“I’m glad to have you come,” he said, “for any reason or for none at all. I’m not the lonesome sort and I get along all right, but even so the face of a fellowman is a welcome sight. But you got something in your craw. You came here for a reason. You want to get it off your chest.”
I looked at him for a moment and I made the big decision. It went against all reason and everything that I had planned to do. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe the peacefulness that rested on that hillside, maybe the calmness of the old man and the comfort of the chair, maybe a lot of different things had a hand in it. If I’d taken time to think it over, I doubt I would have done it. But something inside of me, something in the afternoon, told me I should do it.
“I lied to Higgins to get him to tell me the way out here,” I said. “I told him that I wanted to help you write your book. But I’m through with lying now. One lie is enough. I’m not going to lie to you. I’ll tell you the story just exactly as it stands.”
The old man looked a little puzzled. “Help me with my book? You mean about the skunks?”
“I’ll still help you, after all of this is over, if you want me to.”
“I guess it’s only fair to say that I could use some help. But that’s not the reason you are here?”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
He took a deep drink and handed me the bottle. I took another drink myself.
“All right, friend,” he said, “I’m settled and all ears. Get about your telling.”
“When I get started,” I pleaded, “don’t break in and stop me. Let me tell it to the end. Then you can ask your questions.”
“I’m a good listener,” said the old man, cuddling the bottle, which I had handed back to him, and petting the skunk.
“You may find it hard to believe.”
“Leave that up to me,” he said. “Just go ahead and tell me.” So I went ahead and told him. I did the best job that I could, but I was honest about it. I told it just the way it happened and I told him what I knew and what I had conjectured and how no one would listen to me, for which I didn’t blame them. I told him about Joy and Stirling, about the Old Man and the senator and about the insurance executive who couldn’t find a place to live. I didn’t leave out a single thing. I told him all of it.
I quit talking and there was a silence. While I had talked the sun had disappeared and the woods had filled with the haze of dusk. A little wind had come up and it was a chilly wind and there was the heavy smell of fallen leaves hanging in the air.
I sat there in the chair and thought what a fool I’d been. I had thrown away my chance by telling him the truth. There were other ways I could have gone about getting him to do what I wanted done. But, no, I’d had to do it the hard way, the honest way and truthful.
I sat and waited. I’d listen to what he had to say and then get up and leave. I’d thank him for his whiskey and his time and then would walk, through the deepening dusk, up the wagon track through the woods and field to where I’d parked my car. I’d drive back to the motel and Joy would have dinner waiting and be sore at me for being late. And the world would go crashing down, just as if no one had ever tried to do a thing to stop it.
“You came to me for help,” the old man said out of the dusk. “Tell me what I can do to help.”
I gasped. “You believe me!”
“Stranger,” said the old man, “I don’t amount to nothing. Unless what you told me happened to be true, you’d never bothered with me. And, besides, I think that I can figure when a man is lying.”
I tried to speak and couldn’t. The words bubbled in my throat and would not come out. I think I was as close to tears as I had been in a long, long time. And within me I felt a surging sense of thankfulness and hope.
For someone had believed me. Another human had listened and believed and I no longer was a fool or crackpot. I had regained, in this mystery of belief, all of the human dignity that had been slipping from me.
“How many skunks,” I asked, “could you get together?”
“A dozen,” said the old man. “Perhaps a dozen and a half. These rocks are full of them, all along the ridge. They’ll be coming in all night to visit me and to get their handouts.”
“And you could box them up and have some way to carry them?”
“Carry them?”
“In to town,” I said. “Into the city.”
“Tom—he’s the farmer where you parked—he has a pickup truck. He would loan it to me.”
“And he wouldn’t ask you questions?”
“Oh, sure he would. But I could think up answers. He could bring the truck partway through the woods.”
“All right, then,” I said, “this is what I want you to do. This is the way that youcan help . .
I told him swiftly what I wanted him to do.
“But my skunks!” he cried, dismayed. “The human race,” I answered. “You remember what I told you. .
“But the cops. They’ll grab me. I couldn’t—”
“Don’t worry about the cops,” I said. “We can take care of them. Here . . .”
I reached into my pocket and brought out the wad of bills.
“This will pay any fines they’ll want to throw at you, and there’ll still be a lot of it left over.”
He stared at the money.
“That’s the stuff you got at the Belmont house!”
“Part of it,” I said. “You better leave it in the cabin. If you took it with you, it might disappear. It might turn back into what it was before.”
He dumped the skunk out of his lap and stuffed the money in his pocket. He stood up and handed me the bottle.
“When should I get started?”
“Can I phone this Tom?”
“Sure, any time. I’ll go up after a while and tell him I’m expecting a call. When he gets it, he can bring down the truck. I’ll explain it to him. Not the truth, of course. But you can count on him.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks an awful lot.”
“Go ahead and have a drink,” he said. “Then give it back to me. I could stand a drink myself.”
I had the drink and gave him back the bottle and he had a snort.
“I’ll start right in,” he said. “In another hour or two, I’ll have a batch of skunks.”
“I’ll call Tom,” I said. “I’ll go back and check to see that everything’s all right. Then I’ll call Tom what is his last name?”
“Anderson,” said the old man. “I’ll have talked to him by then.”
“Thanks again, old-timer. I’ll be seeing you.”
“You want another drink?”
I shook my head. “I have work to do.”
I turned and left, tramping down the hillside through the dusk and up the slanting trace that led to the clover field.
There were lights in the farmhouse when I got to where I’d parked my car, but the barnyard itself was quiet.
As I walked over to the car, a growl came from the darkness. It was a vicious sound that brought the hair bristling on my head. It hit me like a hammer and left me cold and limp. It was filled with fear and hatred and it had the sound of teeth.
I reached out and found the handle of the door and the growl went on—a sobbing, choking growl, an almost incessant rumbling torn from the throat.
I jerked the car door open and tumbled on the seat and slammed the door behind me. Outside the growling still went on, slobbering in and out.
I started the motor and switched on the lights. The cone of brightness caught the thing that had been growling. It was the friendly farm dog that had greeted my arrival and had begged to go along with me. But the friendliness had vanished. His hackles stood erect and his bared teeth were a white slash across his muzzle. His eyes were glowing green in the flare of light. He retreated, moving sidewise slowly, with his back humped high and his tail between his legs.
Terror rose within me and I hit the accelerator. The wheels spun, whining, as the car leaped forward, brushing past the dog.
He had been a friendly dog and a laughing dog when I first had seen him. He had liked me then. It had taken quite a lot of trouble to get him to stay home.