would accompany his flight.
"And then get run over by a car!" Cindy's laugh had a silvery, bright mirth to it.
"Yeah, but that's not what's going to happen."
Only Bobby was morose.
"No," Dianne said. "Well, keep all the lights on that you can. No one will notice them out
here."
"All night?"
"I wish it was you that bad to stay here," Bobby
said. He took in the whole group. "Alone with her."
"Me?" Cindy was offended. "No. Her."
"Oh." Agreement.
Talk dropped. It seemed so peaceful by the river that their entire present situation vis-a-vis
the world seemed all but imaginary. Tonight they would all eat well and (except for Bobby
and -Cindy) bask in parental affection and approval. It was difficult-it was nearly
impossible-to realize that this was what was real and their home lives were now completely
irrelevant. They had willed it so. -
At length John said, "The creek runs up by where he bas his fire .... "
"So what?"
"I don't know, I guess-" John cupped his chin in his hand reflectively. "Maybe if I pushed up
there in my rowboat, I could keep an eye on him. For a while anyhow."
"What good would that do?" Bobby said.
"Maybe scare him!" Cindy was still on the blood scent.
"Hey, yeah." Bobby looked at his little sister in 165
'/
surprise. "If you could chunk a few big rocks in from behind, he might have something else
to think about."
Now it was John's tum to consider the dangers to himself. He frowned. He knew well enough
the darkness and the bugs and the water sounds and the rattling bushes and the crackling
of years of leaves and twigs that could betray anyone in the woods. "Yeah, maybe."
"It might make him mad," Dianne said thought-
fully.
"Or chase him toward the house," Bobby agreed. "Naw-w-w."
"I wish-"
"What?"
"I wish there was a way to blame it all on him,"
Dianne said. (He loves me not.).
"Blame what all?"
"Oh-her. Everything," Dianne seemed distant. "Barbara?"
"Umnn."
"You couldn't do that."
"I just said I wished," Dianne tossed the denuded flower aside and snapped off another.
"That's all."
"This isn't doing us any good." Bobby-his own
problem still came first-sighed.
"Maybe nothing'll happen .. " "Yeah. Maybe."
"I got it," John rolled over and sat up brushing the sand fron his chest.
"What?"
"What if we got the guns and all went up there now?"
"Why?''
"Well," John was disappointed at the Jack of uptake, "if he was back there, we might scare
him off a little. If he wasn't, we could kick the place up a little bit and make it plain
somebody'd been up there and found out about him."
"Now?"
"Well,. the rest of us've got to go home pretty soon .... "
166
Bobby tightened his lips thoughtfully. It was clear he didn't have much enthusiasm for the
project.
"Anyhow, if he isn't there, it'd make you feel a
little bit better, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah. If be isn't." "And even if he is."
Bobby picked up a handful of sand and threw it down again. "Aw-w-w, he wouldn't be
scared of a bunch of kids like us. You know we wouldn't really shoot him. Even if we wanted
to."
"He doesn't know it."
"Sure he does. What'd most likely happen is that he'd take our guns away, and then
where'd we be?"
"There's no way he can take my gun away." John
stood up suddenly.
"It's not yours." "The one I use then."
"You ought to take Paul, too, if you go," Dianne said mildly.
"Paul?"
"He can shoot. He goes with our father. He likes to shoot."
"Yeah. Rabbits." Nonetheless Bobby got up with John, and then the girls. They started
slowly up the path to the house, yelling for him.
Early in the afternoon they bad lowered Barbara from the joist from which-by then-she was
nearly hanging, semiconscious, bead and hair pointed at the floor, knees nearly failing,
heels flat even though that caused her more pain. She came down as if dead, knees
touching the cement first, as in an attitude of prayer, then temple, shoulder, and hips. Her
hands were quite bloodless and discolored. Except for averting her face from the concrete,
she made little movement and certainly gave them no trouble. At John's insistence, they
bound her-faceup--to a dusty picnic bench, and here, still later, Paul found her when it was
his turn to guard.
If-this morning excepted-he had waited nearly a full day for his turn with Barbara, Paul was
disap- 167
pointed. The day had taken too much out of her, and she did not revive; actually she lay as
if asleep or in a coma. She did little in response to his probings and torments-some of them
were quite exotic for a small boy-and what reaction she did give was little more than a
short toss of her bead and a frown. It was as if - he did not exist, and it infuriated him.
Wildly he thought of all the things that might be done to snap her back in his power. His
eyes roved hungrily over the assortment of tools and instruments in the basement, until
his legs became weak and he perspired behind the knees. He was still half blindly in this
world of imagination when they came downstairs and relieved him. Blinking, twitching,
trembling, he followed John and Bobby back upstairs, felt the .22 being put into his hands
and felt the cold handful of shells dropped in his pocket.
Outside it bad begun to get darker in the west, not from any imminence of evening, but
from the sky's daily effort to make rain. The sun, still high enough, began to dim behind a
brown-copper haze of airborne dust and moisture, and silhouetted by the lesser light, huge
thunderheads slowly boiled up for thousands of -, feet. As the boys went up the private
road through the woods, it began to grow noticeably cooler.
More quickly, now that they knew the way, Freedom Five approached the campsite. This
time, however, they marched in loudly and full of bluff, hoping any Picker would take flight
before them rather than confront their (useless) guns. Whether or not they were
successful, the campsite and pine-needle bed were as deserted as before. This was
satisfactory, and it was not satisfactory.
"Well ... I guess that's it." "Yeah," Bobby said.
"Well, we've got to go home."
"I know." Troubled, Bobby turned and led the way back toward the road:
Only Paul did not contribute. Bringing up the rear of the file, he walked blindly as if still in
his basement trance.
168
7
Again, there was lightning and thunder, and again rain didn't fall. It wanted to, John knew.