by Gene Wolfe
“Precisely. You saw him yourself, Mrs. Howard?”
“Only for a minute. No, it wasn’t really that long. For a second or two. But I couldn’t see him very well at att—it was too dark. Just a sort of outline in the dark. Do you know what I mean, doctor?”
“Perfectly,” von Madadh said. “Did he have a horse?”
“A horse?” Sally stared at him. “Why no. But he did have—I heard—”
Von Madadh waved a hand negligently. “Please excuse that. I’ve learned not to lead my patients, but it seems I’ve still to learn not to lead my witnesses. It was merely that some reports we’ve received describe him as a rider. Now I’ll hold my peace, and about time too, and let you describe exactly what it was you saw tonight.”
“Well, now,” Sally said slowly, “the man who called, he was from some paper in Chicago, had a name for it. A … a sasquatch, was that what he said? I’m not sure I know what it means.”
“A sasquatch? This is very interesting. Please go on.”
“It was a great big thing, that’s all. Like a man, but it must have been almost twice as tall. Its eyes were red. They glowed, you know how an animal’s do? And it smelled horrible, like something dead.”
Von Madadh nodded encouragingly. “Please continue.”
“That was all. I saw it, and then it was gone. The deputy shot at it—three times, I think. I suppose it must’ve been him who called the newspaper, or at least somebody in the sheriffs office.”
The telephone rang.
19
THE NUMBER YOU HAVE REACHED
LISA WAS still weeping when Shields and Ann pulled up. Shields shouted, “Bob! Hey, Bob!” and waved as he threw open the door of the Cherokee.
Roberts hurried across the muddy stableyard to shake hands. “By gosh, Mr. Shields, it’s good to see you again!”
He was still too old to be selling cars and his teeth were still false, but Shields found he was delighted to see Roberts, too. As he asked, “Are you all right, Bob?” he could not keep from grinning.
“I’m right as rain, Mr. Shields. Never felt better. Oh, a little tired, but I’m okay.”
Ann had thrown her arms around Lisa Solomon. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”
“Now Sissy’s gone.”
Tall and swarthy, the girl who had run from the barn looked from the two men to the two women. Lifting her hands to heaven, she uttered a prayer no one but herself understood. Something like a hornet (though much swifter) flew across the stableyard, followed instantly by a flat crack, the sound of a two-by-four breaking. The tall girl dropped her arms and looked stunned; a dark blotch appeared on her faded denim jacket, and spread.
Perhaps no one but Shields saw it. He lunged for her and caught her as she fell.
The hornet flew again. A second two-by-four snapped, and the windshield of the Cherokee exploded into frosty shards.
“Get down!” Shields yelled.
Ann and Lisa froze. Crouching, moving surprisingly fast, Roberts grabbed each by an arm and started for the lodge.
“Can you walk?” Shields asked the tall girl.
She tried to reply; but blood bubbled at her lips, drowning her words.
He got his arms beneath her and lifted, finding her flaccid body astonishingly light. Trying to bend, struggling to run, he scuttled after Roberts and the women.
Then the doorway was before him, and he had nearly cracked the tall girl’s head against the frame. At the last second, he turned sidewise and stumbled through. Roberts slammed the door behind him, and twisted the handle of a brass-plated night bolt.
They propped her up on the couch and staunched the bleeding with towels while Lisa tried to telephone the hospital. After a dozen rings, she hung up.
Ann asked, “Don’t they have an emergency number here? At home it’s nine eleven.”
“Not in Castleview,” Lisa muttered. “It’s too small.”
“Ours doesn’t work very well,” Ann told her, “but at least we’ve got one.” She was studying the wounded girl.
Her bloodless cheeks seemed gray—a dingy gray like the sky at the end of a bad day, Ann thought. Roberts had cut the denim jacket and torn away the faded work shirt beneath it; the lacy top of a brassiere, scarlet now with blood, showed above the towels. Dimly, Ann felt that the brassiere should have been discarded, too; but that the humiliation of naked breasts might in some way kill the wounded girl—though she would die anyway. A small gold crucifix lay upon her throat, a premature memorial.
Roberts asked, “How is she?”
“Breathing a little easier, I think,” Ann told him.
“That’s because we stopped the wound from sucking. Bullet nicked her right lung.”
Her wheezing exhalations measured out each silence like the laggard ticking of a grandfather clock.
Ann knelt beside the couch. “Shouldn’t she be down more? Flatter?”
Roberts shook his head. “She’d drown in her own blood.”
“Is she going to die?”
“She’s young. I think she’ll make it.”
Catching the lie in his voice, Ann said, “Can’t you get the hospital, Lisa?”
“I’ve dialed twice. Nobody answers.”
She was shaky, Ann thought, too shaky. She said, “Let me try. You read out the number for me.”
Gratefully, Lisa surrendered the telephone. “It’s three nine one. All the Castleview numbers are three nine one.”
Ann discovered that her own hands shook as she pressed the buttons. She tried to count the chirpings from the earpiece.
“Nine nine nine eight. Got it? Three nine one, nine nine nine eight.”
Ann wanted to shout shut up, be quiet, you’re confusing me. She bit down on her tongue instead, punching numbers valiantly.
Somewhere a telephone rang. Would they answer? Recalling how Wrangler had bled all over the back of the Buick—Another ring, and still no answer.
“Here,” Lisa whispered. She held out the white pages of a slender directory. “Do you want to look at it?”
“I’ve already entered the number.”
Another ring.
“If you have to do it again. Maybe it would be better if you could see it. Three nine one, nine nine eight.”
“That’s not enough—”
An answer in the middle of the ring: “Howard residence.”
“What? What did you say?”
“I said that this is the home of the Howard family. I’m Dr. von Madadh—Mrs. Howard’s engaged at the moment. For whom were you calling?”
Ann swallowed hard to keep herself from shouting. “You’re a doctor? A real medical doctor? We’ve called and called, but the hospital doesn’t answer, then I got you. Doctor, a woman’s been shot. We’re trying to give her first aid. What should we do?”
“You say there’s been an accidental shooting? Where is the wound?”
Lisa was beside Ann now, leaning close to hear. Ann said, “In her chest, just underneath her right breast. There’s a man here, doctor, who was in the Second World War—he was on Anzio Beachhead, he says, whatever that was. He says the bullet hit her in the back and went through. What should we do?”
The calm voice at the other end of the wire murmured, “It might be better if you told me first what you’ve already done.”
“She’s lying on the couch, propped up. The man says you’ve got to keep their heads up—he says the bullet went through her lung. We’ve got lots of towels around her. They’re all bloody, but I don’t think she’s bleeding much any more—except sometimes there’s blood in her mouth. She coughs up blood.”
“Touch her face. How does it feel?”
“I wiped it a minute ago, doctor. She’s perspiring, but her skin’s terribly cold.”
Shields came in and went to the couch to look at the wounded girl.
“Is she covered?”
“You mean with a sheet?” Ann thought of the grim canvases used to shroud corpses in a morgue.
“Covered with b
lankets—with anything.”
“No, but it’s warm in here.”
“Cover her, with blankets or coats or whatever you have. Your patient’s in shock. You’re in a home?”
“In a camp,” Ann told him. “We’re in the lodge at a camp.” Lisa was leaning closer than ever. Behind her, Ann could hear Shields and Roberts conferring in low tones. She said, “Meadow Grass—it’s a summer camp for girls.”
“If there’s an electric blanket, use it. Turn it to High. She must be kept warm. Other than that, I can’t help you. You need a surgeon, blood transfusions, and oxygen. You said you’d been calling the hospital. I suppose someone must have made the wrong connection at their switchboard, because the hospital just called us. Mrs. Howard’s son’s been in an accident; we’re going there now. Anyway, try them again and keep trying—try anyplace that might send an ambulance.”
“Don’t you know?” Ann asked.
“I’m from out of town. Keep your patient warm, and get her to a hospital as quickly as you can. I’ll tell them about this when I get there.” He hung up.
Ann passed the handset to Lisa, then snatched it back. “Go get the blankets, you know where they are and I don’t. He said to cover her up, keep her warm, understand? Oodles of blankets. Willie, how does it look?”
Shields shrugged. “I’ve checked all the doors and windows I can find. Most were locked already, but we can’t do more than patrol this place—it’s too big. If the sniper wants to get in, he’s going to get in.”
“It might have been an accident, Willie. Have you thought of that? It might have been somebody shooting at a rabbit or a tin can or something.”
“It might have been,” Shields admitted. “I don’t believe it was.”
“Well, I was talking to this doctor—” Ann pushed buttons on the handset. “And he said it might have been an accident.”
“You got the hospital?”
“No, I got a wrong number, but it was a doctor. He said we have to get her to the hospital right away, and to cover her up and keep her warm. Lisa’s getting blankets. He said he’d tell the hospital where we are, too.” (There was only silence in the earpiece.) “This time it didn’t go through,” Ann muttered. “Go away, Willie, you’re distracting me.”
He had already turned back to Roberts and the dying girl. “What do you think, Bob? Is he out there?”
Roberts shrugged.
“Why her?”
“Why not? Truly, Mr. Shields, I don’t believe it makes any difference to them.”
“You think it was the people who got you? So do I. Who were they, Bob?”
The old man shrugged. “Be darned if I know, really. Some were kids, or anyhow they looked like kids. But …”
“But what?”
“They weren’t all of them kids. But they were always sort of messing around, messing with this and that, and showing each other things. Know what I mean?”
“Certainly,” Shields told him.
“So if they had a gun and saw somebody standing out there, they might try a couple of shots. Or not.”
Ann was only half listening, the majority of her attention on the slow buzzings in the earpiece; now they were interrupted by a hushed voice: “Fouque’s Mortuary.”
“I’m sorry, I must have—no, wait! Do you have ambulance service? Sometimes you do, I know, around Chicago. Do you? Please!”
“Not any more, ma’am. The insurance got to be too much.”
“Could you—a woman’s dying. Could you call the hospital for me? I think there’s something wrong with this phone.”
Lisa returned with an armload of blankets.
“No, ma‘am. You’ll have to call them yourself, ma’am. The number’s three nine one, ninety-nine ninety-eight. Did you say the lady’s dying?”
“Yes!”
“All right, when she’s dead you have to get your doctor to sign the certificate, and then we’ll come and get her. We’ll be glad to.”
Ann hung up. Three nine one …
“It’s those damned lights on the barn,” Shields said. He might have been addressing the whole room or talking to himself. “Miss Solomon, where’s the switch to turn them off?”
She was spreading a gaudy Indian blanket over the wounded girl. “In the tack room, but he’ll be able to see you even if you go around back. There are lights all around the barn.”
“Maybe not,” Shields said. “There’s a rear entrance to the barn?”
She nodded. “It’s padlocked, but I have a key.”
Ann slammed down the handset, picking it up again at once. “Willie, you’re not going to go out there and get shot!”
He grinned at her. “I certainly hope not.”
“Hello,” a distant voice said in the earpiece. “Hello? Hello?”
“I’m here! Is this the hospital?”
Speaking mostly to Roberts and Lisa, Shields said, “He may be gone, whoever he was. If he’s not, our big problem is those lights.”
“No,” replied an elderly voice. “Heavens no, I’m not the hospital, dear. Did they find you already? This is Emily.”
“If I can switch them off, I’ll pull the car up as close to the door as I can,” Shields continued, “with the headlights off, of course. If he doesn’t start shooting, we can lay the girl on the back seat and make a run for the hospital.”
Ann pressed her hand against her ear. “Excuse me—they’re talking in here, and I couldn’t hear you. Who did you say you were?”
“Emily, dear. From the Red Stove Inn—you got my receipt for pear jelly?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”
“I called there because your husband got me to read him the number of it. And I knew your voice right off. Only I didn’t recollect him phoning till Alfred reminded me. Are you quieted down, dear? You sounded kind of upset there for a minute.”
“Yes, I am,” Ann lied. “I’m fine.”
“All right. I’m awfully glad I’m not the first one to give you the bad news. I only called you because the hospital’s been calling us about your daughter, trying to find you. I’m awfully sorry, dear, honestly I am.”
Ann looked around wildly for Shields, but he was gone. So was Lisa.
20
HIDE AND SEEK
SALLY INSISTED on paying when the cab let them out in front of the hospital. Von Madadh shrugged and acquiesced, scrutinizing with equal curiosity the modest brick building and the dimly lit street. “Rain has cleansed the air,” he muttered. “Old smells are gone, and none but the new remain: your perfume; that dirty car, which has left its traces on our clothing; and these trees, weary for their winter sleep.”
Sally told him, “I have to see if Seth’s—if he’s not hurt too much.” She had already turned away from the cab driver and was hurrying up the steps to the hospital.
“I did not intend to distract you,” von Madadh apologized, “and I’m as anxious about your son as you are yourself. But the physician who becomes emotionally involved—” he pulled open the hospital’s heavy glass door for her, “—does a disservice to his patient.”
The gray-haired woman at the reception desk proffered an official smile. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Seth Howard’s mother.” Sally gasped for breath. “And I came just as fast as I could—we had to call a taxi. Somebody phoned, and said … .” She found she could not complete what she had begun; no words came.
“Oh, yes. Mrs. Howard.” The receptionist looked properly concerned, as she had no doubt looked concerned many hundreds of times before. “That was me. At night, we’re supposed to. The paramedics go through their pockets and purses, you see, and if there’s any identification—sometimes there isn’t—they bring it in here to me, with the money and the other things.”
“I want to see him.”
“Of course you do. I’ll have to call the Trauma Center and have them send somebody to take you back there. It’s what we used to call our Emergency Ward.” The receptionist smiled and shook her head. “Makes us s
eem more up-to-date in Castleview to call it the Trauma Center, I suppose. Besides, most folks don’t know what it means. I think they think that helps.”
She had pushed numbers on her switchboard while she talked. Now she spoke into the tiny microphone held before her lips by a wire brace. “Trauma Center? Mrs. Howard’s here, can I send her back?”
She listened, then nodded. “Mrs. Howard, they’d like you to wait just a minute. It shouldn’t be long. They have injured coming in right now, so they’re rather busy.”
Sally gripped the edge of the desk. “Can’t you tell me how he is?”
“Oh, he’s fine. He’s been hurt, of course, but they don’t think he’s in any danger.”
Sally said, “He was playing football—it’s his senior year. He’s on the first team.”
The receptionist shook her head. “He should have been more careful about his driving. Of course it might not have been his fault. When one of them is a teen-age boy, you always think he caused the accident, but that’s not always true.”
Chimes sounded softly. The receptionist pushed a button, listened for a moment, and shrugged. “It’s been doing that all night,” she said. “The phone rings, but when I answer there’s nobody there. I suppose it’s a problem with the wires. Won’t you sit down? Those chairs are very comfortable, and there are magazines and things. It shouldn’t be long.”
Sally looked around. “Where’s the doctor?”
“The one treating your son? That’s Dr. de Falla. He’s still in the Trauma Center.”
“Dr. von Madadh,” Sally said. “He came in with me.”
Lisa caught up with Shields as he was about to slip out the rear door of the lodge. “Mr. Schindler! Wait, won’t you? For just a moment, please.”
He unbolted the door. “My name’s Shields, actually.”
“I wanted to remind you about Sissy. Do you remember her? Your wife met her.”
He nodded. “I talked to her when I called here. To some foreign girl, and then to Sissy. I suppose the foreign girl …” He jerked his head toward the lounge.
Lisa told him, “We have two, poor Sancha and Lucie. Lucie disappeared first—or anyway I thought she’d disappeared. She’d hidden in your wife’s car. Then Wrangler didn’t come back, and didn’t come back, and finally I went looking for him and Lucie, and found Mr. Roberts. I left him with Sissy and Sancha when I went out again, and Sissy went to check on the horses; she was like that.”