«It was after the second ticking incident that they left,» I said.
«Yes, apparently. The journal’s not entirely clear. The keeper of the journal was no great writer, you must understand. His syntax leaves much to be desired and his spelling takes a moderate amount of deciphering. But, yes, it seems they did light out after that second incident. The wonder is, frightened as they seemed to be, that they took the time to conceal the cave.»
The screen door banged and I turned around to see who it was. It was Neville. He stopped just inside the door and stood there, straight and calm, the way he always is, but a bit stiffer in his straightness, it seemed to me, than was usual.
«Dora,» he said to the woman behind the counter, «I wonder if you’d phone the sheriff for me.»
I got up from the chair. «The sheriff?» I asked. «What do you want the sheriff for?»
He didn’t answer me immediately. He spoke to Dora. «Tell him that Stefan, up at the Lodge, is dead. Killed by a bear, it seems. Just below the bridge this side of the Lodge. The one over Killdeer Creek.»
Humphrey was on his feet by this time. «Are you sure he’s dead?» he asked.
«Reasonably certain,» said Neville. «I didn’t touch him, of course. But his throat’s ripped out and it would seem his neck is broken. There are bear tracks all about. The slope down to the stream is muddy from the rains and the tracks are clearly seen.»
Dora was on the phone. Neville said to her, «I’m going back. I don’t think he should be left alone.»
«The bear won’t come back,» said Humphrey. «Granted, they are hungry. But if he didn’t eat him at the time …»
«Nevertheless,» said Neville, «I am going back. It’s not decent to leave him there any longer than is necessary. Andy, do you want to follow me?»
«Certainly,» I said.
Humphrey dealt himself in. «I’ll wait for the sheriff,» he said. «When he comes along, I’ll flag him down and ride along with him.»
Neville and I got back to the bridge half an hour or so before the sheriff and Humphrey showed up. We parked our cars and walked down below the bridge. And there, only a few yards from the creek, was Stefan.
«We better sit down up here,» said Neville. «There’s nothing we can do but watch. We don’t want to go tracking up the place. There’s not much doubt what happened, but the sheriff will want the area to be left undisturbed.»
We found adjacent boulders and sat down upon them. Neville glanced at the sky. It was clouding up again. «There goes my chance for pictures,» he said. «And those blooms only have another day or two to go. Besides …»
He said that «besides» and then he stopped. As if there were something he had been about to tell me and then decided not to. I didn’t question him.
Maybe one of the reasons we’ve been friends so long is that we do not question one another.
«There are some good trout in that pool just below the bridge,» I said. «One of these days I’m going after them. I picked up some new flies before I drove up. Maybe they’ll do the job.»
«I have to go back to the university,» said Neville. «Tonight, if I can. Tomorrow morning at the latest.»
I was surprised. «I thought you were staying for another week or two.»
«Something came up,» he said.
We sat and passed away the time with inconsequential talk until the sheriff arrived. As I looked at Stefan sprawled out on the stream bank, it seemed to me that he looked smaller than I remembered him. I found myself wondering if life added an extra dimension to a man. Take life away, would the man grow smaller? He lay with his face up to the sky, and there were flies and other insects crawling on his face. The position of his head concealed his torn-out throat, but there were bright specks of red still on the leaves and forest loam, blood that as yet had not turned to brown. I tried to make out the bear tracks that Neville had mentioned, but I was too distant from the body to make them out.
The sheriff turned out to be a genial man, soft-spoken, unofficious. He was a big man, rather fleshy. He looked like the TV stereotype of a hick-town sheriff, but he didn’t talk or act like one. He came clambering down the bank, with Humphrey following. He spoke to Neville, «You are Mr. Piper. I think we met several years ago. And you must be Mr. Thornton. I don’t think we’ve ever met. You’re a geologist, I understand.»
We shook hands and the sheriff said to Neville, «You asked Dora to call. She said you were the one who found the body.»
«I was on my way to photograph some flowers,» said Neville. «He’s just the way I found him. I touched nothing. It was apparent he was dead. There were bear tracks.»
«The ambulance will be along any minute now,» the sheriff said. «Let’s have a look.»
We went down and had a look. There was nothing much to see. It was rather horrible, of course, but the body, the man reduced by the absence of life, was so small and insignificant that it had little impact. Balanced against the brawling stream, the sweeping extent of birch and pine, the deep silence of the wilderness, the fact of human death canceled out to very little.
«Well,» the sheriff said, «I guess I better have a closer look. This is something that I always hate to do, but it goes with the job.»
He bent over the body and began going through the pockets. He looked through the pockets of the jacket and the shirt and had to roll the body a little to explore the back pockets of the trousers. He came up with nothing.
He straightened up and looked at us. «That’s funny,» he said. «Nothing. Not even a billfold. No papers. He had no pocketknife; most men carry pocketknives. I don’t think I’ve ever run into that before. Even the filthiest old bum, dead in some back alley, always has something on him—an old letter, a photograph, faded and torn, from long ago, a piece of twine, a knife, something. But this one is absolutely clean.»
He stepped away, shaking his head. «I can’t figure it,» he said. «Stands to reason a man would have something on him.» He looked at Neville. «You didn’t go through his pockets, did you? No, of course you didn’t. I don’t know why I asked.»
«You’re right,» Neville said. «I didn’t.»
We went back to the road. The sheriff played a dirty trick on Humphrey, and perhaps there was justice in that because Humphrey really had no right to be there.
«I think,» the sheriff said, «we’d better go up to the Lodge.»
«I doubt there’s anyone around,» I said. «For the last couple of days I’ve seen no one there, not even Stefan.»
«I think, anyhow, we should have a look,» the sheriff said. «Just in case there should be someone. Somebody should be notified. Perhaps Humphrey won’t mind staying here to flag down the ambulance.»
Humphrey did mind, naturally, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Here was the chance to go up to the Lodge, probably to go inside it, and he was being counted out. But he did what he had to do with fairly good grace and said that he would stay.
Passing by the Lodge, of course, one could see that it was a massive structure, half camouflaged by native trees and planted shrubbery. But it was not until one drove up to it, going up the driveway that led to the detached garage that housed the Cadillac, that an adequate idea could be gained of the size of it. From the driveway it became apparent that its true dimensions, as seen from the road, were masked by the fact that it crouched against the hill that rose back of it. By some strange trick of perspective it seemed from the road to be dwarfed by the hill.
The sheriff got out of his car as we drove our cars back of his and parked.
«Funny,» said the sheriff. «In all these years I have never been here.»