So why did he feel so up, so alert, so aware?
Outside, the crickets stopped chirping and in the resulting silence he heard a low bass oscillation, a slight auditory disturbance that he knew would resolve itself into something familiar but that he now could not quite place.
The noise grew louder, approaching, and he realized that it was the sound of a car engine.
The sound of the mailman's car engine.
It wasn't possible. Yesterday the mailman had been too weak to move, almost too weak to stand, in nowhere-near-good-enough shape to drive a car. Even if he had successfully delivered a letter, or several letters, between then and now, it was impossible for him to have so suddenly improved.
But there was no mistaking the sound of the car. In the stillness of the night he heard its tires crunching gravel, heard the low purr as it idled at the foot of the drive.
The low purr.
The sound was not frightening to him, but it was compelling, and he sonically followed its approach.
The purr.
The alertness with which he'd awakened began to fade. He wanted to sit up in bed, to walk to the living room and peek put the front window to see just what was happening, but either his mind was too tired to issue the command or his leg muscles were too tired to follow it, and he remained in bed, listening to the purr.
The purr.
He realized that the low drone was acting as a somnolent, that its unchanging rhythm was hypnotizing him back into sleep, but he was unable to fight against it. His eyes began to close. He faded back into dreamland still hearing the low sound of the quiet engine.
He knew when he awoke that the mailman was gone. He knew without hearing, without seeing, without checking. It was a feeling, a subtle difference in the air, in the atmosphere, that he could not have explained if he'd had to. An oppressiveness was missing; and the feeling of lurking dread to which he had grown accustomed, which had awakened with him each morning, which had seemed after all this time to have become an integral part of his makeup, had disappeared.
He picked up the phone and called Mike. The policeman was not at home, but he was at the police station, and he answered immediately. "Willis Police Department, Mike Trenton speaking."
"Mike? This is Doug."
"He's gone."
Doug was silent for a moment, closing his eyes, feeling the relief wash over him. Confirmation. He was gone. "I knew he would be," Doug said.
"I noticed this morning as I drove in that his car was not in the post office parking lot, and I went in there withTegarden and Jeff. Nothing. The place was empty. He may be coming back, though --"
"He's not," Doug said.
"We don't --"
"He's not."
"You may be right," Mike said slowly. "We got a report this morning over the radio, from the DPS, that there was a single-vehicle accident out on Black Canyon toward Camp Verde. There're no details, but it could be him; the car was headed in the right direction. The vehicle and driver were so badly burned that they were unrecognizable, but we'll know soon enough. Even if we can't find dental records, an examination of the car should show if it was his make and model, and we can go on from there. We should know in a few days."
"It doesn't matter," Doug said.
"It doesn't matter? You don't seem too concerned about this."
"He's gone. Can't you feel it? I don't know whether we drove him out or he accomplished what he wanted to accomplish or he died or whatever. But he's gone.
He's not here. He's not coming back."
"I hope you're right."
"I am right."
"Wait a minute." There were muffled voices on the other end of the line as Mike put his hand over the receiver. "You still there?" Mike asked.
"Still here."
"I just got a note from Jeff that a postal inspector called. He's coming up later this week."
Doug smiled. "A little late, isn't he?"
The policeman chuckled. "A little."
They were silent for a moment, and Doug realized that for the first time in over a month the two of them had nothing to say to each other. "Well, I'll let you go," he said. "But I'll be by later. We'll talk."
"Okay."
"It is over, Mike."
"I believe you."
Doug laughed. "_Now_ you believe me."
"Get out of here."
"Later," Doug said. He hung up the phone. What had the mailman been after, he wondered, and had he found it or done it or completed it? He had arrived in Willis two months ago and had left the town a shambles. Had that been what he wanted? Or had it been something else, something more? Perhaps they had thwarted him before he could finish what he had started. Or perhaps he had really had no motive.
Unbidden, Doug thought of the letter of resignation William Faulkner had tendered after working for a short time for the Postal Service: "I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp."
Perhaps it had been a motive as simple as that.
But they would never know, he realized. They would never know what the mailman had wanted, or whether he had failed or succeeded.
It didn't matter, though.
None of it mattered now.
It was over. It was finished.
He and Tritia brought Billy home from the hospital later in the morning, and Doug turned on the television while Trish made a bed for their son on the couch. For the first time in nearly two weeks the house did not seem to Doug like a violated fortress, like a temporary shelter in which he slept. It felt once more like a home.
Tritia poured Billy a glass of 7-Up and took it to him.
"Dad?" Billy asked from the couch.
Doug turned. "Yes?"
"It's over, isn't it?" he asked.
He nodded at his son. "Yes," he said. "Finally."
"Finally," Billy breathed gratefully, settling back on the pillow.
They made sure Billy was comfortable, then Tritia went into the kitchen to fix his favorite lunch -- macaroni and cheese with chopped-up hot dogs. It was about as nutritious as lint, but this was a special occasion and he deserved a special lunch to go with it.
Doug turned the TV to Channel 5 so Billy could watch _Dick Van Dyke_, and he watched it with him for a few minutes. On an impulse, during a commercial break, he walked outside, onto the porch. He stood there for a moment, then began to walk down the drive to the mailbox. It was a beautiful late-summer day.
The temperature was hot but not uncomfortably so, the harshness of June and July mellowed and gone. In the trees, bluebirds chattered happily and the sky above was cloudlessly blue. There was a slight breeze, not strong enough to disturb anything, but strong enough to act as a natural fan and keep his face cool as he walked.
He reached the mailbox and stopped. The box was open and Doug moved forward to peer inside.
Three coal-black envelopes lay neatly stacked next to the opening.
He remembered the sound of the car the night before, and he felt the return of a familiar coldness. Reaching in, he pulled the envelopes out. The paper felt strange and thick to his touch, slightly slimy, as though it was made from something organic. The contents were heavy and oddly shaped. A wave of revulsion passed through him. He had the sudden urge to drop all three envelopes on the ground, to stomp on them, to bury them with dirt. Without looking at their contents, he knew that whatever was inside the envelopes was evil.
He examined each piece of mail. On the front, in red scripted Old English letters, were his, Tritia 's , and Billy's names. No addresses.