Go Home, Stranger

by Charles Williams

  The country was changing now. They were running out of the timber into a flat marshland covered with cattails and high grass and crisscrossed with canals. He saw her lights swing sharply in a right-angled turn, and they were running directly into the fading afterglow of the sunset. It was a forbidding landscape. The dark plain swept away toward the horizon to the south and west as far as the eye could reach, the monotonous marsh growth shadowy and inhospitable in the gathering night. No habitation was visible anywhere, nothing but the road running ahead.

  The warning began to sound suddenly in his mind. If this was actually where her caller had told her to come, it was beginning to smell.

  He thought swiftly. He could speed up and pass her, force her to stop. Maybe he could talk her out of it. But, hell, he thought angrily, that would ruin everything. He’s down here somewhere, and if I make her turn back I may never find him or get another chance. I’m not her mother; she’s old enough to know what she’s doing.

  It was no good, and he knew it. He couldn’t let her do it. He cursed, flipped on the headlights, and hit the throttle. Then he saw the lights ahead of him swing sharp left as the road turned south again, deeper into the vast solitude.

  The walls of grass flew back toward him and disappeared into the darkness behind. Wooden bridge boards clattered. He reached the turn, and when he was around it, skidding and throwing shell, he saw she was farther ahead. He swore again. She had seen his lights come on, and she was trying to run away from him. He ground on the throttle again. And then he saw it happen. It was sickening.

  Her headlights slued crazily and then swung, tilted against the sky, as the car went out of control, skidded, and went over. For one terrible part of a second they were at right angles to the road, shattering light against the wall of grass, then they disappeared as if the car had been swallowed, instantly and entirely, by some huge monster of the swamp. There was no sound at all, not yet; nothing but the awful evidence of the lights and then the end of them, as he hit the brakes with pure reflex and began fighting his speed down just inside the margin of control. There was no time to wonder what had happened, until the sound did reach him, and then he knew. In the second before he heard the crash, he heard the other thing. It was a gun.

  His car was skidding now. The rear wheels were yawing toward the ditch. He eased the brake and fought it back onto the crown of the road, and when he straightened out again he was almost on the spot. There was no Cadillac in his lights. He could see the road, and it wasn’t there. There was a canal, and a wooden bridge with one railing, and that was all he saw before he slashed down with one hand at the light switch, set the hand brake, and was out and running even before the car had shuddered to a stop.

  Darkness swallowed him. He ran bent over to keep from silhouetting himself against the sky, and he could see nothing except the faintly luminous shell of the road. Then he felt the bridge flooring under his feet, and stopped. There was dead silence now except the pounding of his heart and the suck and slap of water as the wave the Cadillac had set up died away in the pads and grass farther along the bank of the canal. It was the left-hand railing that had been ripped off, and even as he jumped he could make out the dark shape of something that could be part of the car sticking out of the water.

  The water came up to his shoulders, and he could feel mud suck at his feet as he threshed his way forward, groping for the car. It couldn’t make any difference, he thought bitterly; she’s dead anyway. Then his hand hit something. It was a tire. He raised his head and could make out all four of them, just sticking above the surface. The car was lying on its top. He went under, groping frenziedly along the side. His arm brushed broken glass, and he felt the pain of a bad cut. The door handle had to be just above that glass somewhere. Then he felt it. He pulled. It was jammed.

  The other door, he thought furiously. God, how long had it been now? As he floundered around the end of the car and down on the other side, some part of his mind was still trying to guess what the man with the gun was doing. Where was he now?

  The water was deeper here. He took a quick breath and went under. It took only a second to locate the door handle. He unlatched it and pulled, feeling the terrible need to hurry run through him like physical pain. It was stuck. He set his feet against the side and heaved, fighting it. The door moved a scant inch and stopped. He pulled himself down to his knees and felt along the doorframe, and then he knew what it was. The top of the car had settled so far into the mud that the only way the door could be opened would be to dig enough of the muck from in front of it to allow it to swing. And long before he could do that she would be dead, if she weren’t already.

  Then he felt a surge of hope. The window was rolled down. There was opening enough for him to slide through by keeping his stomach flat against the mud. He was pulling himself down when he felt the car shift a little and settle again. He fought down the whisperings of panic. Was it worth it, for a woman who was probably already dead? If the car rolled now, or sank a little deeper into the mud, he’d never get out.

  Then, for the first time, he became conscious of the sound. It was a spasmodic thumping somewhere inside, a sound that could be made by the unconscious and futile threshings of someone drowning. There was no help for it. He had to try.

  He was halfway in now. For the first time he realized he should have returned to the surface for another breath before attempting it. How long had he been under now? Twenty seconds? Thirty? His lungs were beginning to hurt. Soft mud sucked at him while the window frame brushed ominously against his back. He felt the car slip again. He threw his arms about wildly, felt his hand touch something, and grabbed.

  It was an arm. He slid his hands along it and caught her shoulders. She was struggling weakly, and one of her hands fastened itself in his clothing. He began inching backward, pulling her down toward the window. The car shuddered and settled another fraction of an inch and he fought back panic. His lungs were tortured; he had only a few seconds more. Then he was outside, pulling her body through the window. He put his feet against the muddy bottom of the canal and pushed upward, still holding her by the shoulders. Their heads came clear of the surface with a little swirling and splashing of water, and almost instantly the night erupted with the wicked crash of the gun.

  He felt rather, than heard the impact as lead slammed into the water a few feet off to his left. It was too dark now to see anything at all; the man was shooting at the noise they had made in surfacing. Standing perfectly still, up to his chin in water, Reno heard the metallic clack, clack as he operated the bolt and knew the man was shooting a rifle. The gun crashed again and lead ricocheted off the surface of the water to go screaming into the night. Reno sucked in a deep breath and was just going under when a brilliant shaft of light suddenly burst out across the surface of the canal.

  His mind was clear now, and he was full of a cold and terrible rage. He was down on the mud at the bottom of the canal, against the side of the car, holding the inert figure of the woman in his left arm. She had ceased struggling, and every passing second robbed her of a little more of her dwindling chance for life. He had to get her out of there within a minute or two and start applying artificial respiration to save her, even if she hadn’t been hit by that first shot that had made her lose control of the car. Aside from the natural desire to save her if he could, he knew now that Conway was somehow the answer to the whole question and that if she died he might never know what it was. His only lead would be gone forever.

  He coldly assayed their chances as he pulled his way around the end of the car. The man probably hadn’t seen them. The first stab of light had hit a little farther up the canal and had started sweeping toward them just as he went under. Could he make it to the bridge before he had to surface? He was around the car now, kicking along the bottom. But which way was the bridge? When he lost contact with the car all sense of direction was gone.

  His lungs were beginning to sting again. Any second now he had to come up. Then he felt grass stems ra
king along his face, and the slimy stems of pads. If the light’s over here, he thought, we’re dead. He’ll see them moving. The bottom shelved upward against his shoulder, and he felt his face break out into the air. He was against one of the banks of the canal.

  He opened his eyes, and through the tangled screen of grass about his face he could see the light. It was playing steadily on the upturned running gear of the car, and it was coming from this same side of the canal. The man was standing some fifteen yards away in the tall reeds along the bank.

  Reno lay on his left side, completely submerged except for the upper part of his face, with Mrs. Conway in his arms in front of him. He wondered desperately if there was still any hope.

  Moving with infinite caution, so as not to disturb the surface of the water, he slid a hand upward and touched the fingers against her throat. He could feel the pulse. It was pitifully weak and faltering, but her heart was beating. She was dying of oxygen starvation, but her life could still be saved. If only they could get out of the water! He stared at the light with an implacable hatred. He thought of Mac, and of Vickie, and of Mrs. Conway now, and wanted to stand up and charge straight into that beam of light and get his hands on the man who held it.

  Yeah, straight into the meat-chopper, he thought coldly, getting hold of himself. That flashlight was being held along the underside of a rifle barrel, and he would be dead before he could sit up. He jerked his eyes a little, without moving his head. The light was moving now. It swept slowly along the opposite bank of the canal, searching every inch of the vegetation. It went beyond, out of range of his eyes as he held his face rigidly still. It would be probing the dark recesses under the bridge behind them. Then it would come back, along this side.

  It was full on them. He was staring straight into the blinding intensity of it, not moving, not daring even to close his eyelids or breathe, his fingers still against the throat and the weakening pulse of the woman in his arm. It was all the staring eyes in the world suddenly concentrated into one, probing into him, literally burning him out of hiding. An age seemed to pass while he waited for the sound of the shot, knowing he would never hear it if it came. Then suddenly the light was gone.

  It jerked around and the rifle cracked, all at once. It was the car that drew it. Reno watched, fascinated. It was turning. The wheels swung up and over and the whole thing sank out of sight as it settled into the deeper water in the middle of the canal. Two or three big air bubbles came up and burst on the surface and a few drops of gasoline spread a sheen of expanding color. The light remained fixed for what seemed like an eternity as the man watched the surface. Reno heard him laugh softly.

  Then he was going away. He was pushing through the reeds and cattails, swinging the light ahead of him. Reno waited, fighting down the yearning to go after him. There’ll be another time, he thought coldly. He made himself lie still. In another minute he heard the sound of the man’s stepping into a boat and the popping roar of an outboard motor. He was headed away from them.

  Reno pushed himself up and rose unsteadily from the water, listening to the dying sound of the boat. This is one time, pal, he thought, when you should have checked your figures.

  Chapter Five

  HE NEVER DID KNOW how long he fought for her life there on the canal bank in the darkness. Water ran out of her clothes and mosquitoes buzzed about her face in ravenous swarms. He crouched astride her as she lay with her face slightly downhill and went on alternately pushing in against her ribs and letting them swell outward, hoping in an agony of suspense for some sign of life.

  It might have been three minutes, or it might have been twenty, before he felt her quiver and heard a shuddering intake of breath as she caught the rhythm of it and her lungs began functioning again. She retched, and was sick.

  In a moment she was able to sit up very weakly in his arms, and he picked her up and hurried back to the car. He put her in the front seat and climbed in behind the wheel. Their sodden clothing leaked onto the floor mat and the upholstery. He seesawed savagely back and forth across the road, turning around; then he was gunning the car in second gear to pick up speed back the way they had come. I don’t even know whether she’s been shot, he thought. But it wouldn’t do any good to waste time trying to find out. The thing to do was to get her to a doctor.

  He found one, in a combined office and residence, as they were coming into the outskirts of the city. Lifting her out, he carried her across the lawn and punched imperiously at the bell. Shoving past the startled physician, who had been interrupted at dinner, he put her down on the table in the consultation room.

  “Wreck,” he said shortly. “She went into a canal with her car.”

  She was trying to sit up now. “I’m all right,” she said shakily. She was very pale, and the dark hair was plastered wetly about her face.

  Reno gently shoved her back. “Take it easy,” he said. “You’ve had enough.” Then he looked down at the leaking ruin of his clothing and the cut on his arm, which was dripping onto the rug. “Which way’s the bathroom?”

  The reaction began to catch up with him and he was weak and trembling. It had been too long now since he had slept, and he was going on nerve alone. He took off his clothes and wrung the water out of them into the bathtub, and wrapped a towel around the cut on his arm. In a few minutes the doctor knocked on the door and handed him a terry-cloth robe and a small glass of whisky.

  “You can come out in a minute and I’ll fix that arm of yours,” he said. “You’re probably hurt worse than she is.”

  “How is she?” Reno asked, feeling the sudden release from tension. There’d been no gunshot wound.

  “A little weak. Some shock, of course. She had a bad blow on the head, but no concussion, apparently. She’ll be all right.”

  “Is she able to travel?”

  “Possibly, but I wouldn’t advise it. Does she have to? Tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Reno said laconically. “Tonight.”

  He downed the whisky with a gulp and went out into the front hall to the telephone. He called the railroad station, found there was a westbound train in a little over two hours, and tried to reserve a bedroom. There was none available, but he managed to get a roomette. Then he dialed the hotel.

  “Hello,” he said. “Mrs. Conway, in Room Twelve-o-six, has had an accident. Car went in the canal. And she has to catch a train in two hours. So listen. Make out her bill, send a boy up to get her luggage, and shoot him out here in a cab with it. Just a minute and I’ll give you the address.” He called in to the physician, and repeated it over the telephone. “And rush it, will you?”

  He went back into the office. She was sitting up with a sheet wrapped around her. Her face was deathly white and he could see she had been crying. The doctor took three stitches in his arm and bandaged it, and after Reno had explained about the clothes coming from the hotel, he went back into the dining room to finish his dinner.

  As soon as he was out the door she looked up and whispered shakily, “I’ll never be able to thank you.”

  The doctor had left some cigarettes on a table. Reno lit two of them and gave her one. “Forget it,” he said. “You’re just lucky he missed you with that rifle. But you’ve got to get out of this country. As soon as you can change clothes I’ll take you to the train. And get this: Don’t come back here. He still thinks he got us both, but he’ll know better as soon as they fish that car out.”

  Her eyes were sick with horror. “But why? Why?” she asked piteously. “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know.” Everything said it had to be Conway, but how could he tell her that her own husband had tried to murder her? Or did he need to? Wasn’t that what she was thinking herself?

  “If all your money was in your purse,” he went on, “I’ll lend you enough to get to San Francisco. You can mail it back.”

  She shook her head. “Thank you, but I have some traveler’s checks in one of my bags.”

  He swung around toward her. “Those reports of Mac’s. W
ere they in the car?”

  “No. They’re in one of the bags too.”

  “Well?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded. “It’s the least I can do.”

  The luggage came. She paid the hotel bill and the taxi and went into another room to dress. Reno put his damp clothes back on and paid the doctor. When she returned, smartly turned out again except for the wet hair, which she had covered with a scarf, Reno looked at the clock in the office and saw they still had an hour to catch the train.

  They went out and got in the car. He drove two or three blocks and pulled to a stop under a street light. She had the two envelopes in her lap.

  Wordlessly she handed him the first one. His big hands were awkward and shaking a little with excitement as he slid the papers out of the envelope.

  Dear Mrs. Conway:

  As you have no doubt gathered from my telegram, I have located Mr. Conway’s automobile. Notwithstanding your reluctance to appeal to the police, I went to them almost the first thing after checking in at the hotel, since—as I told you in San Francisco—I believe this could be serious enough to warrant it. And I think you will agree with me when I tell you that the automobile has been impounded by the Traffic Detail in their garage since the twenty-second of July, only two days after the date of Mr. Conway’s last letter. It was picked up at that time in a tow-away zone.

  In reference to my telegram, one of the first things I noticed about the car after picking it up was that there was an apparently newly installed trailer hitch on it. Since it might or might not be a significant lead, I wired you to learn whether it had been on there when the car left San Francisco. And since you say it was not, obviously Mr. Conway had it put on somewhere between there and here, which of course made it highly significant. Whatever he was towing when he arrived in this area might be still around somewhere, and if I could find out what kind of trailer it was I could give the police a description of it and get their assistance in running it down. With that idea in mind I started backtracking along the highway, stopping at all service stations to make inquiries. I kept at it until midnight and then on the following day, covering almost a hundred miles before I located a man who remembered the car. His general description of the driver checked closely with that of Mr. Conway. He also stated there was only one person in the car.