Most of the time Harry lay torpid, conscious but seemingly in a stupor. Occasionally he roused enough to say that his leg hurt or ask for water, and even during his torpid periods he was able to respond to questions and seemed vaguely aware of what was going on. In spite of his high fever there was no indication of delirium.
From the moment Cynthia had announced he had blood poisoning Harry accepted the situation without complaint, understanding at once his sole hope for life lay in Johnny’s ability to reach the phone. But despite this understanding the suspense of waiting seemed to weigh less heavily on him than upon Cynthia. As the hours passed she found herself visualizing Johnny tumbling into bottomless snow drifts which smothered him, or wandering lost and eventually lying down to freeze.
During one such period of anxiety she was guiltily horror-stricken to realize she was not thinking at all of the inevitable consequences to her husband if Johnny failed to get through, but her sole fear was that Johnny would die.
When light began to dim inside the cabin, she took down the gasoline lamp, pumped it full of air and lighted it. She had just hung it back on its hook when Johnny returned.
The bodyguard entered even more abruptly than he had left, flinging open the door, letting the flyrod drop loosely from his hand and staggering forward to fall flat on his face. Cynthia shut and bolted the door, then turned to assist him, but he had already climbed to his feet and reeled to the table, where he collapsed with his head in his arms.
It took thirty minutes of thawing and four cups of coffee to get Johnny in shape to report. And when he finally was able to speak, he merely said in a weary voice, “I didn’t get there,” and collapsed full length on Cynthia’s bunk, unable to make it into his upper berth.
From his own bunk Harry eyed his bodyguard dully and without recrimination, then turned to gaze at his wife. With blunt fatalism he asked, “How long will I last, baby?”
“Don’t talk like that!” Cynthia said hysterically.
At nine o’clock, after three and a half hours sleep, Johnny suddenly rolled from Cynthia’s bunk, crossed to the sink and washed his face in cold water. He seemed fully refreshed from his eight-hour ordeal when he walked over to look down at Harry.
“Sorry, boss,” he said in a quiet voice. “Snowdrifts have changed the whole shape of the country, and with snow on them every one of these hills looks alike. I couldn't recognize a single landmark. I was out seven hours when I cut my own trail and realized I had circled back to within a mile of the cabin.”
“It’s all right, Johnny,” Harry said dully. “Most guys wouldn’t even have tried.”
“You don’t have to look so resigned about it, boss. Just because I walked in a circle today doesn’t mean I won’t follow a straight line tomorrow.”
Cynthia felt her heart begin to pound at the words. Johnny intended to try again in the morning. He meant to battle engulfing snow and zero weather not only tomorrow, but again and again until he either got through or died trying.
Suppose he had not circled at the precisely lucky arc which led him back to his own trail only a mile from the cabin, she wondered? Suppose nightfall had caught him wandering in the vast expanse of snow? Her reasoning told her it would be inconceivable for him to have the same blind luck twice.
Terror-stricken by the direction her thoughts were taking, she found herself deliberately weighing her husband’s life against Johnny’s. If Johnny did manage to get through, Harry still probably would survive. But if Johnny failed, both men would die.
She came to a decision.
“You’d be wasting your time, Johnny,” she said in a thin voice. “He’s so toxic now, even a hospital couldn’t save him.”
Johnny stared at her. After a long time he said, “Maybe you could be wrong. Even doctors make mistakes.”
“Not about septicemia,” Cynthia said soberly. “I’ve been a registered nurse for five years, Johnny. I know when blood poisoning has reached the point where it’s hopeless.”
Wordlessly he continued to stare at her for another full minute. Finally his face blanked of all expression.
Walking over to the table, he said, “How about food?”
In a trancelike state of mental exhaustion she heated him a can of stew and made him a pot of coffee. While he ate, Cynthia made Harry as comfortable as she could.
When Johnny finally pushed back from the table, he dragged the galvanized washtub from its corner, lifted the snow shovel and went out the front door. Within minutes he was back with a half tubfull of snow. Cynthia watched wide-eyed.
Then he looked at her, and the hunger in his eyes was flaunted. She backed from the look.
“I’m... I’m not going to take a bath tonight, Johnny.”
Johnny raised his eyebrows. Then he glanced at Harry, but the old expression of respect and understanding was gone from his dyes. The glance was a dismissal, the callous appraisal of a corpse.
“How long will he drag it out?”
Cynthia licked her lips. “A few days. A week. Maybe longer.”
“I’m not waiting a week,” Johnny said. He walked toward her slowly and she backed until she was pressed against the upright at the foot of her bunk. His eyes moved over her tight turtlenecked sweater, down along her woolen slacks to her ski boots and up along her body again.
“Take your clothes off,” he said.
The words aroused Harry. “What was that?” he asked.
Ignoring him, Johnny continued to stare at Cynthia. She whispered, “Not in front of him, Johnny. Good God! Not right in front of him!”
“Take your clothes off!”
“Why, you Son...!” Harry said weakly. “No-good, lousy Son...!”
When Cynthia merely continued to stare at Johnny from overlarge eyes, he suddenly landed his palm across her cheek with such force she was knocked sprawling on her bunk.
“This is the last time. Take them off or I’ll rip them off.”
She stared up at him in unbelieving fascination. But as his hands tensed to reach for her, she sat up with a shudder, leaned forward without taking her enormous eyes from his face, and with unsteady fingers slowly began to unlace her boots.
From the other bunk the shriek of profanity lifted to a crescendo.
The Faceless Man
by Michael Fessier
At one time if anyone had suggested that the residents of Green Valley could conceivably form themselves into a mob, lusting for the blood of a fellowman, I would have called him insane. Now I know better. Green Valley isn’t in the Deep South; it’s in a midwestern farming state, which proves that lynching isn’t a fault of geography but of humanity. And humanity happens to be a family we all belong to no matter where we live. To those of you who have read about lynchings committed in places far from your homes and who have wondered what sort of a person a lyncher is, I have this to say: A lyncher is neither tall nor short, nor young nor old, nor male nor female, and he is faceless, but, under certain given circumstances and under certain given conditions, he is you and you and you and, yes, he is even me.
The chain of events which led the citizens of Green Valley a long way back down the path of evolution toward their original animal state began during the hot, dry summer when their crops were withering and they were worrying about their mortgages and other debts. Henry Rankins gave them something to talk about other than their troubles by taking Claude Warren, an ex-convict, into his home to live with him and help him run his farm. Claude was hardly more than a kid and his crime had not been committed against us nor among us, but he had served eight months in State’s Prison and that was enough to set public opinion against him right from the start.