and stepped down into the muck of the creek shoreline. Back at his own house, all was
black and silent and thus-good. With the cased gun in one band and his shoes in the other,
he climbed the bank and slipped into the woods.
There was still some wind sighing through the distant tops of the trees, and with every gust
the pines unloaded a fresh shower of water that splattered down through the needles onto
the path he walked. About twenty yards in, he halted, put on his shoes, shifted his gun to
the other hand, and got out his flashlight. It was dark, scary, and bug-stinging down in the
middle of nowhere. It was also now quite exciting. Not an hour before be had been
watching TV with his parents (at his age, almost the very word itself was repellent), and
now he was very much in the middle of something infinitely more exciting and real. Less
than half a mile away, the beautiful girl lay in captivity awaiting his coming. And it was
true. He wondered what his friends would think if they knew what he was doing right at this
minute.
At the edge of the field that virtually surrounded the Adams' place, he stopped. The main
house, lying squat and low beyond the vegetable garden, was entirely dark. The car-a
lump-sat out in the tum-
231
around illuminated only by the receding flares of lightning. The tenant house was nearly
invisible from where he stood. Only the dark, peaked roof stood out over the beaten com in
diminishing flares of lightning. There was no one around-at least, not near-and he felt oddly
courageous. It was one of those transient feelings.
Picking his way gingerly around the puddles, he came to the turnaround, crossed over the
grassy center of it to avoid leaving tracks in the mud, stopped to pull the sandspurs out of
his ankles, and crossed again to the path leading to the tenant house. There he stopped.
As he had more or less expected, there was a faintly wavering light from the broken front
windows-Bobby's gasoline lantern, he guessed-but to imagination's eye, it seemed
forbidding. At once, the finality of their adventure, rather than the erotic aspect of it, seized
him. Everything around here was terribly and specifically quiet. He could hear the trees
sighing in the dying wind, of course, the sodden clash of stiff cornstalks and the workings
inside his own body, but from the house not being Well, what did he expect? The Rolling
Stones?
What John had expected was to march up the path, like the good F.F. leader that he was,
and relieve the watch. Now instead, he faltered and entertained a number of fantasies and
possibilities in his mind. The Picker had come and overpowered Bobby and was waiting
inside for him . . . the Picker was somewhere close, watching the house as he was ... Bobby
was sitting behind that door with a gun ready to blow John's head off by mistake .... John
was not at home in bed, and that was being discovered this very moment These and other
thoughts-perhaps there was no Picker here at all tonight-jostled back and forth. Except for
the fact that Barbara was probably still in there, he would have gone straight home to bed.
Instead John took out his whistle and blew a measured sound-shrill where he was but not
calculated to carry home across Oak Creek-and be pulled out his .flashlight again. Getting
off the path, he moved wetly through the com to a place where he could sight
232
one of the front windows and yet hopefully be out of any normal line of fire Bobby might
choose. Now, he whistled twice and waited again. After a few seconds, he thought he beard
an answering whistle from inside, but there was enough instant thunder and weed noise to
make him unsure. Aiming the flashlight at the window, he sent the signal "F-F". Overhead,
the clouds were beginning to shred into streamers behind the squall. He looked up and
thought he saw a star.
At the tenant house, the door swung open a lighted inch. "John?" The voice sounded
smaller than Bobby's.
"Yeah." John bent forward and moved through the weeds and old com as quickly as he
could. His gun case was wet, and he set it with the contents of his pockets on the table.
The two boys looked at each other In the light of the gasoline lantern.
"He's here."
"Who?" John knew well enough.
"He's outside. Like we said. Getting in out of the rain. Under the shed," Bobby said. "I saw
him, and he saw me."
"Where were you?" "Upstairs."
"How's she?" Bobby shrugged.
"Does he know about it?',
"How could he unless he saw something last night?"
"Where's be now?"
"Like I told you,"-Bobby pointed through the unused room at the boarded windows in the
back"under the shed roof, I guess."
"Did he try and get in?"
"No. I was waiting." Bobby had, in fact, been holding his shotgun since he let John in the
house, something that seemed so normal to John that he hadn't seriously noticed. Now,
however, he unzipped the case on his own .22 and got it out.
"What're we going to do?"
233
John looked down at his own hands, clean, wet, boy hands, taking out the rifle, checking it,
loading it, and he shook his head. "I don't know .... "
On cue, thunder rumbled-still more distantly and the house echoed slightly. John shoved
the bolt
home and locked.
·
"Kill him? Shoot over his head?" Bobby said.
"Stay in here? I'm sleepy." One idea was as hopeless as the next, and Bobby's tone of voice
betrayed it.
"I dunno. Maybe talk to him. He sure can't hurt us."
Talk, reason, persuasion, the endless mouth-running of city people-chatter, understanding,
polemics, postponements-John felt his taste go sour even as he said it. Nonetheless, he
and Bobby were too young to handle a killing by themselves, and besides, Dianne wasn't
here to say what to do. Maybe she wouldn't even like it. But it would be fun. It would be like
real life, and it would solve the problem, too.
"Just talk to him." John recovered from reverie.
"Find out what's up. Talk to Dianne tomorrow."
"You mean just go around the house and start talking?"
"I've talked to him before. It isn't so bad." John - cautiously opened the door. Outside, of
course, there was no one. He put his foot out and into the weeds.
"Are we going to leave her here alone?" ''Have to."
"Uh-h-h ... now?" Bobby said.
"The longer we wait, the worse it gets. Coming?', "Yeah." Enormous lack of enthusiasm.
They went around the comer of the house, John leading, and stumbled on the gate, which
had been blown down. After that, there was no hope of surprise, and John turned on the
flashlight the rest of the way. The Picker-the man-was there as Bobby had said, waiting
for them to come. He was sitting up on a dirty, old, enameled table, which had once been
used in the kitchen, and in the flashlight's beam, he was watching them with rather lidded