And he had dreamed of a cold afternoon in Chicago when a youngster playing in front of his house had asked him to come inside and look at his Christmas presents. But that was strange too; he had never dreamed about that before. It never bothered him in his sleep. It only bothered him when he thought about it.
He had gone with the boy into a big, warm house. He shook hands with a father, a mother, some people sitting in front of a fire. He called out his name like a railroad conductor shouting stops. They said “Who?” in huge, distant voices, their faces bright with suspicion. But they treated him fine. He was in uniform, wandering through a strange city on furlough. They gave him a drink and a cigar as big as a baseball bat. He ate in the kitchen with a maid, and in the dream he kept saying his name over and over again through the steam rising from the turkey stuffing. Outside at last he yelled his name at the windows of the house, but all the lights winked out and there was nothing left but the darkness, and the wind blowing the echo of his name into the silence. Why was he so anxious for them to know his name? That’s what always bothered him... But he had never dreamed about it before.
When he heard the car he came fully awake, listening alertly and fearfully to the laboring engine. He looked around the cold, bitter room, cursing the weakness of his feverish body. Where was the gun? His hands moved stiffly over the sofa. The colored man had taken it away... left him there...
The door opened and he saw Lorraine coming toward him, her face twisting oddly, and her heels sounded in a staccato clatter on the hard, cold floor. He knew he was dreaming then... He raised himself on one elbow to ask her about the gun, but she didn’t seem to hear or understand; she knelt beside him weeping, and the pressure of her body started an intolerable pain in his shoulder. The colored man stood behind her looking at him anxiously. “Why did you bring her here?” Earl said. The pain cut astringently through his drifting thoughts; his mind was suddenly dry and clear. “Why did you bring her, damn you?”
“I couldn’t stop her.”
“It’s going to be all right,” Lorraine said, rubbing her cheek against his forehead. “I’m going to take care of you.”
“It’s no good,” he muttered. “It’s no good, Lory.” The reviving anger drained out of him and he closed his eyes. He felt himself drifting into sleep; the sensation was giddy and nauseating, as if he were swinging back and forth in space, with nothing below him but wind and darkness. “That kid was all right,” he said slowly and distinctly. “Wanted me to look at his toys. His old man didn’t mind. They gave me a turkey dinner. It was a nice deal.”
“He needs a doctor,” Lorraine said, turning on her knees and staring at Ingram. “You hear me? He’s going to die. He needs a doctor.”
“He can’t travel, that’s for sure,” Ingram said. The hope that had sustained him was ebbing away; they were stuck here for good. They couldn’t try to take Earl past a roadblock. He’d be delirious soon, and there’d be no way to keep him quiet.
He shook his head slowly. The whiskers were blue against Earl’s dead-white skin, and an oily perspiration gleamed on his cheeks and forehead. The man was in sorry shape... Ingram felt fear prickling his body, but now the sensation was wearily familiar; he’d lived with it so long that he could hardly remember anything else.
“You keep him warm,” he said to Lorraine. “Try to get him to drink some whisky.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll try to get him a doctor.”
He glanced at the old man snoring under his mound of blankets. “While I’m gone you get him into the kitchen.” Ingram nodded at the faded photographs on the mantel. “Get them out of sight too.”
“Yes, I will.”
She was smart, Ingram realized; she understood their problem. “And you stay out of sight too. Stay in the kitchen with the old folks, and keep them quiet.”
“Yes — I understand.”
“If the doc happens to know this place we’re through. He’ll blow a whistle for the cops the minute I take him back home. And lead ’em right to us.”
She looked around quickly. “I’ll put the lamp beside Earl, with a blanket around it. He won’t see anything in the room.”
“That’s good. And you better give Earl a little whisky.”
“Just get a doctor, that’s all.”
“Yeah, that’s all. Just put one in my pocket and bring him back.”
She caught the sleeves of his coat and shook him with a fierce and primitive strength. “You’ve got to, understand? You’ve got to.”
“I’ve got to try,” he said wearily. He knew there was no hope for any of them unless Earl could travel. “I’ve got to try.”
It took Ingram twenty minutes to drive back to Avondale, the small village straddling the federal highway ten miles south of Crossroads. He turned into a side street and coasted through the darkness for several minutes, driving around the sleeping town until he saw a doctor’s shingle shining under a blue night light. Then he cut the motor and coasted to a stop in front of the house.
The rain had stopped and the night was colder; he could see the slick of ice on the pavement, diamond-bright under the street lamps. The name on the doctor’s sign was Taylor — W. J. TAYLOR, M.D. Black letters on a white board. The house was white too, with a screened-in front porch and neat plots of grass on either side of a concrete walk. It was just like every other house in the block; tidy, substantial and proper.
If the police weren’t looking for him there was a chance, Ingram thought. No reason the doctor wouldn’t go with him...
He studied the situation as he would study the cards against him in a poker game, analyzing the known factors and trying to guess at the imponderables. His lips moved as he rehearsed the story he would tell the doctor, whispering the words into the darkness. “... Friend of mine’s hurt, Doc. Just down the highway. The jack slipped while he was fixing a tire. Caught his hand bad. I didn’t want to move him...” No reason why that wouldn’t work. Doctors were used to such things. And a gashed hand was pretty much like a bullet wound. The Doc would bring along the right stuff to fix it...
He realized that he was almost too scared to move. All he had to do was walk up to the doctor’s porch and knock on the door. He’d have to go through with it then, talking, lying... But he couldn’t make himself do it. He touched the handle of the car door, but pulled his hand away quickly, his fingers trembling with cold and fear. Five seconds, he thought desperately. I’ll count to five. But his tongue was so dry he couldn’t make a sound; it felt like a thick wad of wool in his mouth.
The key chain caught his eye; it was swinging slowly, glinting in the soft dashboard light. A star was attached to the ring. Ingram touched it with a finger, and tiny reflections danced on the five shining points. A Silver Star, he thought. He’d seen a couple in England during the war. You didn’t get them for keeping mess halls clean. This was a medal you earned the hard way.
It was Earl’s probably. And he’d given it to his girl to use as a charm for her key ring. The big hero... Why didn’t he have this end of the job? He was the tough man who slapped people around if they looked sideways at him. Why wasn’t he here now? Instead of sipping whisky with his girl waiting on him... The big hero flat on his back while I got the job to do, he thought bitterly. He flicked the Silver Star disdainfully with the tip of his finger. Okay, hero, he thought, opening the door of the car. Okay...
He rang the bell and waited for someone to answer it, shifting his weight slowly from one foot to the other, his hand tight and cold on the butt of the gun. A light flashed behind the old-fashioned transom above the door, and a floor board creaked in the hallway of the house.