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voice came again. The se sound hung in the air menacingly near.
"Yeah-no," John said nervously. "The other house."
Silence.
"A lot nice house around here," the Picker said at last. To John the words sounded
contemplative, those of the fox regarding the surprising number of chicken coops nearby.
"Nice," the Picker said judiciously. Everything hung; this time it was the ce sound. He might
have had a black moustache and beard; he seemed to pull his chin thoughtfully. "Quiet."
"Yeah," John said again. This time he began rowing slowly upstream but without show of alarm.
At the sand bar above the pool, the boat grounded and John had to step out and pull it
upstream into fair water again. He didn't dare look around or appear hurried. Here was where
the Picker could simply wade out in three decent steps and get him. (Why? They were
enemies-that was enough.) John tugged. Sweat ran down into his eyes. He struggled with
panic, and then the boat came across and floated again. Looking up, however, John could not
see the Picker, he just simply wasn't there any more. Feeling terribly stupid, John called back
into the emptiness, "See ya," and got back in the boat.
Nothing answered. It was scary.
Another fifty or sixty yards up the narrowing stream, he came to a sort of unofficial dumping
ground-his own family put their cans and bottles there in a low place-and pulled into the bank.
Making fast to a tree limb, he splashed ashore and quickly clambered over to the private road
and driveway that ran back down his side of the creek to the Randall house. Once out on the
dusty, two-track lane, he turned left and broke into a solid trot swinging his head left and right
as he went.
John might feel big and strong around Freedom Five and even around an older girl if she was
com-
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pletely tied up, but in the Picker, he had seen what men are and boys only hope to be. The
broad, powerful shape tried against fields and orchards, white where random lightning
illuminated it, otherwise only a black voice from the woods, frightened him. The darkness
sweated danger simply because he was there, and John wondered if he should tell his father
about it. The nearer he got to home, however, the less he thought of the idea.
John was in; John was safe, and he had distracted the Picker a little. He just hoped Bobby
wouldn't have to face that man alone.
Like the Adams, the McVeighs were not natives of the Eastern Shore. They had transplanted
down from Philadelphia and after almost ten years still looked upon their move from the city as
something on the order of Darwin's voyage in the Beagle, and life in the country a
sophisticate's comic novel. Owning: more. land than their neighbors, they had acquired a few
animals which they carefully named and endowed with imagined personalities; they had a local
neighbor who cropped their field along with his own and who, all unknowing, became the folk
hero of witty letters back to friends and family. Edna McVeigh still spoke of shopping in Bryce
as "going into the village to do a few errands," and she always wore little checked, shirtwaist
dresses that struck (to her) just the right note between chic and condescension. Mr. McVeigh
often spoke of going to his office (he had been admitted to the local bar) as "going down to the
feed store."
As one of their rituals, they drove out after dinner and up to the crossing of the U.S. highway
and state road that ran nearby. Getting ice cream there fit the pattern of summer: it relieved
monotony and gave them a droll, bucolic sense of adventure.
Dianne, when she went along (it was often beneath her) was allowed to drive the car as far as
the state road and, from there, home again on the return trip. After two years of this, the
novelty and privilege 174
had worn off. She was a good driver, had learned quickly, and ordinarily had good
judgment even when looking at headlights at night.
Tonight, however, she wasn't concentrating on her innocent little drive. Seeing her at the
wheel, you would notice her overerect, overstiff. She swerved suddenly at things that
weren't even near the road, moved the wheel when it didn't have to be moved, and braked
nervous yards before the stop sign. Even later, under the buggy, stinging blue-and-white
neon of the malt stand-drive-in, she only absently ordered ice cream and only absently
licked it with a dainty tongue. Instead she looked across the highway and appeared to be
studying the slow, lazy heat lightning that silhouetted the trees beyond.
Whether or not leadership of Freedom Five had actually passed to Dianne Mc Veigh in the
morning, she no longer knew. John, after all, was still the larger and stronger. What had
passed to her, however, was the heavier thing-responsibility. She had seen that in their
eyes, all right. No matter what they decided to do, she would have to be the one who said
what the orders would be and what they would accomplish. No one else would. No one else
could, that is, if there was to be any outcome of the Barbara thing other than letting her go
and getting punished.
Dianne welcomed and resented this, welcomed it for the sense of freedom she felt and
resented it for what it allowed her to understand of the children. The little ones had always
known that they were going to give up and cry or something when it got hard; their
appearance of reliability and courage had only been a loan to be called in as soon as the
grown-ups' return was near. They hadn't said it, but Dianne saw that this was the way it
was going to be and soon, if she didn't think of some other way out. Barbara might be free
this time tomorrow night; they might be setting her free right this minute. And John, even
John. Now that he was messing around with the girl (Dianne was too repelled to watch, but
she wondered what it was like be-
175
tween a man and a woman), he too was undependable. He might even be the one to turn
chicken first. Sitting ivory-cool and neat in the car with her family, Dianne thought about it.
It was getting trickier. The chances of interference, discovery, Barbara's escape, and their
own loss of nerve, went straight up. They had had a fair run of luck for a fair time now.
Dianne didn't look at it so analytically, of course, but her sense of wonder at their success
and her clear foreboding that they were due for a change, was the constant weather of her
mind. The dread end of the game-the dread of each one of them-was hers to carry. And she
had the added problem of Paul.
Even regularly, he was erratic, predictable only in his strangeness, explosive,
temperamental, and unstable. A clever little built-in baby-sitter for her brother for years,
Dianne had learned a few ways to control him. Mother took tranquilizers and sleeping pills
as a part of her normal life. By switching capsules for capsules and pills for pills, Dianne
had been dosing little brother Paul for a long time now. The older she got, the bolder she
got, and Paul withstood it all without effect. Fragile-looking and spastic, he could
apparently burn off drugs in half normal time, and with the Barbara episode, he had