He pointed. “Animals get spooked. Hope you look and see you haven’t loaded any deer slugs by mistake. One guy did, last year. They carry further than you think. Came down and hit somebody’s pickup driving by. Cracked the windshield.”
“I just want to use your phone,” John said.
The boy was suddenly more guarded. “Just give me the number. I’ll call it for you and give them your message.”
“It’s not that kind of call.”
“Afraid it’ll have to be,” the boy said levelly.
It occurred to John that the lad was exercising the caution urged by public authorities, TV advisers, et al., on persons who opened the door to strangers. He himself had certainly been unwise, as it turned out, to respond to Richie’s knock that morning, though even in retrospect he could not think of an alternative.
“This is some business between me and my wife.”
“Sorry,” said the lad, starting to close the main door. “That’s not good enough.”
“Please wait,” John cried to the diminishing sliver of boy. “All right,
you
call her.”
The door stopped closing. Through the narrow gap that was left, he was asked for the number.
“Okay,” said John. “We’ll be glad to pay you when she gets here. Tell her I’m stranded—where
are
we, incidentally? Near Meredith? Wherever that is.”
“Meredith?” the boy asked derisively. “This is Beckworth.”
“Just tell her how to get here.”
“By car? I’m not old enough to have my license yet. I don’t know much about roads except just between here and the village.”
“That’s okay,” John said, trying to keep the boy calm. “Fine. Just tell her how to get here from the village—that’s Beckworth?”
“Naw, the village that’s closest is Bolton.”
“Bolton?” John asked. “Okay, just tell her that, and then what road to take to get here.”
“Does she know where Bolton is? Where’s she coming from, anyway?”
“She can find Bolton on a map.” Desperation was gaining on him again. Joanie was an excellent driver, better than he in precision techniques such as parking parallel to a curb, but she was hopeless with a map and, uncharacteristically for her sex, had the aversion to asking directions from strangers for which males are traditionally noted. Her explanation was that men might get the wrong idea if so accosted by her.
“Where’d you leave your car?” the boy asked through the slit between door and jamb, which he prudently had not widened. “Want me to call the Triple-A?”
“I didn’t come by car.”
“No car and yet you’ve got a twelve-gauge pump gun?”
The non sequitur made John sigh. “Would you mind first making that call to my wife? I’ll explain while I’m waiting for her. The gun doesn’t belong to me. I don’t even know how to unload it.”
The boy spoke in a sneering tone. “Then what are you doing with it?”
“I really think I ought to talk to her,” John said, turning the weapon to offer it butt-first. “I’ll bet living out here you know how to use this. Take it and cover me, if you want, while I make the call. In fact, you keep the gun as a present from me. I’ll repay the guy I borrowed it from.”
“Know what one of these costs?” the boy asked skeptically.
“You don’t have that kind of money. You look like some kind of a bum.”
It was amazing to John how much the comment hurt him, though it would seem to be the least of his complaints on this day. No doubt it was worse because a minor had made it. “I’m no bum,” he said reproachfully. “I’m a respectable man with a wife and children and job, a good position with a fine firm. I have an excellent reputation in my town, which has many well-to-do residents, including some television personages who paid a million or more for their homes: that red-headed woman on the morning news, I don’t know if you’ve seen her? And others. I’ve just had some bad breaks today, that’s all. I’m a good person.”
“You don’t exactly look it.”
John lost his temper. “God damn it, you let me use that telephone!”
The boy slammed the door and loudly latched it.
John tried unsuccessfully to open the screen door, but the hook was fastened. He pounded on its frame. There was no response. He had been stupid to boil over like that. The boy was probably home alone for some reason, maybe recuperating from an illness that kept him from school. So the sick child is threatened by an infamous-looking tramp with a stolen gun. There could now be a list of charges against John for a multitude of crimes he had not committed, some of which had never even occurred. The matter of the truckdriver, however,
was
serious: that could not be forgotten. But not only had he not run the man down, he had called an ambulance on the nearest phone he could reach. He was still utterly clean, if he could just find somebody who would listen to and believe him.
On an impulse, he ran down from the porch and located where the telephone line came in from the roadside pole.
Using the gunbarrel as a lever, he forced the wires to rip away from the porcelain connector. If he was not permitted to phone his wife, he would not suffer the boy to make an unwarranted call to the police. This unfairness simply had to stop. He did not deserve it.
He returned to the porch and propped the weapon against the wall of the house. Face against the door, he cried, “I’m leaving the gun out here. That should show you how you misjudged me. When I get to town, I’ll call the phone company. Sorry I had to put yours out of commission. But you should have believed me!”
There was no answer, and John had no means of telling whether the boy had heard him. He could have tried to peer in through one of the windows that gave onto the porch, but refrained from doing so lest he frighten the lad even more. He was considerate even under conditions of extremity.
He had come out of the woods on the left side of the house. He began to leave now on the dirt driveway to its right, and had almost reached the road when an automobile turned in and stopped abruptly before him. For the briefest of instants he took it for some sort of official vehicle, and believed he had the choice of surrender or flight.
But it was Sharon’s car, and Richie was behind its wheel. Sharon sat next to him. She looked more alert than when last seen.
Richie pointed at the house and asked, out of the window, “Who’s in there?”
John had hoped never to see him again, but the events that had occurred since so changed his feelings that he could put up with the man if it meant getting home.