“Why, yes, just a mile or two away. Down by the river.”
He sprang to his feet and glanced about the room.
The phone sat on the night table between the single beds.
“What—”
“A friend,” said Blaine. “Someone that I met. Someone who might help us. A mile or two away?”
“Yes, Hamilton is. If that is what—”
“It is,” said Blaine.
He stepped swiftly across the room and picked the hand-piece out of the cradle. He dialed for operator.
“I want to get a number in Hamilton. How do I go about it?”
“What is the number, sir?’
“I will ring it for you.”
He turned his head toward Harriet. “Is it getting dark outside?”
“It was getting dark when I closed the shutters.”
He heard the purring of the signal on the wire.
“They’ll need some darkness,” he said. “They couldn’t come in—”
“I don’t know,” said Harriet, “what you could be up to.”
“Hello,” said a voice in the phone.
“Is Anita there?”
“Right here,” said the voice. “Just a moment.” Anita, for you. A man.
And that was impossible, Blaine thought wildly. You simply couldn’t do it. Perhaps he’d imagined it.
“Hello,” said Anita Andrews. “Who is this?”
Blaine. Shepherd Blaine. Remember? I was with the man who had the shotgun. With the silver shot.
Yes, 1 remember you.
And it was true, he thought. He had not imagined it. You could use telepathy on the telephone!
You said that if I ever needed help.
Yes, I told you that.
I need help now. A body on the floor: police car coming down the road, red light flashing, siren howling; a speedometer and clock that had sprouted legs and were racing for a tape; the sign that said The Plainsman, the unit number on the door.) I swear to you, Anita. This is on the level. I can’t explain right now. But this is on the level. I can’t let them find him here.
We’ll take him off your hands.
On faith?
On faith alone. You were square with us that night.
Hurry!
Right away. I’ll bring some others.
Thanks, Anita. But she was already gone.
He stood there, holding the receiver out from his face, staring at it, then slowly put it in the cradle.
“I caught part of that,” said Harriet. “It isn’t possible.”
“Of course it’s not,” said Blaine. “Telly transmission on a wire. You don’t have to tell me.”
He stared down at the man lying on the floor. “It’s one of the things he talked about. Greater than Fishhook could ever be, he said.”
Harriet didn’t answer.
“I wonder how much else they have?” said Blaine.
“She said they’d come for Godfrey. How will they come for him? How soon?”
There was a hint of hysteria in her voice.
“They fly,” he told her. “They are levitators. Witches.”
He made a bitter laugh.
“But you—”
“How did I know them? They ambushed us one night. Just out to raise some hell. Riley had a shotgun. . . .”
“Riley!”
“The man in the hospital room, remember? The man who died. He was in an accident.”
“But, Shep, were you with Riley? How did you come to be with him?”
“I hitched a ride. He was scared at night. He wanted someone with him. We nursed that ramshackle truck . . .”
She was staring at him, a startled look about her.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “You said something back there in the hospital. You said you were—”
“Looking for him. Godfrey had hired him and he was late and—”
“But . . .”
“What is it, Shep?”
“I talked to him just before he died. He tried to give me a message, but he couldn’t get it out. The message was for Finn. That was the first I heard of Finn.”
“Everything went wrong,” said Harriet. “Every blessed thing. There was the star machine . . .”
She stopped what she was saying and came across the room to stand beside him. “But you don’t know about the star machine. Or do you?”
He shook his head. “Like the ones in Fishhook? The ones that helped us to the stars?”
She nodded. “That’s what Riley was hauling in his truck. Godfrey had arranged to get it and he had to get it moved to Pierre somehow. So he hired Riley. . . .”
“A bootleg star machine!” said Blaine, a little awed. “You know that every nation in the world has laws against possessing them. They’re only legal if they are in Fishhook.”
“Godfrey knew all that. But he needed one. He tried to build one, but he couldn’t. There aren’t any blueprints.”
“You bet your life there aren’t.”
“Shep, what is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. There’s really nothing wrong. A bit confused, perhaps. At how, all along the line, I was pitchforked into this.”
“You can always run.”
“Harriet, you know better. I am through with running. There’s no place for me to go.”
“You could always approach some business group. They’d be glad to have you. They’d give you a job, pay you plenty for what you know of Fishhook.”
He shook his head, thinking back to Charline’s party, with Dalton sitting there, long legs outstretched, his hair a rumpled mouse nest, his mouth mangling the cigar. And Dalton saying: “In a consultive capacity you’d be worth a lot of money.”
“Well, you could,” said Harriet.
“I couldn’t stomach it. Besides, I made a promise. I told Godfrey I was with him. And I don’t like the way that things are going. I don’t like people taking me out to hang me because I am a parry. I don’t like some of the things I saw along the road and—”
“You’re bitter,” she said. “You have a right to be.”
“And you?”
“Not bitter. Just scared. Scared down to the marrow.”
You scared! A tough newspaper gal. . . .
He turned toward her, remembering something — the place where the old blind woman sold the roses. That night, he had seen the mask slip from Harriet Quimby and this was the second time.
Her face told him the truth — the tough newspaper gal also, at times, could be a frightened woman.
He half lifted his arms, and she crossed the little space between them. He held her close against him, and she was soft and pliant, not hard, not made of steely purpose, but very human flesh.
It’ll be all right, he said. Everything will be all right. And wondered at the sudden tenderness and protectiveness he felt, which certainly was alien in any relation he might have with this girl within his arms.
But the truck is wrecked and the trucker’s dead and the police, or maybe even Finn, have the star machine. And now Godfrey’s lying dead and the police are coming . . .
We’ll lick them all, he told her. There’s nothing that can stop us. . . .
A siren sounded from far off, a wail torn by the prairie wind.
She sprang away from him. “Shep, they’re coming!”
“The back door!” Blaine said, quickly. “Run toward the river. We’ll get down into the breaks.”
He sprang toward the door, and as his fingers found the bolt, there was a tapping on it.
He threw back the bolt and jerked open the door and standing in the fan of light that came pouring from the room was Anita Andrews and back of her other youthful faces.
“Just in time,” said Blaine.
’This body?”
“Over there,” he said.
They came in with a rush.
The siren was much closer.
“He was a friend of ours,” said Harriet, uncertainly. “This seems a dreadful way—”
“Miss,” Anita said, “well take care of him. We’ll give him every honor. . . .”