And then he would start. It would be foolhardy to expect flames or underbrush to slow down Perly. He would simply slither through, silently following the dog along John’s trail. It was a matter of minutes now.
John struggled to his feet and floundered on. As he got closer to the pond, dark patches of ice kept giving way beneath him, trapping a boot and yanking him to a stop. When he reached the path around the pond, he started to run again. If they were there already, he would see the commotion in the dooryard: the state police with radios blaring, perhaps Captain Sullivan himself questioning Mim. Perhaps taking her from Ma and Hildie. Perhaps taking them all as hostages to coax him out of the woods. He paused to listen. He could no longer hear the noise from the Parade, but he realized that the sky had brightened from navy to royal blue. He went on, clinging to the edge of the pond, his left foot skidding on the embankment from time to time. Finally, he rounded the twin oaks by the swimming place and came out in view of his own house and yard.
Dark. Peaceful and dark. No light, even in the kitchen. He slowed to a walk and let the empty gas can swing at his side.
But when he got to the road, he started to think about the dark. Mim asleep, or gone without him, or running in the dark somewhere searching for Hildie. He ran up the path to the door and leaned against it. Locked. The sounds of his body beat against the familiar wood. He had no key and was afraid, even in his own yard, to call out. Then, in a burst, the door gave beneath his weight and Mim caught him as he fell in.
They stood a moment in each other’s arms. Ma moved laboriously across the front room in the dark.
“Are you all right?” asked Mim, supporting him.
“Don’t know,” he said, his voice foreign to him.
As a child, he had come running up the path from school, burst in at the door, and let the dammed-up stream of failure overflow. “Be a man. Be a man,” Ma had crooned in the way of comfort. And now he longed to be a small boy, to overflow, to refuse the command to be a man.
“You been runnin’,” Mim said.
John straightened himself up away from her and leaned panting in the doorway.
She struck a match. Her jeans and sweater showed she had been waiting up for him after all. She lifted the chimney from the kerosene lamp on the table and put the match to the wick so it flared. John watched the small yellow flame, caught up in the comfort of fire.
“Dear God. You been fightin’,” Ma said, moving toward John for a closer look.
John shook his head, then he thought to set the gasoline can down. By the door were the piles of cartons just the way he’d left them. Not packed! ’ he cried, panic pounding up in him again. He lifted a carton of dishes and turned to go out.
“John,” Mim said, clutching his arm. “Where you been?”
“Let go!” he screamed at her.
Mim let go and John opened the door and faced the cold again.
“Set that thing down,” Ma said, her voice clear and muscular in the dim room.
“Ma,” John said. “We got to get out of here. Quick.”
“Not all that quick,” Ma said, and John hesitated.
“How’d you... I never seen such a...” Mim said. John leaned his face against the cool door as he closed it. John, that’s gasoline. It’s that you reek of.”
“We can’t stop for talk,” he said. “They’ll be a good way after me by now.” His throat was dry now and his body throbbed so he could hardly stand. He looked down at the box of dishes coming in and out of focus through layers of red.
He let Mim pull him to Ma’s lawn chair and push him into it. She handed him a glass of water from the pail. “Who?” she asked. “Him and the dog,” he said. “Dunsmore and that dog.”
“John, what’ve you been up to?”
“Best you not know,” John said.
“Me and her got to know,” Ma said. “We’re in on it sure as you.” As she stood over him leaning on her canes, her face, lit from below by the lamp, was drawn in strong lines he had almost forgotten.
Mim knelt in front of him with a wet rag. “Here,” she said. She touched his face with the warm water and the scratches started to sting.
Unstrung not by the pain but by the care, John said, “I set them pines back of the Parade on fire. And the wind by now must a blowed it clear through Mudgett’s and James’s and maybe the post office too.”
Mim dabbed at his face. “You got caught?”
He shook his head.
“Chased?”
Again he shook his head.
“You know that stretch of road where the fields run level on both sides?” Mim asked. “Gores could’ve seen you there, walkin’ along with the can.”
“He was never near the road,” Ma said. “He cut through the woods like he done as a boy. Runnin’ scared through the woods in the pitch black. It’s the woods beat him up like that-no man.”
“Woods never stopped a dog a minute,” John said.
“You heard them after you?” Mim asked.
He shook his head. The blue on the windowpanes was giving way to gray. When they went, they’d have to go out past Cogswell’s to avoid the Parade.
“We might as well put our name to paper as go tonight,” Ma said.
John sat in the chair, letting Mim take off his frozen boots.
We’re so helpless here, he groaned. His body went limp as the truth of Ma’s comment exploded in his head. They would have to stay at least another day or two. Again they would have to sit home and wait. Now he could see the colors of the trees through the windows, and knew that the first day of waiting had begun.
“You was ever a scared of dogs,” Ma said gently.
Lassie banged her tail on the floor at the soothing words.
Mim shook his arms. She began to unbutton his jacket. “Undress,” she said. “They mustn’t catch you like this.” She poured a pailful of water into the big kettle, and shoved a new log through the top of the big range.
John stood up and looked around wildly. The great belching explosion of gasoline and his helter-skelter retreat were written all over the room. “Hurry!” he said. “Unload the truck.” He started to pull his boots on again. “Oh my God. Am I foul with the smell of it? If they find us awake and all the signs...” He got up and blew out the lamp.
“Sit still,” Mim said. “Don’t be spreadin’ the smell all over. And you’re like to catch fire yourself, you take yourself too near the stove.”
John pulled off his jacket, then his sweater. “My gloves!” he cried. He picked up the jacket and jammed an arm into the sleeve again.
Mim clapped a hand over her mouth. “Your pockets,” she said. But they weren’t there.
“Too late now,” Ma said. “The woods are half growed in the dust of lost gloves. And what good’s a glove if they find it? Ain’t like you had your name on it.”
“Dogs, Ma,” John said, pulling his sweater back on and still searching his jacket for his gloves. Now we’ve got to go. Now I fixed it so we’ve got to go. The gloves is just settin out there in plain sight like a red flag.”
“John,” Mim said. “Undress. It’s me as wants to go the worst. But now it’s clear enough we can’t. Not now. Now we got to just set and listen for the truck again.” She took up the pails. Not that I’m sayin’ I like what you did. Without a coat, she headed out the back door toward the well.