He sank forward on the beach, collapsing.
He could feel the moist sand grinding on his cheek and when he moved his lips, the corners of them collected little gobs of sand.
"Oh, God," he whispered in his fear and indecision, "not that, not that, not that…"
30
The mosquitoes and the flies were bad and the packed earth of the wheel track that he walked in had been turned so hot by the sun that it burned the bare soles of his feet.
When he had finally paddled the floating tree trunk close enough to shore to reach solid land again, he had been forced to walk a half a mile or more through dense river bottom woods before he reached the road. In the process, he had encountered several nettle patches and, despite his attempts to skirt the plants, had been forced to walk through areas rank with poison ivy. The nettle rash still was full of fire, and the poison ivy blisters, he felt sure, would appear in a day or so. He faced rough times ahead.
For some miles he had feared the Loafers might come hunting him, but there had been no sign of them and by now he had come to the opinion that they were through with him. They had had their fun and there was nothing more that they asked of him. They had his car and clothing and all that he possessed and they'd tossed him in the river, hooting and whooping with delight, and that had been the end of it. 'They were not really vicious people. If they had been vicious, he'd likely not be here, walking doggedly down a wheel track, fighting off, with flapping hands, the mosquitoes and the flies, and itching almost unendurably from nettle stings.
He came to a creek, crossed by an old stone bridge, the rock of which it was built crumbling and scaling. Underneath it the creek ran sluggishly, only a few inches deep, over a bed of black alluvial mud.
Frost went on, crossing the bridge, following the grass-grown track, flailing with his hands to drive away the insect pests which swarmed all about him. But it seemed a hopeless task. He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and it came away smeared red with blood from the squashed bodies of mosquitoes, so intent on feeding they had not tried to get away.
As the day wore on to evening, he knew it would be worse. When dusk fell the flies would disappear, but the mosquitoes then would rise in clouds from the swamps and sloughs in the bottomland. The few that feasted on him now were only a thin advance guard of those which would come when dusk had fallen.
When morning came he would be a mass of welts, his body sluggish with poison from the insect bites. More than likely his eyes would be swollen shut. He wondered vaguely if mosquitoes could finally kill a man.
If he could build a fire, the smoke would help protect him. Out on a sandbar in the river the prevalent river breeze would keep the pests thinned down. Or, possibly, if he could climb die bluffs and find a breezy hilltop he'd escape the worst of the hordes which would rise from the swamps once darkness fell. He could not build a fire. And the thought of the climb to the bluff tops, or beating his way through the river bottoms back to the river's edge, left him shaken. The going would be rough and there would be poison ivy and there might be rattlesnakes and even if he reached
the river he might not be able to reach a sandbar. The only sandbar might be far out and he was not too good a swimmer.
But he realized that he must do something. It already was late in the afternoon and he did not have much time.
He stood in the road, squinting up the bluffs, covered with trees and rank underbrush and weeds, capped by cliff s of rock.
There might be another way, he thought. Slowly the idea seeped into his brain. He turned about and went back to the bridge, clambering down the bank to the shallow stream. Stooping, he scooped up a handful of the mud. It was black and sticky and it smelled. He smeared the handful on his chest. He smeared it on his arms and shoulders. He plastered great handsful of it on his back. Then, working more carefully, he smoothed some of it on his face. The mud stuck to him and protected him. The shrill whine of the mosquitoes still sounded in his ears and they swarmed before his eyes, but they did not alight upon the mud smeared upon his body.
He went on smearing mud, covered his body as best he could. It seemed that the coolness of the mud, perhaps even some antiseptic quality in it, eased the itching and the pain of the mosquito welts and the nettle rash.
And here, he thought, he squatted, a naked savage on the bank of this muddy stream—far worse off than he had been back on the city streets. For now he had nothing, absolutely nothing. Here, almost at the end of a trail he had taken without knowing why he took it, he was finally beaten. He had held before a faint and far-off hope, but now there was no hope. He could not cope with the situation he now faced. He had no equipment and no knowledge that would enable him to meet it.
Perhaps, come morning, he should go back up the road to join the band of Loafers—if they still were there, if they would let him join them. It was not the kind of life he'd planned, but they might give him, at least, a pair of pants, perhaps a pair of shoes. There'd be food to eat and probably work to do.
More than likely, though, they'd drive him away as soon as he appeared. For he was an osty and no one, not even Loafers, were supposed to have any truck with osties. There was just the chance, however, that they wouldn't give a damn. The might let him join the tribe as a sort of whipping boy, as a tribal jester, for his entertainment value.
He shivered as he thought of it, that he should be so reduced in fortune and in pride as to be able even to think of it.
Or perhaps now was the time to take that one last road of desperation, to seek out the nearest monitor station and apply for death. And in fifty years, or a hundred or a thousand, to wake up again and be no better off than he was this moment. They would, of course, remove the marks of ostracism once he was revived, and he'd be a normal man again, but that would be all he'd be. They'd give him clothes to wear and he would stand in line for food and he'd have no dignity and no aspirations and no hope. But he'd have immortality—God, yes, he'd have immortality!
He rose and went questing up the stream to where he had seen a few bushes loaded with blackberries. He picked and ate several handsful of them, then came back to his squatting place and sat down again. Idly, he dipped black mud from the bottom of the stream and did some repair work on his body.
It was quite clear that there was nothing he could do right now. Dusk already was creeping in and the mosquitoes swarmed about in clouds. He would have to spend the night here and in the morning he would have some more blackberries for breakfast and renew his coat of mud, then start out to do whatever it might be that he had to do.
Darkness fell and fireflies flickered out, dotting the bluffs and the heavy brush of the river bottomland with brief, tiny flecks of cold green fire. From somewhere in the tangle of the river forest a raccoon whickered. The east flushed with a golden light and the moon, almost full, arose. The whine of the mosquitoes filled every cranny of the night and a few got into his eyes and ears and he brushed them off. He dozed fitfully, waking each time with a start of terror, sometimes not knowing where he was, taking long seconds finally to orient himself. Little prowlers of the night came out and rustled all about him in the grass and weeds. A rabbit hopped down the road, stopped at the edge of the bridge, and stared solemnly down, its long ears tipped forward, at the strange figure huddled on the stream bank. Far away something barked with short, high, excited yips, and once, from the craggy cliffs atop the bluffs, a cat screamed, a sound that turned Frost's blood cold and set him to shivering.
He dozed and woke, dozed and woke again. And in his waking moments his mind, seeking to divorce itself from reality, went back to other days. To the man who had left the packages of food beside the garbage cans, to Chapman's visit when he was living in the cellar, to the old grizzled man who had asked if he believed in God and to that brief hour of candlelight and roses with Ann Harrison.
And why, he wondered, had that man fed him—a man he did not know, a man he'd never spoken with? Was there, he wondered, any sense at all in this life that ma
nkind lived? Could there be any purpose in a life so senseless?
Sometime in the course of the long night he knew what he must do, realized, dimly and far off, a responsibility he had not known before. It did not come to him at once; it grew by slow degrees, as if it were a lesson learned most haltingly and very painfully.
He must not go back to the Loafers' camp. He must not ask for death. So long as he had life he must stay steadfast to a purpose that he did not know. He had started out to reach a certain farm, without knowing why, and he must go on until he reached his destination. For somehow it seemed that it was not he alone who was involved in this senseless journey, but Ann and Chapman and that strange man who'd asked him all the questions and the man who'd died out in the alley—or at least the memory of that man. He tried to make some sense out of all of this and it made no sense. But he knew that, in some way he could not fathom, he had become committed to a certain course and he must continue on that course regardless of all doubt.
Was it possible, he wondered, that this crazy compulsion to make the journey was the result of some sort of precognition that operated outside the normal mental process? Perhaps an added or extra function of the mind that worked only under stress and in a time of great emergency.
Morning finally came and he went up the creek to get more blackberries. Then he did a new and meticulous job with the mud again and started out.
Another fifteen miles or so and he'd come to the mouth of a certain hollow that ran down from the hills and by following up the hollow he'd finally reach the farm. He tried to recall how the mouth of the hollow looked and all that he could remember was that a short way up the hollow a spring gushed from the hillside and that a stream of water flowed through the culvert underneath the road and made its way into a little pond, choked by cattails and rank swamp growth. He'd have to rely on the spring and the creek as landmarks, he realized, for he could remember little else.
The nettle rash seemed to have worn itself out. The mosquitoes and the flies, balked by the mud, gave him little trouble.
He trudged along and the day wore on. His stomach grumbled at him and once, spying some mushrooms by the roadside, he stopped and eyed them, remembering that back in those days when he'd spent the summers on the farm he'd gone out with his grandfather to gather mushrooms. These looked like the ones they'd picked, but he could not be sure. Hunger and caution waged a battle and caution finally won and he went on down the road, without touching them.
The day grew hot and crows cawed in the river bottoms. Protected by the towering, bluff-crowned hills, the road had not a breath of breeze. Frost moved in a haze of heat and suffocating air, unstirred by any wind. The mud dried and flaked off his body or ran in dirty rivulets of sweat. But the mosquitoes now were fewer, retreating from the blazing sun to seek the roadside shade.
The sun reached midday height and slanted down the west. Great thunderheads towered in the west and the air went still. Nothing stirred and there was no sound of any sort. A sign of storm, Frost thought, remembering his grandmother and her weather signs.
For an hour or more he had been watching for landmarks that he might recognize, stopping every now and then at the top of a slight knoll to study the terrain ahead. But the road wound on through the everlasting walls of green, with scarcely anything to distinguish one mile from the next.
The day wore on and the clouds piled higher in the west. Finally the sun disappeared behind the clouds and the air became somewhat cooler.
Frost plodded on, one step and then another, and then another step—and it went on endlessly.
Suddenly he heard the sound of running water. He stopped and jerked up his head. And there the hollow was, with the running stream and the now-remembered configuration of the bluff looming to the right, with its great crown of limestone and the cedar trees growing from the ledge just below the top.
As if it were a place sprung full-bodied out of yesterday, it had a familiarity he had not expected. But despite the familiarity, there was a strangeness, too.
Something was hanging in a tree close beside the spring. There was a path beaten from the road up toward the spring and a sharp smell he could not recognize hung in the air.
Frost felt his body tensing as he stood there in the road and a sense of danger prickled at his scalp.
The sun by now was entirely hidden by the towering clouds and the recesses of the woods were dark and the mosquitoes were coming out again.
The thing hanging in the tree, he saw, was a knapsack, and the smell, he knew now, was the acrid odor of old, wet ashes. Someone had built a campfire by the spring and had gone off, leaving the knapsack hanging in the tree. Whether the campers had gone away for good or would be coming back, there was no way of knowing. But where there was a knapsack, there might possibly be food.
Frost turned off the road and padded cautiously up the path. He came out of the weeds that flanked the path and the little trampled area of the camp lay in front of him.
Someone, he saw, was there. A man lay upon the ground, on his side, with one leg doubled up almost to his belly and the other leg stretched out. Even from where he stood, Frost could see that the stretched-out leg was almost twice the size it should be, swelling out the fabric of the trouser leg so that it seemed to shine. The trouser leg was rolled up just above the ankle and beneath it the ballooning flesh was an angry red and black, puffed out beyond the fabric of the trouser and the shoe.
Dead, thought Frost. Dead and lying here how long? And that was strange, for a helicopter from a rescue station should long ago have picked up the body.
Frost moved forward and his foot caught a small branch that had fallen from a tree. The branch, with its half-dry leaves, made a rustling sound as he moved across it.
The man on the ground stirred weakly, trying to turn over on his back. His head turned to look in the direction of the noise and his face was a puffed-up mask. The eyes were swollen shut. The mouth moved, but there was no sound. Cracks ran across the lips and blood from the cracks had trickled down into the beard. The lips moved again and this time there was a croak.
The dead campfire was a mound of gray and beside it a small kettle lay upon one side.
Frost strode to the campfire, snatched up the kettle, hurried to the spring and came back with water.
He knelt and gently lifted the man, propped him with his body. He lifted the water to his mouth and the man drank, slobbering and choking.
Frost took the kettle away and eased the man back on the ground.
A long rumble of thunder filled the valley and reverberated from the bluffs. Frost glanced up. Black clouds were boiling in the sky. The storm that had threatened all afternoon was about to break.
Rising, Frost went to the tree and took down the knapsack and opened it. A pair of trousers, a shirt, some socks, a few cans of food, some other odds and ends spilled out of it. A fishing rod was leaned against the tree.
He went back to the camper and the man pawed at him blindly. He lifted and gave him more water, then let him down again.
"Snake," said the man. The sound was half word, half croak.
The thunder growled again. It was darker now.
Snake, the man had said. A rattlesnake, perhaps. With the country going back to wilderness, the rattlers would be on the increase.
"Ill have to move you," he told the man. "I'll have to carry you. It may hurt, but…"
The man did not answer.
Frost glanced at his face.
He looked like a man asleep. He had drifted off into a coma, probably. More than likely he'd been drifting in and out of one for hours, perhaps for days.
There was, Frost told himself, no second way about it.
He had to carry the man to the farmhouse that sat atop the bluffs, get him under shelter, find some means to get him comfortable, build a fire, and get some warm food into him. The storm would break any minute now and he couldn't leave him exposed to its fury.
To make the trip he'd need the shoes the man wa
s wearing and there were the trousers and the shirt that had fallen from the knapsack. Some food, too; he'd put a can or two of it in his pockets. And matches-he hoped there would be matches, or perhaps a lighter. He'd have to take the kettle along, tie it to his belt, perhaps. He'd need it when he warmed the food.
Two miles, he thought. At least two miles, and all uphill, over terrible terrain.
But it had to be done. A man's Me was at stake.
The man mumbled and muttered.
"Want another drink?" asked Frost.
The man appeared not to have heard him.
"Jade," he mumbled. "Jade—a lot of jade…"
31
Franklin Chapman was sitting on the bench in front of the library, waiting, as he had waited every Wednesday and Saturday evening since that night he'd talked with Frost, when the first pain hit him. For a moment the streetlights and the lighted windows in the apartment house across the street, the blackness of the trees and the shining, light-streaked surface of the street shifted and revolved like a somber kaleidoscope as he doubled over with the flaming splash of fire that went through his chest and gut and arm.
He stayed huddled, arms wrapped tight around his belly, face lowered above the chest. He stayed quiet and the pain slowly drained from chest and gut, but the left arm still was numb and through the numbness throbbed a misery.
Cautiously, he straightened up and fear touched one corner of his brain, whispering a suspicion of what had caused the pain. He should go home, he thought, or better yet, flag down a cab and ask the driver to take him to the nearest hospital.
But he had to wait, he told himself, just a little longer. For he had said he'd wait, from nine to ten two evenings of the week. And what if Frost should need him?
Although there had been no sign or word of Frost since that night when the cook had been killed in the alley back of the restaurant. And Ann Harrison was gone, too, without a.word to him that she was leaving.
Why Call Them Back from Heaven Page 14
