Ancient Images Part 18

A greenish twilight that smelled of oil and worn-out metal closed around her as she ran under the trees. A cramp gripped her stomach as if she were about to start her period weeks early. The convoy blocked her view of the left-hand side of the copse, but that needn't mean that anything was lurking there, waiting for her to come abreast of one of the gaps between the vehicles, any more than the trees to her right concealed something. Every upright shape that wasn't immediately identifiable as a tree trunk reminded her of the scarecrow figures she'd seen in the copse. Once she thought she heard whispering above her, as if things perched in the trees were planning to leap down at her, but it must have been a wind among the leaves.

At last she saw daylight ahead, past the leading police car. A fifty-yard sprint under the trees, and she was able to see Enoch's people. They were crowded together just beyond the police car, and gazing toward Redfield. She ran faster, her body trembling with the effort and with panicky antic.i.p.ation. She was nearly at the head of the convoy when she saw Roger.

He was in the pa.s.senger seat of the second vehicle, a van painted with green clouds. In the side mirror his face looked bemused, dissatisfied, rather helpless. She was abreast of the van before he blinked at the mirror and caught sight of her. She saw him gasp and smile and feel immediately guilty, as if he'd failed her. He leaned stiffly toward the window and rolled it down, and murmured to her while he gazed ahead. "It's several kinds of great to see you," he said.

He let his hand stray down the side of the door, and she covered it with hers. "Same here, and I'm so glad you're safe."

"Oh, I'm safe enough. Why wouldn't I be? I looked so forlorn these guys had to take pity on me, and I've spent the night finding out how much we have in common. They ------------------------------------293 trusted me enough to leave me in their van," he said with unexpected bitterness. "Only I guess they did a better job persuading me than I did on them, since you'll have noticed I didn't convince them they should stay away from here."

He levered himself up to stare ahead more sharply. "Another few hours and I might have, but I didn't realize we were so close. I think Enoch was beginning to take notice. I figured I had to go slow or he might realize I was coming from you."

"I know you had to," she said, and pressed his hand. "What's happening out front?"

"He's scouting the land."

He sounded as nervous as that made her feel. "I'd better go and see," she said, and stopped him when he made to open the door. "You stay here. We may still need them not to realize we're together."

She sprinted up the last of the slope. The police from both cars were keeping Enoch's followers grouped at the edge of the wood. As Sandy ran out of the shadow of the trees, several people turned to her. All of them looked anxious, especially the women; perhaps they were feeling the thirst of the land in their guts, as she was. n.o.body seemed to recognize her. Arcturus and his mother were on the far side of the gathering, and didn't notice when she went as un.o.btrusively as possible to the front, to see what everyone was watching. As soon as she was able to see along the road to Redfield, her throat grew tight and dry.

Enoch was several hundred yards down the road, marching toward the Ear of Wheat as if he was almost exhausted, swinging his arms like lead weights. His bristling head was thrown back; he might have been sniffing the air. A few minutes' walk ahead of him, lined up on both sides of the road past the Ear of Wheat all the way to Redfield, the townsfolk were silently waiting.

Perhaps they only meant to make the convoy feel unwelcome. Perhaps that was how the police interpreted the ------------------------------------294 situation, and so they were keeping Enoch's people back rather than escort him, but couldn't they feel the threat of violence in the air? Both they and Enoch might be a.s.suming that Lord Redfield could control his people, but if one of the townsfolk so much as stepped in front of Enoch, Sandy could see that his people would surge to protect him. It would take many more than four policemen to hold them back, let alone to prevent the bloodshed whose imminence seemed to have stilled the wind, making the land breathless.

The sun had risen above the mists. The fields brightened as if the wheat were eagerly awakening. Again Sandy had the sense of watching a ritual, Enoch the victim marching toward the gauntlet that was to carry out the sacrifice, the townsfolk stiffer than scarecrows, figures erected to carry out the will of the landscape. Her feeling that everyone in sight was subservient to an invisible power filled her with sudden furious panic. She hardly realized she had started forward, opening her mouth to scream at Enoch to come back, until a policeman grasped her arm, not ungently. Presumably he realized she wasn't with the convoy. "You'll have to wait until this is over and done with," he said.

There was movement and a whisper in the crowd. Arcturus and his mother had recognized her. Sandy tried to look as if she was irrelevant to what was happening ahead, and cursed herself for distracting attention from Enoch's plight: how could that prevent the violence whose approach seemed to parch the air and the eager fields?

She heard Enoch's folk murmur uneasily. They were staring past her, uncertain how to take what they were seeing. Whatever it was, it made the policeman let go of her arm. She sent out a prayer for Enoch, too swift to be composed of words or even to have a specific destination, and made herself turn and look.

Enoch had halted about a hundred yards short of the first of the townsfolk, raising his head further, as if he ------------------------------------295 smelled something. Several townsfolk swung watchfully toward him. The landscape brightened around him, the watching faces seemed to take on the color of wheat, and Sandy felt Enoch's people growing tense. If the nearest of the townsfolk even made a move toward him, the police would be swept aside. She could see that his people were concluding that they should never have let him go so far on their behalf.

Then he took a step forward. He held up his hands and addressed the men on either side of the road. He must be trying to placate them, but had he forgotten how unwelcome the convoy was everywhere? They stared at him for so long that Sandy lost count of her racing heartbeats, and then they called out to their neighbors in the line. Their voices were carried away by a wind from the restless fields. By now her heartbeats were so loud that she could have thought they were the sound of the landscape.

Enoch moved again, and she gnawed her knuckles. He turned his back on the townsfolk and began to trudge toward the copse. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, loud as a town crier. In the midst of the unquiet fields under the huge sky, even such a voice seemed small. "We won't go here," he shouted. "This land wants us too much."

Perhaps Roger had convinced him after all, but had Enoch sensed the nature of Redfield too late? The townsfolk were still watching him, they could still come after him if the sight of his retreat enraged them or otherwise tempted them to attack. His people seemed bewildered, which could mean dangerous. Then he gestured at them, pus.h.i.+ng with his hands as if the air were thickening in front of him. "Go back to the vehicles," he shouted. "This isn't the place for us. We aren't safe here. I've thought of somewhere else."

Something in his voice told Sandy that he hadn't, that he was so anxious to take them out of Redfield that he was ------------------------------------296 lying. If she could hear that, wouldn't they? But though they were muttering, some of them complaining, they were straggling disappointedly toward the trees. Far more rea.s.suringly, the townsfolk were moving toward Redfield.

She was suddenly afraid that the police would oppose the change of plan, but they seemed ready enough to escort the convoy out of their jurisdiction. Rea.s.sured, she turned to watch Enoch. Someone ought to see him safe along the road and let him know that he wasn't alone, though she thought it best not to allow him to recognize her. As his people retreated toward the vehicles, she stepped into the shadow of the trees, from where she could see him more clearly than he could see her.

And that was why she alone saw the scrawny form that rushed out of the wheat and tore at Enoch's throat. ------------------------------------297 Her shock seemed to freeze the moment, brightly displaying what she was helpless to prevent. She saw Enoch recoil as the figure reared up, a scarecrow all the colors of a decayed tree. Its ragged head was level with his; he must be staring straight into whatever it had for a face. It must be that sight which paralyzed him, made him stand like a resigned victim while the nails through which the sunlight gleamed slashed at his neck.

Enoch roared in pain and horror. His hands flailed at the attacker and tore away part of its head, and then he tried either to grapple with the figure or hurl it away from him. To Sandy it looked grotesquely as though the two of them were dancing a couple of steps of a forgotten dance. The scarecrow figure lurched away, a flap of its head wagging, and Enoch either fell or lunged at the figure, grabbing one of its legs as he sprawled on the tarmac. She heard a crack, which at that distance sounded like a trodden twig, before his grasp must have slackened. Dragging its broken limb, the fleshless shape scuttled three-legged into the wheat.

Enoch's yell had brought the nearest of his people running out of the copse, but they weren't even level with Sandy when the track through the wheat disappeared. Enoch lumbered to his feet and marched unsteadily toward the trees, one hand clutching his throat. The hand looked like a red flower, blooming. As Sandy ran to him the watchers began to murmur, and a woman screamed. "Stay back," one ------------------------------------298 policeman said loudly. "There was n.o.body anywhere near him. He must have done that to himself."

"He didn't," Arcturus cried. "I saw. It was a dog."

The policeman was trying to prevent further violence, Sandy realized, but couldn't he have said something less contentious? At least the citizens of Redfield hadn't halted their retreat toward the town. The landscape seemed to heave up with the motion of her running, as if Enoch's wound were wakening the fields. She thought she saw a trail of his blood on the road. Did it count if it fell on the tarmac? Mustn't it reach the soil? The fields rustled like locusts, the air grew parched around her; she stared about wildly in search of figures in the wheat. The fields surrounding Enoch were still brightening, bristling in antic.i.p.ation of his blood. She felt sick, almost out of breath. She thought she tasted the rusty flavor of the special Redfield bread.

Roger shouted behind her. She twisted round and saw someone fling a glinting object at him. She thought it was a knife until the van jerked forward, and then she realized he'd been thrown a bunch of keys. He must have struggled across to the driver's seat when he had seen Enoch fall.

Enoch's followers dodged out of the road, taking the police with them, as the van lurched out of the trees. Roger was crouched awkwardly over the wheel, his face squashed together by determination. He slowed when he came abreast of Sandy, and she slid the pa.s.senger door open. He was slewed around in the driver's seat, his plastered leg wedged against the accelerator; he had to swing his whole body whenever he needed to work the other pedals. He looked more incongruous than he had when she'd left him by the road; he looked like a grubby knight who'd found his way into a modern vehicle by mistake. The sight of him was so comic and heartening that she wanted to weep. She would have changed seats with him, except that would waste time. As soon as she climbed into the pa.s.senger seat he thrust his cast down on the accelerator. ------------------------------------299 Enoch had halted in the middle of the road and was covering his throat with both red hands. As the van sped toward him he staggered aside. "Don't," Sandy cried, suddenly afraid that he would step into the field behind him. Roger must have thought she was talking to him, for he leaned so hard on the brake that she was nearly flung out of the vehicle as the door slid open. As she jumped down and ran to Enoch, Roger was already turning the van.

The cords of Enoch's vest were beginning to turn red. His eyes looked in danger of glazing over, glistening with his struggle to stay in them. Though she had hoped before that he wouldn't recognize her, she was dismayed now that he seemed unable to do so. She grabbed him by the elbow and felt him trying not to collapse onto her. "I've got you," she said as firmly as she could. "We'll take you back. There's a healer traveling with you, isn't there?"

He drew a breath so painful she thought he was choking. At last he managed to get out one word, in a shrunken laborious voice. "Hospital."

His hands let go of his throat as if to allow him to speak, and she saw how much he needed a hospital, saw the raw shredded streaming flesh he was attempting to hold together. Faintness brought the landscape dancing at her, but she forced herself to support him as far as the van, which Roger had succeeded in turning. Roger clambered down and helped hoist Enoch into the back, where there was a lumpy double mattress for him to lie on. "Can you drive now?" Roger said to her. "It might be quicker."

It would also help her overcome her faintness. She scrambled behind the wheel and started the vehicle as Roger slammed the rear doors from inside. In the mirror she saw his face as he propped himself at Enoch's head, murmuring to him, looking so encouraging that she knew he must be battling not to react to what he saw.

She'd scarcely gathered speed toward the trees when she had to brake. Both the police and the owners of the van, a ------------------------------------300 long-haired middle-aged couple, were blocking the road. "He's badly hurt. We need to get him to a hospital as fast as we can. Will you escort me?" she called down to the police, and threw down her keys to the long-haired couple. "It'll be quickest if you take my car. It's just past all your vehicles."

What sounded like authority was half panic, the sound of her determination to drive straight on if anyone opposed her. The driver of the leading police car scrutinized her face, then turned quickly. "Follow us."

As he swung the police car around, its siren howling, a muscular woman with a crewcut and the whitest teeth Sandy had ever seen jumped into the van and wriggled over the pa.s.senger seat into the back. "I'm Merl. I'll look after him," she said, and then with much less certainty: "Oh Jesus. Was Was it a dog?" it a dog?"

"Whatever it was," Sandy said, to fend off the subject, "he didn't let it get away in one piece."

"You should have seen what it was, you were there. If I'd been there I would have killed it myself." She tore a strip off the hem of her loose ankle-length dress and wrapped it around Enoch's neck, and her voice became maternal. "Rest now, rest and be strong. What is it? What are you trying to say?"

Enoch sucked in a choked breath. "Don't let me die here," he said indistinctly.

"We won't let you die at all," Sandy cried, following the police car. Enoch's plea had made her fear of Redfield more immediate and more specific. All the victims of the land hadn't just spilled their blood within its boundaries, they had died there. The flas.h.i.+ng light of the police car made shadows leap between the trees, and she was afraid that one or other of the thin vague shapes would spring into the van to finish Enoch off. When some of his folk stared resentfully at the police car and didn't clear the road immediately, she heard herself moaning between her clenched teeth. ------------------------------------301 The trees parted ahead, beyond the curve that led into the open, and all at once the copse smelled to her as if the earth were heaving up beneath the undergrowth. She had to restrain herself from ramming her fist into the wheel to sound the horn; it wouldn't make the police drive any faster, it was more likely to pull them up. The last branches sailed by overhead, and their shadows reached beyond the copse for the van. Then the vehicle was out under the sky, and she had to swallow before she was able to ask, "How is he?"

The woman was singing Enoch a song, too low for Sandy to hear the words. It might have been a lullaby or a soft dirge. When she didn't interrupt it to respond to Sandy's question, Roger peered at Enoch. "Alive," he said.

At the most Sandy would have uttered a secret whisper of relief, but even that was premature. Half the convoy was still on Redfield land. As she raced after the police car she glanced constantly into the mirrors, seeing the trees close around the head of the convoy, the line of vehicles shriveling with distance as though Toonderfield were consuming it. Fumes rose through the trees and drifted across the fields as the vehicles turned, and Sandy willed the drivers to be quick, get out, don't be distracted by any movements in the shadows, stay together ... Perhaps there was safety in numbers, for as Toonderfield sank below the horizon to bide its time she saw the convoy following the second police car. She gripped the wheel so hard she bruised her fingers, to carry herself past feeling so weak with relief that she wouldn't be able to drive.

It took the police half an hour to conduct her to a hospital, and the cropped woman sang to Enoch all the way, wrapping more strips of her dress around his neck. Once he tried to say something about a dog, which Sandy thought was either a question or a denial. As Sandy parked the van in front of the Emergency wing, one of the policemen came running out ahead of a doctor and two orderlies with a ------------------------------------302 stretcher. Enoch was loaded onto the stretcher, and Sandy heard him speak. Later she agreed with Roger that he'd muttered, "Can't be helped." She hoped that meant he was resigned to what came, for less than five minutes later he was dead. ------------------------------------303 The police were ready to believe Arcturus, since he alone claimed to have seen what had happened to Enoch. Merl the healer said that Enoch had tried to tell her about a dog, and Sandy made herself keep quiet: this wasn't the place or the time to say what she knew. The police called in a warning about a savage stray dog and made to herd the convoy away, until Sandy managed to persuade the hospital to let Enoch's people pay their last respects.

Not all of them wanted to see Enoch. A group led by Merl knelt in the car park and chanted as a large bright cloud that made Sandy think of an unfurling sail glided slowly from above the hospital toward the distant sea. Most of those who went in to view Enoch shed a tear for him, but they seemed stunned by his death. He lay in an anonymous side room whose function was unclear, a sheet over his face until one of the men uncovered it and snarled at an orderly who started to protest. Sandy stood outside the room in case she needed to mediate, but that was the only skirmish. The sight of Enoch's huge head in repose, his beard wiry on the white sheet, seemed to impress even the hospital staff who pa.s.sed along the corridor. As Sandy watched his followers trudging silently in and out of the room, she thought that despite the starkness of the setting he looked exactly like an ancient chieftain lying in state.

The last to visit were Arcturus and his mother. The boy held her hand and gazed at the dead face as if he were trying to understand. "Where's he gone?" he said. ------------------------------------304 The woman didn't speak until she was out of the room and staring hard at Sandy. "Somewhere better than we're going, but we'll be there too someday."

Sandy thought she was meant to feel guilty, a feeling easily invoked in her just now, until she realized the woman only expected her to respond. All she could think of to say was "Where will will you go?" you go?"

"We'll find an island," the woman said, with a fierceness that sounded bitter rather than convincing.

"Maybe there's a country that'll like us," Arcturus said in a dazed voice.

"Or one so big we won't be noticed, any road."

Outside the hospital the police were making sure that everyone returned to the vehicles and prepared to drive on. The healer, who appeared to have taken over some of Enoch's leaders.h.i.+p, was murmuring comfort to them as they left the building. "Where are we," Arcturus' mother began and was interrupted by an angry sob, "supposed to go now?"

"As far north as we have to, we've decided."

Not everyone seemed to agree. At least one couple were already arguing between themselves. If Enoch's death caused the convoy to split up, Sandy wondered whether that might be for the best. She watched the convoy meander away, following the beacon of one police car and trailed by the other, until it was out of sight on the road that led to Scotland. Some of the convoy would stay with the healer, she imagined, and there would be room enough for them in the harsh thinly populated highlands, but would they be able to survive there? Sending a wish after them, she went back into the hospital.

Roger was in another wing, having his cast removed. He would be expecting her to drive back to London once he was free, but she couldn't when the closeness of Redfield reminded her that nothing had changed, that the year wasn't over. A surge of the nervous energy that had kept her ------------------------------------305 driving hustled her to the nearest pay phone, her hands digging change out of her purse.

The receptionist sounded efficiently warm as ever. "Staff o' Life?"

"I need to speak to Lord Redfield. Not the press office, not his secretary. Lord Redfield himself."

"I'm afraid he's accepting no calls."

The swiftness of the answer told Sandy that it wasn't just a standard response. "Tell him Sandy Allan wants to speak to him. Tell him I saw what happened this morning at Toonderfield. I saw exactly what happened, and he needs to know."

She felt uncomfortably like a blackmailer--indeed, one who was contradicting what she had told the police--but what else could she do? If she wasn't able to speak to him over the phone she would have to venture back to Redfield. All she wanted at this point was to arrange to meet him somewhere beyond the boundaries of his land, but the receptionist said, "I'm sorry, Lord Redfield is in conference."

That was a stock response if Sandy had ever heard one. "What do you mean, in conference?"

"He's left instructions that he's not to be disturbed."

"He's going to have to be. He'll want to know how a man came to be killed on his land."

"Miss Allan, I'm not authorized--was "Didn't you know that had happened this morning? He'll want to speak to me, I promise you. And no, I haven't got the number of his private line. If you'd seen what I saw earlier I think even you might be a bit disorganized."

After a pause the receptionist said "Please hold on" discouragingly, and made way for the Staff o' Life jingle. There should be children singing it, Sandy thought, not the sterile tones of a synthesizer. She leaned her forehead against the inside of the sketchy booth, and felt exhaustion lowering itself onto her shoulders. She blinked her eyes hard and ------------------------------------306 stretched them wide several times, and then she was jarred awake. The second repet.i.tion of the jingle had been cut short, leaving her mind to sing "mark it" where the jingle would have reached that phrase, and Lord Redfield broke the hollow silence. "Well, Miss Allan."

Either she was hearing what she wanted to hear or he wasn't as calm as he was trying to sound: his voice was a little too precise and high. "I was at Toonderfield this morning," she said.

"Many people were."

"Yes, but one of them died, even though I got him to hospital. He died of being injured on your land."

A sound like a shudder in the earpiece made her take the receiver away from her face, and she heard the last of that sigh in his voice. "I was afraid of something of the kind after what I saw myself."

Rage, the more uncontrollable because she felt it was to some extent unreasonable, shook her voice. "You were there and yet you didn't do anything? I didn't see you."

"I wasn't there. My grandfather was. Perhaps you saw him."

"If he was, why didn't he--was she demanded, and then what he was implying caught up with her. The heat and noises of the hospital seemed to retreat, leaving her alone and cold and yet closer to him, united in understanding. At last she said, "How do you know?"

"I heard him coming back and I followed him down. I take it the victim put up a fight."

"He tried to."

"He broke my grandfather's leg, if I can call that my grandfather. I must, of course, since I am to be allowed no illusions. It nearly hid from me in its lair but wasn't quite swift enough. I wonder if you have the least idea what I'm talking about, not that it matters."

"I'm afraid I have."

"You have? You must have had sharp eyes while you ------------------------------------307 were here. I wish you had tried to convince me of what I should have known. Once when I was very young and my grandfather was very old he told me the story his grandfather told him, but even he thought he was too modern to believe in that sort of thing. G.o.d help him, he must now. I quite see that was really just a way of letting ourselves take it for granted. The man you mentioned didn't die on our land, you say?"

Sandy felt Redfield was only intermittently remembering that he was talking to her rather than to himself. "That's right."

"Ah well," he said in what might have been regret or resignation, and then his voice strengthened briefly. "I'm glad to have had another chance to speak to you. If you should find your film, please show it. There will be n.o.body here to object."

"I don't--was Sandy began, and was talking to the dial tone. The last of her change clattered into the slot to be retrieved. She was suddenly anxious for him, all the more so when she realized she had insufficient change to place another call. She ran to the hospital shop, bought a Daily Daily Friend Friend and left it on the counter, dashed back to the phone, praying that it wouldn't be in use. n.o.body had ousted her. As soon as the receptionist said "Staff--was Sandy interrupted her. "I was talking to Lord Redfield. Sandy Allan. We were cutoff." and left it on the counter, dashed back to the phone, praying that it wouldn't be in use. n.o.body had ousted her. As soon as the receptionist said "Staff--was Sandy interrupted her. "I was talking to Lord Redfield. Sandy Allan. We were cutoff."

"Lord Redfield asks me to apologize, Miss Allan, but I'm not to accept any further calls from you."

"Wait, don't cut me off, just listen," Sandy cried, but the phone was buzzing emptily. She grabbed her change as it came rattling back, and ran to find Roger. He was hobbling across a lawn beside the car park, wearing someone else's old trousers and trying out his rediscovered leg. "Is that your top speed?" Sandy panted.

"Let's say you shouldn't enter me in any marathons this month." ------------------------------------308 "Head for the car. I'll meet you." She sprinted to it, grimaced at how low the fuel level was, drove around two ranks of cars and pulled up beside him, narrowly missing him with the door as she opened it. "Be as quick as you can that isn't painful."

He snapped his seat belt into place and stretched his legs luxuriously. "Want to tell me what the hurry is? I've missed you too, a whole lot."

"We'll celebrate, but not just yet. Roger, I hope you won't give me a hard time about this, but I've got to go back toRedfield."

He stared at her and gripped her knee. "I don't know what happened there today, I don't know what I saw, but I really don't think you should do this. You've already done more than many people would."

"Not people I'd want to know. Roger, I've just spoken to Lord Redfield. I think he's planning to harm himself when there may be no need. He's made sure my calls won't get through."

He held on to her and then patted her knee as if to indicate he'd done all he could to dissuade her. "Looks like you need to find a filling station fast," he said.

She'd pa.s.sed one as she drove the van to the hospital. She willed it to appear on the horizon ahead as the car raced back across the flat land under the declining sun. It came in sight just as the engine ran dry and died, leaving her feeling for an unpleasant moment that control of the vehicle had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away from her. She ran the car onto the verge and tugged the boot release, and Roger swung himself out of the car and lifted the plastic canteen from the boot. "This what you need?"

"It's all I've got. I never thought I'd have to use it."

As she locked the car, he was already running. Before long he began to limp, and she caught up with him. "Maybe--was he said apologetically, and she stopped his mouth with a quick kiss and grabbed the canteen as if they ------------------------------------309 were running a relay race. She ran to the pumps--twenty minutes of the canteen thumping her on one side, her handbag on the other--and had to pay before the slow proprietor would let her fill the canteen. Running back to the car, through the flat landscape which seemed designed expressly to display how far she had still to go, took her almost half an hour. She fell into the driver's seat, a st.i.tch nagging at her side, and managed to catch her breath while Roger emptied the canteen into the tank, and then she drove to the pumps to fill the tank.

The car sped away from the forecourt, and Roger let out a sigh so loud it sounded as if he were emitting it on her behalf, to save her breath. After that he was silent for a while, but she sensed that he wanted to speak. At last he said, "Did you pick up the movie?"

"Yes, but I haven't got it now."

"I noticed. It's safe, though," he said, not so much a query as a plea.

"It isn't, Roger. It no longer exists."

He seemed to have half expected her answer. "I guess you had to let that happen," he said.

"It was either me or the film."

"In that case there's no contest." Some time later he said, so gently and casually that she wanted to hug him, "Did you watch the movie? Was it any good?"

"In parts."

"Maybe you can describe it to me sometime so I can write it up for my book."

"I will," she promised. There seemed to be no need to say anything further, now that they'd agreed they had a future. The car raced across the flatness, and they were in sight of Toonderfield before Roger spoke again. "What's that?"

He might mean the distant wail of sirens or the smudge of black smoke on the horizon toward Redfield. Sandy braked as the car reached the edge of the copse, and tried to ------------------------------------310 a.n.a.lyze her sensations. She didn't feel threatened or seized by her guts. All the same, she closed her window tight and told Roger to close his before she drove beneath the trees.

She could see nothing between the trunks except green dimness and shadows. The drive through the wood seemed considerably briefer than last time. The car sped toward the Ear of Wheat, and before she reached the pub she could see that the smoke came from a building on fire. From the direction of the smoke she judged that the building was beyond the town.