“Yes, Mr. Hoffman. But I’m going along. I’ll have to go to show you the place where we—where we went. Where his clothes are.”
“You’re not going, Charl,” her father said firmly. “If for no other reason than that you’re already so pooped out from practically running back the three miles that you’d slow us down.”
“Buck will take us to the clothes,” Hoffman said. “Then we’ll have him circle the spot and pick up the trail. You said three miles—and it’s about one to where the path starts. That’d make it about two miles back into the woods. Right?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Let’s get going then,” Hoffman said to Garner.
“Wait, Gus. Why don’t we take my car for the first mile, along the road? Save time.”
“You forget about Buck,” Hoffman said. “He ain’t gun-shy, but he’s car-shy. If we forced him into a car he’d keep trying to jump out, and anyway it’d make him so damn nervous he might not be any good to us. We’ll have to walk. Come on.”
The two men went out to the road and started along it. There was a bright moon; they weren’t going to need the lanterns until they were in among trees. And it wasn’t fully dark yet, anyway.
“Why the gun, Jed?” Hoffman asked. “Thinking of a shot-gun wedding?”
“Hell, no. Just that in the woods at night I feel better with one. Even though I know nothing’s likely to jump me.” After a minute he added, “I was just thinking, though. If we find Tommy—”
“We’ll find him.”
“All right, after we find him. If he’s all right, I don’t think we ought to make those kids wait another six months. If they’re playing house anyway, what the hell, let ’em make it legal. And you wouldn’t want your first grandchild born too soon after the wedding, would you? I wouldn’t.”
“All right,” Hoffman said.
They walked in silence for a while. Then they saw the headlights of a car coming toward them on the road and Hoffman turned quickly and got a grip on Buck’s collar, and pulled him off the side of the road. “Wait till it’s by,” he said to Garner. “Don’t want Buck to bolt, and he might.”
After the car was past them, they started walking again.
By the time they reached the start of the path it was fully dark except for the moonlight and they stopped and lighted their lanterns. From here on, part of the time they’d be under trees and need light.
They walked on. Garner asked, “Where the hell could Tommy have headed for, taking off stark naked that way?”
Hoffman grunted. “Let’s not wonder. Let’s find out.”
Again they walked in silence until Hoffman said, “I figger we’ve come about a mile since the road. How about you?”
“I guess about that,” Garner said. “Maybe a mite over.”
“Then we better let Buck take over. Your gal could be wrong about the distance, and we don’t want to overshoot.”
He put down his lantern and snapped the leash onto Buck’s collar, then held Tommy’s dirty sock to Buck’s nose, “Find ’im, boy.”
The dog sniffed the path and started off at once. They followed, Hoffman holding the leash in one hand and the lantern in the other, Garner bringing up the rear. Buck kept moving steadily but not too fast for them; there was no strain on the leash.
About a mile farther on (Charlotte’s judgment of the distance had been just about right) Buck wandered slightly off the path and sniffed something.
Hoffman bent over to look. “Dead field mouse. Squashed. Come on, Buck, back to business.” He pulled Buck back to the path.
Garner said, “Charl told me about that—while we were waiting for you to come over. Didn’t seem important, so I didn’t mention it. But it means we’re right close to the place. I mean to the place where they—went to sleep.”
“What did she tell you about a field mouse?”
Garner told him. And then said, “Damn funny thing, a field mouse acting like that. Say, what if the thing was rabid? It didn’t bite Charl, didn’t break her skin, I mean; but Tommy brushed it off his pants leg. What if his finger hit its teeth and one of ’em broke the skin a little without his realizing it; would that account for—?”
“Hell, Jed, you know better than that about rabies. If Tommy was infected, it wouldn’t affect him this soon, or that way. It takes days.” Hoffman rubbed his chin. “Just the same, when we find Tommy I’m going to check his hands. If there’s even a scratch, we’ll pick up that mouse on our way back, and have it checked. Come on, Buck, get going again.”
Only about thirty paces farther on Buck turned off the path again and this time he didn’t stop to sniff anything. He kept going. He led them back to where some clumps of bushes made a solid wall and started to push his way through them. Hoffman parted the bushes and held his lantern forward.
“This is it,” he said. “His clothes are still here.” He stepped through and Garner followed. They stood looking down.
“God damn,” Hoffman said. “I’d hoped—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He’d hoped the clothes would be gone, that Tommy would have returned here after Charlotte had left. He didn’t know what that would have meant—since Tommy hadn’t come home—but it seemed less dangerous than the alternative, Tommy being out there somewhere and still naked, whatever else might have happened to him. At any rate, he was more frightened now than when he had first heard the girl’s story. The clothes looked so—empty. Until now this had seemed like a bad dream; it was becoming nightmare.
Buck was sniffing eagerly at the clothes and then at the grass where Tommy had lain. Then, circling, he started for the bushes, at a different point this time.
Hoffman let him through and went through behind him. “Come on, Jed,” he said. “He’s got the trail again, the way Tommy left.”
Garner said, “Shall I bring the clothes?”
Hoffman hesitated. “All right,” he said. “When we find him, he’ll need ’em and no use our having to come back.”
He waited, holding Buck back, until Garner had made a bundle of the clothes and rejoined him with them.
Then he started following the pull of the leash. Back to the path first and then off it at a diagonal, toward the north-west.
Buck was straining hard at the leash now. Not only was the trail fresher, but a man wearing only socks leaves a stronger scent than one wearing shoes. Also, on the path, there had been other if fainter human scents. Now there were none.
“Easy, boy,” Hoffman said, as he and Garner followed the straining dog.
CHAPTER FOUR
The mind thing rested now. He had neatly catalogued and indexed, mentally, everything in the mind of his present host.
He knew everything about this planet Earth that Tommy knew, which was enough to give him a rough overall picture. He knew its approximate size, although not in figures, and he knew that it was mostly salt water but had considerable land area too, in several continents. He knew roughly how the world was divided into countries and the names and approximate locations and sizes of the most important of those countries.
His knowledge of local terrain and geography was much better. He knew that he was in wild country, hunting country, but only about four miles north of the nearest town. Its name was Bartlesville, and it had about two thousand inhabitants. It was in a state called Wisconsin, which was a part of a country called the United States of America. The nearest large town, or small city, about forty-five miles to the southeast, was Green Bay. Something over a hundred miles south of Green Bay was Milwaukee, the nearest large city. And ninety miles or so south of Milwaukee was a much larger city, one of the largest, Chicago. He could visualize those places; Tommy had been to them. But no farther; Chicago was as far from home as Tommy had been. But Bartlesville and the country around it he knew very well. And that was good, for this area might have to be the mind thing’s scene of operations for some time. In addition to its geography, he now knew its flora and fauna. The flora didn’t interest him, but the fauna did. He had mental pictures now of all the creatures of the countryside, wild and domestic. And he knew their abilities and limitations. If he should have to use an animal host again he would know which to choose for the job at hand.