by Frances
Pam looked at her feet. Abercrombie and Fitch had called them shoes; called them walking shoes. It was true that Madison Avenue was very far away.
“How far is it?” Bill asked.
“Two-three miles,” Perkins said. “You drive up the road a piece and there’s a place you can pull off, if you don’t miss it. On the right-hand side. That’s where the path starts. About a mile up the hill, the shack is. Lady’ll never make it. Not in those shoes.”
“The lady’ll make it, Mr. Perkins,” Pam said. “She’ll—Wait. Haven’t you got shoes for sale?”
“Reckon,” Perkins said. “Sneakers.” He looked at her feet. “Boy’s size, maybe,” he said, and turned away, and went to the far end of the big room and began to rummage. After some time he came back, carrying a pair of dusty tennis shoes. He said, “Smallest I’ve got,” and handed them to Pam. Pam sat on a box, which seemed to be the only thing to sit on, and put the shoes on. Her feet slid around in the shoes. Still—
She nodded to Jerry, who got out money.
“Two-three miles,” Perkins said again, being asked again. “Room to pull off—only place along there there is. Path goes straight up outa there. Can’t miss it, hardly.”
They went toward the door and Perkins watched them. Pam’s city feet slapped in too large shoes. She carried what she, together with Abercrombie and Fitch, had previously regarded as walking shoes. When they went out on the porch, thunder rolled in the hills. But Pam said, “For goodness’ sake! Look!” and pointed upward.
Clouds hurried across the sky. But it seemed, rather, as if a full moon rode through the sky, picking its white and brilliant path among dark clouds.
Perkins came to the door and stood looking out at them.
“Could be,” he said, “you’ll get stuck down there. Lot uh rain last few days. Want to watch it.”
“We’ll watch it,” Bill promised him, and this time he got behind the wheel. He drove very slowly on the narrow road, which here ran straight, and downhill. They crept along, and Jerry held a flashlight ready. But when the moon escaped from the clouds, it paled even the car headlights.
They had gone only half a mile or so when, from ahead and, it seemed, above them there was the sharp crack of a shot. In a second there was another, and then, rapidly, two more.
“For heaven’s sake,” Pam said. “Feudin’?”
“More likely hunting,” Jerry said. “Don’t they hunt coons at night?”
Bill Weigand did not give a theory. But he drove faster on the narrow, slippery road. Then, after they had gone a little more than three miles from the general store, he checked speed suddenly, and the car tried to skid, and was caught out of it.
The car lights picked up the dark shape of another car, parked off the road, on the right.
The car was motionless, unlighted.
Very cautiously, Bill nosed the police car up behind it. There was not quite room to get the police car off the road before its bumper nosed into the rear bumper of the empty car. Bill gave a little more gas, trying to push in, but the wheels spun. He cut the motor.
“End of the line,” he said. “I suppose this is the—”
There was the sound of another shot. It came, now, from above them.
“Sit tight,” Bill said, and didn’t himself, but went out quickly to the road. “Come this way,” he told them, and Pam, and Jerry after her, slid under the wheel and joined him on the road, with the car between them and the steep rise of a hill which climbed from the roadway.
The moon came out full, then, and bathed the hillside. In front of the car which had been parked there was a break in undergrowth—a narrow break, in the moonlight only a shadow.
“The path,” Pam said and started toward it and said, “Damn!” and stopped, perilously, on one foot. “Shoe came off,” she said, and reached for Jerry to steady herself while, with toes, she fished in mud for a tennis shoe. She found it and wriggled foot into it. “All right now,” she said, “I guess,” and put both feet on the ground and began to shuffle forward. But then Bill Weigand said, in a low, sharp voice, “Wait, Pam!”
She turned toward him.
“Listen,” he said, and now in a whisper.
They listened. There was the sound of movement—hurried movement. It came from up the path—up the steep side of the hill. Someone scrambled on the path, and the sound came closer.
Bill Weigand got a revolver out of a shoulder holster and the barrel was bright in the moonlight. He moved forward, beyond the car which had stopped them, until, with gun ready, he faced the path. Pam and Jerry started after him, and Bill jerked his head quickly in negation, and they stopped, screened by the two cars.
The scrambling sound came down toward them. And the scrambler came in sight—lunging down the path, as if running down the path. He was a big man in the moonlight. He grabbed at branches, at shrubs, steadying himself, and came fast.
They saw Bill hold his revolver ready, then saw him lower it.
Byron Kingsley lunged the last few feet down the path, and leaped a ditch and stood in front of Bill Weigand, his breath coming fast.
“Good,” he said. “Hoped it was you. Saw the lights from up there.”
He waved back up the hillside.
“He’s gone—” Kingsley began, and then Pam and Jerry moved up from behind the cars which had obscured them. Kingsley stared at them for an instant.
“My God,” he said. “You here, Mr. North? And you, ma’am?”
“Yes,” Jerry said. “That’s right, Kingsley.”
His voice grated in his own ears. That was fine with him. He felt like grating.
Kingsley looked at him, and seemed surprised. But after an instant he turned back to Weigand.
“Looks like you’re going to need that, “he said, and looked at the gun Bill held. “He’s gone—he’s gone crazy. Starts shooting when he sees anybody. Doesn’t matter who he sees, I guess.”
“We heard shots,” Bill said, and his voice was quiet. “Was he shooting at you?”
“Rifle,” Kingsley said. “I tell you, he’s gone crazy. All I wanted was—to help him, I guess. Let him—” He broke off. “I guess it doesn’t matter much now, does it? Guess nobody can help him.”
“You’re talking about Cunningham,” Bill said, without enquiry in his voice.
“Sure,” Kingsley said. He talked now in a low voice, as Bill Weigand had. “Followed him out here to—” Again he stopped. “Well,” he said, “he’s a friend of mine. Wanted to give him a chance to—” Once more he stopped, and shook his handsome head. His tawny hair was bright in the moonlight.
“Followed him out here?” Bill said. “From New York?”
“Yes,” Kingsley said. “What are we going to do? I tell you, he’s gone crazy. Shooting that damn rifle every time—well, every time anything moves, I guess.”
Bill nodded his head. He said, “How did you know he had come out here, Mr. Kingsley?”
Kingsley made an impatient movement—a movement which said that this was no time for that. But Bill waited; obviously waited. He seemed now entirely unhurried.
“Saw him,” Kingsley said. “At the airport. I was going south for a couple of days with some friends. Saw him getting on a plane. Checked and found the plane went to Little Rock. Wasn’t any doubt this time it was Carl. That was yesterday morning.”
“Right,” Bill said. “And you followed him?”
“Listen,” Kingsley said. “Sure I did. Took the afternoon plane. Give him a chance to—” He stopped and shook his head again.
“Because,” Bill said, “you thought he’d killed Miss Towne? And her husband?”
“All right,” Kingsley said. “Why are you here, sir?”
“Right,” Bill Weigand said. “Did you just get here, Mr. Kingsley?”
He hadn’t, Kingsley said, and there was impatience in his voice—impatience at wasted time. “We stand here talking?” he asked and Bill Weigand shook his head, and said not for long. And waited.
&nb
sp; Kingsley had, he said, stayed overnight at Little Rock. Come up that morning. Climbed up to the cabin and found nobody there and waited around a while and driven into Harrison for lunch and come back. It had been raining hard—“hell of a storm in Harrison”—when he got back to the foot of the hill, and he had waited in the car until the rain let up and then climbed the path. It had been just dusk. He had seen Cunningham in front of the cabin. Cunningham was carrying a rifle. He had shouted at him—shouted, “Hey, Carl!” Cunningham had turned around and looked, Kingsley said, for the source of the shout, and then Kingsley had shouted his name.
“He yelled, ‘Go away!’” Kingsley told them. “And shook the gun. I tried to argue with him, but he went into the cabin. I could just make him out inside, by the window, with that damn gun. Sorry, ma’am.”
Kingsley had, he said, decided to wait until it was fully dark. “I don’t,” he said, “know just what I planned. Except I wanted to—to make him see that this wasn’t getting him anywhere. Hell—Carl’s damn near—damn near like a daddy to me.”
It had started to rain again, and Kingsley waited in the rain, hidden in the trees. Then the rain stopped and the moon showed through and he had moved—and then Cunningham had started shooting at him. He had dodged behind trees and then, looking down toward the road—a mile from him, hundreds of feet below him—he had seen the lights of a car moving along the road. He had thought he would get down to it and stop it and try to get help, and had run for the path, and then Cunningham had fired again, several times. And missed, but once not by much.
“We’ve got to get him somehow,” Kingsley said. “We can’t just stand here talking.”
“No,” Bill Weigand said, and to Pam it seemed that there was uncertainty in his tone—an uncertainty she had never heard in his voice before. “Have you any plan, Mr. Kingsley?”
And that, too, was unlike Bill, Pam thought—very unlike Bill Weigand, who does not pass the buck. Or, who never had before.
“I don’t—” Kingsley began, and then snapped his fingers. “There’s another path,” he said. “Goes around the hill, sort of. Easier, but a good deal longer. Comes out more or less behind the cabin. If I went that way and you gave me a start—ten minutes maybe—and then came up I could—well distract him.”
“You’ve got a gun?” Weigand asked. “A revolver?”
Kingsley shook his head. But he could—oh, yell at Cunningham from the far side of the cabin. Show himself—get Cunningham to that side. Then Weigand, timing himself by the shout, would have a chance to rush the—“the poor crazy old guy.” Would that work?
“It might,” Bill said. “All right, Kingsley.”
“Mrs. North had better stay here,” Kingsley said. “No sense in her—”
“No,” Pam said. “Here alone? Miles from anywhere? And with a crazy man running loose? Suppose he gets past you and comes down here to get the car and—no. I don’t stay here.”
“Then,” Kingsley said, “come with me. It’s an easy path, as they go around here.”
“Well—” Pam said, and looked at the path which wasn’t easier. It appeared to go straight up. “Well—”
“No,” Bill said. “Mrs. North had better stay with us. You go ahead, Kingsley. Ten minutes?”
“About,” Kingsley said. “Make it fifteen. O.K.?”
“Right,” Bill said. “Be careful.”
Kingsley went. He went straight up the straight-up path, but only for fifty feet or so, and they could watch him in the moonlight, which now was clear, unwavering. Then he went off, toward the right.
“Bill!” Pam said. “You—you let him. By himself, without a gun. Go to be—be shot at! How—” She stopped and shook her head.
Bill Weigand turned to her. The moonlight was full on his face and he smiled slightly. A—a conciliating smile? Why, Pam thought—Bill Weigand. After all these years.
“I imagine,” Bill said, “that Mr. Kingsley will make out all right. Cunningham doesn’t seem to be much of a shot.”
“Then why—” Pam began and thought, What’s the use, and then, It’s dreadful to find this out about Bill. I can’t believe—She looked away from Bill Weigand. She looked at Jerry, and Jerry was looking at Bill, and the expression on Jerry’s face was one she could not quite fathom, although she had supposed that no expression on Jerry’s face would ever baffle her.
They waited, and Pam felt very much alone. It seemed that they waited much longer than fifteen minutes, but finally Bill said, “Right,” and started toward the path, his gun ready. At least, Pam thought, he goes first, even if he’s—if he’s—She would not, even in her mind, use the word. Not after so many years.
Pam went next, with Jerry behind. “To push,” she explained. At least, that would be all right for the start. Later, if Jerry wanted to be brave and get in front of her. But, just now, pushing was more important.
It proved to be, as they climbed the path—which was in some places not a path at all, but only a place to scramble. Jerry pushed a good deal, and Pam kept losing the tennis shoes and finding them again. But Bill stopped each time and waited, and seemed in no hurry—seemed, on the other hand, almost reluctant, and very cautious and kept his revolver ready in his right hand, although its presence impeded him. It was a path which needed hands free, to pull with. It was a path which, at its worst, was only the suggestion of a path. And grass and dirt were wet under foot.
They could not see, at any moment, more than a few feet ahead, and after fifteen minutes it seemed to Pam that they had been climbing the hillside for hours. After another ten, she quit thinking about anything—anything except the next toiling, impossible, step. She should have taken the easier path with Byron Kingsley. Why had Bill then (and at no other time) shown firmness? She might better have stayed in the car. She might, come to that, better have stayed in New York. Then her muscles would not be wrenched so, nor her mind so wrenched—so pained—by what Bill Weigand had revealed about himself.
There was the sharp crack of a shot and, at what seemed the same instant, an angry whining sound above them. With almost no interval, there was a second brittle crack, and another whining.
“Down,” Bill said, without turning, and Pam dropped to her knees, hugged against the rising earth. She could feel, without seeing, that Jerry went down behind her. But Bill stood, with his gun lifted, and only moved a little to one side, just off the path, behind a tree. They waited. Then Bill fired, Pam thought into the air. Almost instantly the rifle above them cracked again.
“All right,” Bill said. “Come on,” and started to walk on up the path. It seemed that the sound of the shots had given him cause to hurry toward them. As if the shots summoned him.
Abruptly, after a last lunge upward, the path opened out into a clearing. There was a small cabin in the clearing, hemmed by trees. It was the top of the hill; there was no more hill.
The cabin was dark in the moonlight, and there was no one in sight. But then, from behind it, the rifle cracked again, and again twice.
They had heard no shout—something had gone wrong there. But Kingsley had done what he promised. That was clear. He had come up behind the cabin, was making himself a target for the man inside the cabin—the “crazy” man who was shooting at anything that moved.
Bill ran then—ran across the clearing toward the cabin, the moon glinting on the revolver he held ready, but did not fire.
As he ran, someone shouted from behind the cabin. The words came clearly—
“Carl! No—watch it, man! Watch it!” There was the sound of someone running. And then, in a kind of wail, “Oh—my God. My God!”
And there was silence, then, except for the sound of Bill Weigand’s running. It seemed that he was running on a treadmill—but the treadmill was the treadmill of time. Pam ran after him, then, and Jerry beside her, holding her. She lost both shoes and ran in stockinged feet on rough stubble, and did not feel the stubble.
They followed Bill around the cabin. Bill ran toward a tall man standing
at the other side of the clearing—standing looking down, his big body slumped, his hands dangling.
Bill stopped beside him—stopped with a curiously abrupt movement and stood, also, looking down at something.
Pam and Jerry slowed, joined the other two.
They were looking down the side of a cliff—looking down to where, fifty feet below, a river dashed turbulently, dark and angry under the white light of the moon.
“I tried to stop him,” Kingsley said. “He—he rushed at me. Fired a couple of times and then rushed. I guess he must have run out of cartridges. He—I dodged and he just—just went on. I yelled at him. You heard me yell at him?”
“Yes,” Bill said. “We heard you.”
“He just—ran over the edge. Didn’t—didn’t even scream. You’d have thought he’d have screamed when he began to fall. Wouldn’t you have thought that?”
“Yes,” Bill said. “I’d have thought that.”
“God knows,” Kingsley said. “He’d never have a chance in that.” He pointed down at the swollen, racing river. “Chances are we’ll never even—find him.”
“Oh,” Bill said, “I think we’ll find his body, Mr. Kingsley. Wherever you buried him. Three years ago, wasn’t it? And probably—”
Byron Kingsley’s hand shot toward his right hip. But he was not quick enough. Standing very close, Bill Weigand slapped the barrel of his revolver against the side of the big man’s jaw. Kingsley went down.
Bill knelt beside him for a moment, and then stood up.
“Good,” he said, as if to himself. “Didn’t even break his jaw.” He looked at Pam and Jerry, and Pam’s eyes were wide with shock, with surprise.
“Of course,” Bill said, “Cunningham’s been dead for years. He’ll be a skeleton by now—a long skeleton, I’d think. Jerry. You know how to call on the police radio?”
Jerry nodded. His eyes, too, showed shocked surprise.
“Then,” Bill said, “do you mind sliding down and calling our friends? Because this”—he indicated the unconscious Byron Kingsley, Jerry North’s beautiful author—“is a bit too heavy for the three of us to carry down.”