Zach believed he knew what Garth was getting at but wasn’t about to define the problem for him; he wanted to hear it from the youth himself. So rather than prompt him further, he simply said: “Son, when you’re out there in the darkness with a ground mist lapping your feet and shadows that shift when clouds block out the moonbeams…why a man might imagine almost anything!” (But even as he said these things Zach was thinking to himself: Except—God forbid—this could be a hell of a lot more than any man’s mere imagination!)
It was Garth’s turn to frown. Staring hard at the other he said: “So then, it appears you’ve guessed at least something of what I’m talking about, this thing that’s so much on my mind?”
“Eh? Well damn right I have!” his father then exploded. “Do you think I’m completely stupid? What the hell else do you have in common with Myers and Jordan, if not your work out there in the dead of night? Maybe I should go and ask them what’s going on, what’s been getting to you this last fortnight or so, ever since—oh, I don’t know—ever since that great bully Ned Singer got taken!”
That last was a deliberate ploy on Zach’s part, and he was watching his son closely, noting his reaction. Nor was he disappointed at Garth’s response: his narrowing eyes, and the way his broad shoulders twitched however slightly, almost unnoticeably. Until at last:
“Yes, you’re right,” said Garth, nodding and taking a deep breath before adding: “That’s when it began, or maybe a day or two later. As for what it is…you might as well ask what it isn’t, or what it hasn’t been!”
“Oh?”
Garth nodded again and said, “I can’t believe you haven’t noticed anything yourself! Maybe it’s because you’re okay with the situation—turning a blind eye to it—satisfied to let it rest, like Don and Bert. But let me remind you, Father, how there hasn’t been a single fly-by-night attack—no, not even a chance encounter or skirmish—since we lost Ned Singer! And yet they’re out there, plenty of them. I know that the fly-by-nights are out there every night! And gangling Garry Maxwell’s dogs: they know it, too! As soon as it’s dark they’re a bundle of nerves. Sometimes when I’m out on the perimeter, I can hear them sniffing around, whining and yipping; and Garry grumbling, calling them names, telling them to either bark and get it out of their system, or calm down and shut the hell up! But really he should know better than that, because those dogs of his…well, they definitely know better!”
Having heard Garth out this far, still Zach wasn’t ready to suggest or attempt to identify the source of the youth’s actual problem. Simply mentioning Ned Singer had opened the floodgates and got Garth talking, but Zach didn’t want to unsettle him any further by communicating his own worst fears in respect of that…that man? Anyway, there were still things he wanted to know before deciding what to do about all this. And so:
“You’re concerned that the fly-by-nights aren’t attacking?” he kept up the subterfuge. “Well, I must say that’s a new one on me!”
But now, as Garth’s frustration mounted, he was shaking his head again. “You still don’t get it, do you?” (Which was more a statement of fact than a question.)
“So explain,” said Zach, shrugging.
“They aren’t attacking because they’re following, watching, and waiting! And it could be we’ve been wrong all this time not to credit them with more than a little intelligence. Oh, I know that they’re usually completely insane, and mindlessly reckless even where their own miserable lives are concerned. But now…well I’m beginning to think that they’re capable of learning! I think they are learning. And…and I also think—”
“Yes?” (Now it was coming.)
“—I think they have a leader!”
“Go on,” said Zach, his voice husky, and his hand squeezing Garth’s shoulder as if to squeeze the problem right out of him.
Rock steady now Garth faced his father, looked him straight in the eye and said, “I’ve seen him out there in the night, and more than once, I thought maybe I had nodded off—and perhaps I had, maybe I do—for even now I can’t be absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent sure of what I think I’ve seen! But Father, if a swirl of mist in the dark of night can take on the shape and ghastly face of a man, then there’s a lot of mist out there that looks an awful lot like Ned Singer!”
“Ahhh!” said Zach, and his voice contained a shiver despite that what he had heard merely confirmed what he’d suspected all along.
“He never comes too close to me,” Garth went on, “but stays out there on the edge of my night vision and melts away, disappears, before I can focus on him. Or, if he’s only a figment of my imagination—my night fears—then the image vanishes the moment I try to fix it in my mind’s eye…”
Zach waited, let the pause last another moment, then said: “All right, Garth, so what’s your conclusion, your best guess? Have you seen Ned Singer out there—and if it really is him, then what the hell do you think he’s doing—or is this all in your mind after all?”
Garth shrugged irritably. “If it’s my imagination—and believe me, I really do hope it is—then Ned’s not there at all and all he’s doing is driving me insane! But if, just if, it is him, then the fly-by-nights are doing what he wants, working to his plan and following him following us! And as I said, there’s plenty of them. In fact I think they’re a horde, a swarm that’s been gathering force, increasing its numbers as it moves parallel with the convoy!”
“A swarm!” Zach softly repeated him. “Moving parallel.”
“Father—” Garth gripped the other’s arm hard, “—I saw Ned again last night, except now…he’s different.”
Feeling the steely coiled-spring tension in his son’s fingers, Zach hobbled back a wary pace, asking, “How ‘different?’”
Releasing his father’s arm, Garth slumped down again on the rock with his back to the wheel. And after a moment’s thought:
“I think,” he began, “that when I first saw him clearly—or at least clearly enough to identify him—it was on my first night as a boss where we camped in the woods in the lee of those cliffs. Ned was as grey and as still as a stalactite, standing there in the mist with his ragged clothing hanging off him. But it was him all right, even though his normally bulging red face and piggy eyes were…well, different. As long as I had known him he had always been too sure of himself, ignorant and arrogant. But out there on the perimeter—or perhaps in my dream—he looked vacant and oddly puzzled, as if he was trying to remember who he was and what he was doing there, or as if he stood in some weird dream of his own. And his eyes were burning cold, leaden in his deathly face.
“Well, that was the first time. But since then…
“His vacant look has gradually changed, until now it’s got that old arrogance back. But it’s also sly, evil, full of purpose, because Ned’s no longer puzzled; he knows why he’s there and what he’s doing! And as for his eyes: they burn on me!”
“On you!” Zach whispered, and he nodded. “Yes, they would!”
“But Father—” it was as if Garth hadn’t heard him, “—how can any of this he possible? Ned Singer is a dead man, taken by the fly-by-nights! And yet I see him, and it makes my mind spin in circles!”
Zach got down on his good knee beside Garth and hugged him. “Son, you’re not crazy, not even nearly crazy. And as for Singer—”