Liza Burack picked up the phone on the second ring. She had been answering telephones more eagerly this autumn now that she had come to believe in the possibility of good news. “Yes?”
“Liza!” the voice on the other end boomed out. “This is Bob Clawson!”
She had not seen him since the Rotarian picnic four years ago, but Liza remembered the high-school principal welclass="underline" the ample belly, the prissy three-piece suit he had worn, coat and all, all through that hot July day, fearful of betraying his dignity to the handful of high-school students who had shown up with their parents. “Good to hear your voice,” Liza said courteously. “Can I help you?”
“Actually, it was Creath I wanted to speak to.”
“Creath is putting in an extra hour at the ice plant.”
“Bull for work? Eh? Well, that’s good. That’s fine. I can call again another time.”
“May I tell him what this is about?” Liza was curious now, because Bob Clawson was town council, Bob Clawson was white collar, Bob Clawson didn’t phone up just anybody… and at that long-since picnic he had avoided the Buracks the way he might have avoided a rabid dog.
“Just a little group some of us are getting together,” Clawson said amiably. “I heard about your speech at the Women last week. Meat and potatoes Americanism, my wife tells me. Not enough of that going around these days.”
“Bad times,” Liza said automatically.
“Some of us are more than a little concerned.” Liza imagined who “some of us” might be: Bob Clawson knew every judge and lawyer and realtor in the county. “We wanted to get together, talk about doing something to protect the town. Thought Creath might be interested.”
She felt a small thrill run through her. Of course, their rehabilitation could not be complete so soon; Clawson must have some secondary reason for wanting Creath, some dirty work he wanted done. But it was a stepping stone. She thought, we are at least on probation.
“I’m sure Creath will be anxious to talk to you,” she said.
“Well, I appreciate that, Liza.”
“Yes.”
“Good talking to you. I’ll call back, then.”
“Yes.” She thought of asking for his number but decided against it: better not to appear too anxious. “Thank you,” she said.
She hung up the phone and leaned a moment on the dust mop, waiting for her heart to calm its aggravated beat.
Everything was happening so quickly!
The evening was naturally anxious. Creath absorbed the news without visible reaction—only smoked his cigars and played the big Atwater-Kent radio. But Liza could tell by the way he held the paper creased in thirds, not turning the pages, that it was on his mind.
The phone rang at half past eight. Creath waited for Liza to pick it up. Bob Clawson. She passed the receiver to her husband; he motioned her out of the parlor and pushed shut the door with his foot.
Liza lingered in the hallway. She was not eavesdropping. Her posture was erect, disdainful. Still, she thought, words have a way of slipping through doors.
Tonight, however, Creath’s tone was suppressed; the conversation went on a maddeningly long time, but all Liza heard was “yes” and “no” and … if she had made it out correctly… one other word.
By nine Creath was out of the parlor. He went directly to the kitchen and poured a drink of water from the tap. From the way the veins stood out on his face Liza guessed he would have preferred hard liquor. “What is it,” she said, “what?”
“Nothing much,” Creath said: but it was the same falsely casual tone in which he had customarily lied to her about Anna Blaise (a memory she quickly suppressed). “Just Bob Clawson getting together some bullshit—pardon me—some two-bit smoker. Bunch of men griping about the Red Menace. Harmless, I guess.” lie took a big swallow of water. “Guess I’ll go.”
Liza nodded dutifully. Secretly, however, she retained her suspicions. She did not think “two bit” would describe any organization Bob Clawson would ever bother to get involved with.
And as for “smoker”—well, that was possible. Anything was possible. But the word that had drifted through the parlor door had not sounded much like “smoker” or “two bit.”
The word Liza had heard was “vigilante.”
Later that evening Liza got a phone call of her own: Helena Baxter calling to let her know that the votes from the last meeting had been counted; that the results were not official, of course, until the announcement the following weekend, but—speaking strictly off the record—it looked like Liza had won a landslide victory.
Travis watched the switchman’s hut from the reedy bank of the Fresnel River, dusk gathering around him like the cupped palms of two huge black hands. He hadn’t eaten for two days—his money had run out and there had been nothing to scrounge at the hobo jungle—and voices circled like birds inside him.
He was not sure how he had come to this. He was dead broke, his clothes were torn and stiff with dirt, the only way he had of washing himself was to dip his body in the frigid river water. All this was foreign to him. Mama had always been scrupulously clean; she had kept their small house soaped and dusted and aired. The thought created in him a wave of nostalgia so physical it left him weak-kneed. And his traitorous memory chose that moment to echo back something Creath had said (it seemed like) a long time ago: Well, we all know where that path inclines, I guess.
Nancy and Anna had brought him to this, he thought. Broke, hungry, cold… and without the simple willpower necessary to hop a freight and put some miles in back of him. He knew what was happening in the town, he had not needed Nancy to tell him that; he had been down The Spur twice, spending the last of his pocket money on food, and on both occasions he had been paced out by the police. The jungle was overdue for a rousting—possibly, given the mood in Haute Montagne, a violent one. He should leave. There was nothing for him here.
But he gazed at the shack where Nancy was. Nancy and the Anna-thing.
Suppose, he thought, we do help her (posing the question aloud, though there was no one to hear him here in the tall grass)—suppose we do help her, well, what then? Where does that leave us?
Alone, he thought bitterly, broke, nowhere to go. No better off. Haute Montagne would never welcome back Travis or Nancy. Too many rules had been broken, too many borders transgressed. He shivered in his inadequate clothing and wondered if Nancy knew the kind of future she had devised for herself.
Maybe that was what was keeping him here, this remnant of what he had felt for her, this fear… but was it strong enough to draw him back inside that shack?
He thought of Anna: her moth-wing skin. Her eyes coldly blue in the darkness. His love. His fear.
He might have turned away then, might have been driven back by the terrible intensity of the vision, when he saw, far off, a figure advancing from the stand of elder trees down by the switching yards. The gait was familiar but the memory eluded him: Who could be coming here? Then the name fell into place—Greg Morrow—and with the name a tremor of fear.
Travis emitted a sort of moan and stood up, running forward without thinking about it. He intercepted Greg halfway to the switchman’s shack.
Greg looked at him warily but with an obvious contempt. Confronting him, Travis felt suddenly helpless, foolish: what could he say? “You don’t have any business here,” he managed.
It was inadequate, but Greg Morrow must not be allowed near the switchman’s shack. Obviously he had suspicions: that was bad enough; but if he knew the truth—