Once or twice a year either partner was summoned out to the Scales farm and Elmer would direct him to a hole in a fence where a hunter or a teenager had cut through his fields: Elmer had often identified these trespassers with his binoculars, and he wanted to sue. They usually managed to talk him out of this, but he always had two or three litigations of other sorts under way. But this time, Ricky suspected, it was more serious than Scales's upsets were normally; he had never before asked-commanded-both partners to come out.
"As you know, Sears," he said, "I can drive and think at the same time. I'm doing a very sedate thirty miles an hour. I think you can trust me with whatever has Elmer worked up."
"Some of his animals died." Sears said this tight-lipped, implying that his speaking would be likely to result in their going off the road at any minute.
"So why are we going out there? We can't bring them back."
"He wants us to see them. He called Walter Hardesty too."
"They didn't just die, then."
"With Elmer, who knows? Now please concentrate on getting us there safely, Ricky. This experience will be grisly enough as it is."
Ricky glanced at his partner and for the first time that morning saw how pale Sears's face was. Beneath the smooth skin prominent blue veins swam at intervals into visibility; beneath the young eyes hung gray patches of webbed skin. "Keep your eyes on the road," said Sears.
"You look terrible."
"I don't think Elmer will notice."
Ricky's eyes were now safely on the narrow country road; this gave him license to speak. "Did you have a bad night?"
Sears said, "I think it's beginning to melt."
As this was a blatant lie, Ricky ignored it. "Did you?"
"Observant Ricky. Yes, I did."
"So did I. Stella thinks we should talk about it."
"Why? Does she have bad nights too?"
"She thinks that talking about it would help."
"That sounds like a woman. Talking just opens the wounds. Not talking helps to heal them."
"In that case, it was a mistake to invite Donald Wanderley here."
Sears grunted in exasperation.
"That was unfair of me," Ricky said, "and I'm sorry I said it. But I think we should talk about it for the same reason you think we should invite that boy."
"He's not a boy. He must be thirty-five. He might be forty."
"You know what I mean." Ricky took a deep breath. "Now I want your forgiveness in advance, because I am going to tell you the dream I had last night. Stella said I woke up screaming. In any case, it was the worst dream yet." By a shift in the car's inner weather, Ricky knew that Sears was immediately more interested. "I was in a vacant house, on an upper floor, and some mysterious beast was trying to find me. I'll skip the development, but the feeling of danger was overwhelming. At the end of the dream it came into the room where I was, but it wasn't a monster anymore. It was you and Lewis and John. All of you were dead." Glancing sideways toward his passenger, he saw the curve of Sears's mottled cheek, the curve of the hatbrim.
"You saw the three of us?"
Ricky nodded.
Sears cleared his throat, and then cranked the window down a quarter of the way. Freezing air rushed into the car. Sears's chest expanded beneath the black coat: individual spiky hairs of the furry collar flattened in the rush of air. "Extraordinary. You say there were the three of us?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Extraordinary. Because I had an identical dream. But when that dreadful thing burst into my room, I saw only two men. Lewis and John. You weren't there."
Ricky heard a tone in the other's voice it took him a moment to identify, and when he had named it, the recognition carried enough surprise to silence him until they turned into Elmer Scales's long driveway. It was envy.
"Our Vergil," Sears pronounced, to himself Ricky thought. As they went slowly up the drive toward the isolated two-story farmhouse, Ricky saw an obviously impatient Scales, dressed in a cap and a plaid jacket, waiting for them on the porch and saw also that the farmhouse resembled a building in an Andrew Wyeth painting. Scales himself looked like a Wyeth portrait; or, more accurately perhaps, a Norman Rockwell subject. His ears stuck redly out beneath the tied-up flaps of his cap. A gray Dodge sedan was pulled up in the cleared space beside the porch, and when Ricky parked next to it he saw the sheriff's seal on the door. "Walt's here," he said, and Sears nodded.
The two men got out of the car, pulling their coats in tightly around their necks. Scales, now flanked by two shivering children, did not move from the porch. He had the high hard look of excitement which accompanied his most passionate litigations. His reedy voice called to them. " 'Bout time you two lawyers got here. Walt Hardesty's been here ten minutes."
"He didn't have as far to come," Sears grumbled. The brim of his hat curled in the unobstructed breeze cutting across the fields.
"Sears James, I don't suppose any man alive ever got in the last word with you. Hey, you kids! Get back in the house, you'll freeze your butts off." He swatted one with each hand, and the two boys scuttled back inside the door. Scales stood above the two old men, smiling grimly.
"What is it, Elmer?" Ricky asked, holding his coat closed at his neck. His feet in his well-shined black shoes were already chilled.
"You'll just have to see. You two town boys aren't really dressed for a walk across the fields. Guess that's your hard luck. Hang on a second, I'll get Hardesty." He disappeared for a moment into the house and emerged again with the sheriff, Walt Hardesty, who was wearing a loose sheepskin-lined denim coat and a Stetson. Alerted by Scales's remark, Ricky looked at the sheriff's feet: he wore heavy leather hiking boots. "Mr. James, Mr. Hawthorne." He nodded to them, steam pluming out over his mustache, which was larger and more ragged than Ricky's. In this cattleman's outfit, Hardesty looked fifteen years younger than his true age. "Now that you're here, maybe Elmer will show us what this mystery's all about."
"Damn right I will," said the farmer, and clumped down the porch steps and began leading them away from the house, walking on the path toward the snow-dusted barn. "Just you come this way, gentlemen, and see what I'm gonna show you."
Hardesty fell in beside Ricky. Sears was walking alone, with immense dignity, behind them. "Colder 'n a bitch," the sheriff said. "Looks like being a damn long winter."
Ricky said, "I hope not I'm too old for one of those."
With exaggerated gestures and an expression like glee on his skinny face, Elmer Scales was unhooking a long rail fence which led into a side pasture. "Now you pay attention, Walt" he called back. "You see if you can spot any tracks." He pointed to a line of splayed footprints. "Them's mine from this morning, goin' and comin'." The prints returning were widely spaced, as if Scales had been running. "Where's your notebook? Ain't you gonna take notes?"
"Calm down, Elmer," the sheriff said. "I want to see what the problem is first."
"You took notes fast enough when my oldest boy racked up his car."
"Come on, Elmer. Show us what you want us to see."
"You town boys gonna ruin your shoes," Elmer said. "Can't be helped. Follow me."