IT WAS ALMOST TOTALLY dark in the forest. A shaft of moonlight cast a shawl of silver over the tips of tree branches. The sad chirping and croaking of crepuscular creatures had started tentatively at dusk and mounted steadily in volume as darkness fell. In that silvery-blue glow of light, the branches through which the party of wanderers moved appeared larger and blacker, giving them the shadowy and unspecific look of swimmers under water. Rarely did they speak, only thrashed along through all the begrudging and indifferent darkness. Occasionally someone would stumble and mutter an epithet. The crickets and peepers would halt for a moment to listen and then, like some immense generator, resume their quiet, incessant purr.
“Good Christ,” Garvix growled at someone he couldn’t see. “Get the hell off my foot, will you? Don’t all huddle together. Spread out.”
He was quite right. Now that darkness had fallen they did tend to cluster together, whereas earlier in the day when the sun beamed benevolently down upon them they had spread out like a string of gayly beaded jewels across the forest, blithely indifferent to each other’s location.
“Garvix!” Gage cried at one point. He was struggling along now, sagging beneath the weight of the surveyor. Several miles back Putney, near exhaustion, had permitted himself to be relieved of his burden.
“Garvix!” Gage cried out again. This time his voice was louder and gave the impression that he was speaking through clenched teeth.
“Over here,” came the harsh growl of a voice up ahead. Gage lunged toward it in the thick shadows. “Oh—I thought you were back down the other way. Could you come back here a moment?”
“I would if I could find you,” Garvix barked into the darkness. The surveyor started to mumble again and Gage hoisted him a little higher on his hip.
In the next moment the squat, dark outline of Garvix, like a freighter passing on a midnight sea, came thrashing its way back along the path.
“I can’t see you, Doc,” he called out.
“Well, strike a match, goddamn it!” said Freddy Jamison. “He’s right back here.”
Tom Putney struck a match and held it up to the doctor’s face. It illuminated, for a moment, all the strain and weariness he’d been feeling for the past hour.
In the next instant the match went out and the darkness flowed back in upon them.
Garvix lit his cigarette lighter and then suddenly they were all crowding into the small, orange, lambent glow of it, staring around at each other, a little astonished to be finding themselves all there.
Garvix held the lighter, like a torch, a bit above his head. He looked like a Lucifer amid the fallen angels. “What’s up?”
“I don’t think he can go much further,” Gage said. “And, frankly, I’m bushed.” He was leaning against a tree with the wobbly figure of the surveyor slumped up hard against him. They appeared to be entwined in some curious embrace.
“Then let somebody else take him,” Garvix snapped. “We can’t be more than fifteen minutes away from my place.”
“Are you sure?” Gage asked.
“At the most.”
Freddy Jamison moaned. “You said that two hours ago.”
“No need to panic,” Sybil said.
“Who’s panicking?” Freddy’s voice exploded in the night.
“I’m panicking,” Gladys Garvix said. “Oh boy, am I panicking.”
“Don’t be silly,” Sybil laughed. “At last a chance to try out my wood lore.”
Gage gaped at her incredulously. “Wood lore?”
“Yes. I’ve been taking an adult course at the high school.”
“Oh, my God!” Jamison moaned and turned away.
“Isn’t it divine?” Sybil was rhapsodic at the thought of all that darkness and of the incivility of the elements she was going to tame.
Gage set the surveyor down and propped him against a tree. “Something does seem a bit wrong,” he said. “We really should’ve been back long ago.” He turned to Garvix. “You are certain this is the right way?”
“Of course I’m certain.” Garvix replied. He looked at the doctor as if he were slightly demented.
“If it were the right way,” Bayles said. “We’d have been there an hour ago.”
“Oh, come now,” Garvix said. “We’ve only been walking for about an hour.”
“More like two.” Bayles corrected him. “You said it was only going to be a matter of half an hour.”
There was a moment of silence while the two men regarded each other.
“Feels like we been walking in a big circle,” Tom Putney said. He was gazing upward at the first sporadic stars that had begun to flicker above them.
“What makes you say so?” Gage said.
They were standing in the midst of a grove of giant spruce. Tom looked up at the huge trees towering above them. “Well, I’m pretty sure we passed through this place already.”
“Of course we did,” Garvix said, “on our way out here.”
“No,” said Tom. “It was after we’d already started back. More’n an hour ago.”
They were silent for a moment while the fireflies darted noiselessly about them.
“I’m sure we can’t be very far off,” Ollie Gelston said hopefully, her voice cracking a little.
“Do you recall passing through here, Mr. Bayles?” Gage asked.
“Not at all.”
“Do you still think you can get us home?”
Bayles smiled wryly and gave a rueful little laugh. “Two hours ago I could’ve. Now, I don’t know where the hell we are.”
“It all goes to prove, John,” said Freddy Jamison, “if you’ve got a point to make, make it at the top of your lungs. Then everyone will believe you.”
Garvix snarled: “You didn’t have to follow, Freddy. No one bent your arm.”
“I saw you bluffing back there at the fork of the stream,” Freddy’s voice rose heatedly. “You didn’t know whether you wanted to go right or left. We’ve just been going round and round like Tom says.”
“I was a little puzzled back there,” Garvix smiled blandly. “But just for a moment. The point is I know exactly where I am now.”
Freddy was about to say something. But whatever thought he had seemed suddenly quite unimportant. Instead he rubbed his stomach above the area where the incessant gnawing and stabbing of the ulcer had begun to really hurt him. He had no more pills.
“I know these woods like the back of my hand,” Garvix blustered on.
Gladys made an odd, growling sound and threw up her hands in disgust. “Typical Garvix,” she fumed. “‘I’m right! I know best. We’ll do it my way!’ And we all follow like sheep. Why? Why do we do it? Somebody tell me why. To think I spent a lifetime following—”
She broke off midway when she saw him smiling at her. It was not a very pleasant smile.
“You didn’t do too badly following me, did you, Gladdy?” His voice had a softly lethal quality to it. “And if you’d had a brain of your own you could’ve made your own goddamned decisions, couldn’t you?” He made a sound of disgust. “What I hate are snivelers and whiners.”
“No need to talk to her that way,” Freddy said.
The tiny torch trembled above Garvix’s head. “None of your goddamned business how I talk to her.” He squinted back and forth from Freddy to Gladys. “Or is it?”
So they went on for a moment, forgetting their predicament while the others viewed the awkward little scene impassively, like spectators at a cinema.
“Well this isn’t getting us anywhere,” Gage said after a while. “I propose we call a halt.”
“A halt?” three or four of them cried out simultaneously.
“What do you mean a halt?” said Gladys.
“I mean a halt,” Gage said. “Stop for the night.”
“For the night?” came that funny chorus again in unison.
“For the night?” Sybil Jamison was ecstatic. “Halt here, you mean. What a smashing idea!”
Freddy gaped at her incredulously. “Are you insane, Sybil?”
Garvix resumed his juggernaut’s motion—short legs pumping like pistons while the squat, powerful torso remained in place. “I’m fifteen minutes away from my place. Why should I stop here?” He’d said it with such authority that for a moment Gage felt slightly foolish. But then he looked round at the inky, impenetrable dark. “It’s impossible to see a foot in front of you,” he argued reasonably. “We’re not getting anywhere. And I’m afraid Mr. Rogers can’t go on.”
“Well, I’m afraid Mr. Rogers will just have to go on,” Gladys said. “He got us into this mess.”
“Yes,” Freddy eagerly agreed. “The great Rogers.”
Gage felt his spine stiffen. “It’s not his fault he’s had a mild stroke.”
“A stroke?” Sybil cried. “You never said that.”
They pushed closer round him. “Are you sure?” Bayles asked.
“Well, that’s what it looks like,” Gage went on. “Could’ve happened to anyone.”
“Of course it could’ve,” Ollie said. She stared reproachfully at Freddy. For a moment they were all silent. Gladys eyed the doctor with a mixture of confusion and dislike. Sensing her hostility, he smiled back at her. “I really think it’s best we stay put for the night.”
“We’re not the goddamned boy scouts,” Freddy said. “We’re not going to—”
“I don’t think I like this,” Ollie said, her voice a little high and tremulous. “I don’t think I like it at all.”
“I have no doubt,” Gage went on in his quiet, reasonable way, “that tomorrow morning with a night’s rest behind us, we’ll get our bearings very quickly.”
“Of course we will,” Sybil added. “And won’t it be great fun to sleep out here under the stars?”
“With the bats and snakes and creepie-crawlies?” Gladys fumed. “No thank you. This girl sleeps between sheets. I’m going home.” She started to turn.
“You’re certainly free to,” Gage said, smiling a little ironically. “I couldn’t follow you if my life depended on it.” He started to unbuckle his canteen.
Garvix turned and shouldered his way to the edge of the grove. “I see no reason to halt,” he said and with a perfunctory flick of the wrist extinguished his lighter. His voice now suddenly came at them disembodied out of the inky black. “I know exactly where I am. Come on, Gladdy.”
They started to barge out of the grove. “I don’t think that’s wise,” Gage called out into the darkness.
“I don’t give a damn what you think! Peace and good night to you all.” Garvix’s joyous hoots came stabbing back at them through the night.
For a while they stood in silence listening to the footsteps thrash off into the distance. But this time no one followed. After a while, when the sounds of the steps could be heard no longer, Gage turned and spoke: “Well, I suggest we make ourselves as comfortable as possible.” He pushed some leaves and twigs together in a small mound and struck a match to them. In the next moment a small, welcome little fire sputtered into existence. Bayles gathered up several heavier branches and added them to the tiny blaze.
“We’ll need more wood,” Gage said. “Tom, would you gather some logs and branches together?”
Putney turned and gazed down at the surveyor, slumped against the tree. Then, without a word, he started off. “Enough to last us the night,” Gage called after him.
Freddy Jamison rubbed his stomach forlornly and watched the boy go. “I don’t believe this. This isn’t happening to me. Are we really camping out here for the night? Like a pack of squatters and gypsies?”
“Appears that way,” Gage replied, hovering above the surveyor. “Can you give me a hand with him?”
Together they stretched Rogers out, laying him gently beneath a tree. Gage loosened the old man’s collar, pulled his braces off his shoulders, and swept together a small pillow of pine spills upon which he propped the surveyor’s head.
The moment Rogers’ head hit the pine pillow, his eyes opened wide and he began to mumble. “19—15—12—28—66—41—9—south by southeast—” The numbers tumbled like crumbs from his lips. It went on in that fashion while Gage poured small quantities of water from the canteen into his cupped palm. He handed the canteen to Bayles. “Hold that, will you, while I give him a wash and a drink?” He proceeded to sponge the surveyor down—washed his wrists and his arms, his face and lower limbs. Then, using his handkerchief as a compress, he wound it, bandana-fashion, round the old man’s forehead. All the while he was nudging him gently and speaking softly to him: “Hello—hello—hello, Mr. Rogers. How are you? How are you?”
“22—13—9—all east. All east—”
“He hears me,” Gage said. “That’s encouraging.”
Sybil was rhapsodic. She was up, all activity and bustling about. “While Tom’s out gathering wood, I’ll start some supper.”
“Supper?” Freddy said, a look of astonishment on him. “With what?”
“I don’t know. There ought to be some wholesome edible leaf. A root. What did the pioneers do?”
Freddy moaned with disgust. “Oh, for Christ Jesus sake. Sit down, Sybil.”
There was a small commotion just outside the clearing, and, in the next moment, the Garvixes, like two phantoms, lurched back into the dim, flickering circle of light.
They all turned at once to stare.
Freddy sighed and made a clucking sound.
“Hullo, hullo, hullo. What have we here?”
Bayles rose, a look of sweet triumph gleaming on his face. “It wasn’t the dark was it, Leo? You weren’t afraid of the dark?”
Garvix stood there at the edge of the clearing, the light from the fire falling on his baffled features.
“Was it the high road you took, Leo?” Bayles went on spitefully, “Or the low? I seem to forget.” A hoarse, hearty roar of laughter had him rocking on his feet. “Leo the Lion.”
“10—14—23—south—south by east—north by west—” the faint croaking of the surveyor came from somewhere behind them.
Gladys stepped dismally into the tiny ring of light, then flung herself on the earth. Her weariness had heightened her color, Gage noted, and even her bedragglement seemed pretty.
“We’re lost, aren’t we?” Ollie Gelston said. The shadows of the fire into which she was staring danced lightly across her features. She appeared dazed, almost dreamy, and when she spoke her voice had to it a remote and strangely disquieting calm. “We’re not going to get out of here, are we?”
“We’re not that lost.” Gage rose and turned toward her. “I’d say we just wandered a bit out of our way.”
“Just a teensy-weensy bit,” Gladys added caustically.
Gage peered intently at Ollie, an odd expression on his face.
“How big are these woods anyway?” Freddy asked.
“Big!” said Garvix. “If you don’t know what you’re doing you’ve got some real trouble. I happen to know what I’m doing. We’ll stay put here for the night and make the house first thing in the morning.”
“Oh, sure,” Gladys said.
Garvix’s ears cocked combatively at the scornful note in her voice. “Beg pardon, Glad?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing at all.” In the next moment she was on her knees and creeping closer to the fire.
Bayles, too, had come closer to the fire, and now he crouched there on his haunches, Indian-style. “There’ve been some nasty stories about these woods over the years.”
“We can do very nicely without them, thank you,” Sybil said. Her spirits were still buoyant. She was full of the thrill of an unexpected adventure.
Tom Putney stepped back into the clearing, bearing a load of wood in his arms. He’d come so silently that Ollie, suddenly seeing him there, gasped and sprang backward.
“Jesus!” Freddy snarled. “Do you have to come sneaking up like that?”
Putney glanced at the Garvixes with only mild surprise. They’d already left when he had set out to gather wood.
“Anything wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Gage said. “Nothing at all.”
The first thing Putney did, even before he set down his load of wood, was to look at Rogers. Then when he’d satisfied himself on that score, he crossed quickly to the fire and dropped his logs there.
Gage took several of the logs and heaped them on the flames. “Would you help me stack these others over here near the fire, Tom?”
The boy watched all of that earnest industry for a moment, then stooped and picked up several more logs. “Sure,” he said, and started hauling his wood. “There’s a stream back up there about twenty-five yards,” he went on, an air of grave distrust about him, like a stranger fallen among thieves. “All the fresh water we need.”
“That’s very important,” Gage said.
The fire, fed by new logs, flooded the cavernous grove with a warm, orange suffusion of light. Gage stood above the fire heating his hands, although it wasn’t cold, and watched it pleasantly. “Well, now. This is very cozy, isn’t it?”
“Right out of House Beautiful,” Gladys said. “Babbling brooks. Wood views. Alfresco dining. The works.”
Jamison laughed bitterly. Gage preferred to ignore it all. “Before we go any further,” he went on enthusiastically, “I want to assure everyone that we have nothing to fear. The forest abounds with everything we need. All manner of edible foliage. Fresh water. And even fresh meat.”
These words had the effect of startling them all into silence.
“You sound as if you’re preparing for a long stay,” Bayles said.
“Not at all. I don’t believe that for a moment. But I just wanted to put things straight.”
“That’s good of you,” Gladys scowled.
Sybil swirled round, more enchanted than ever by their little predicament. “There ought to be wild sorrel around here. It makes a marvelous soup.”
Freddy made a queasy sound and rubbed his stomach. “I loathe sorrel soup.”
“Don’t be silly, darling. It’s a great delicacy. Full of iron. The Bulgars eat it, you know.”
“Wonderful!” said Gladys.
Sybil was about to say something nasty but Gage once again resumed his lecture on survival. “Just be certain that when you drink from one of these streams the water has a good swift flow to it.” Gage smiled benignly. “Water from a stream like that will never hurt you.”
“I don’t fancy those slimy bottoms,” Freddy said, looking a little nauseous.
“Hell of a lot cleaner than anything we get out of the damned taps,” said Tom.
“Not to mention the wretched chemicals they toss in,” Sybil said. “Nothing is natural anymore.” The thought made her sigh and she leaned backward on the pine spills as if she were gazing backward over the years to a better and more gracious time.
Bayles, seated beside her, suddenly rose. “You mentioned meat a while back,” he said to Gage. “What did you have in mind?”
“Rabbits, squirrels, birds,” said the doctor matter-of-factly.
Bayles appeared agitated. “How do you propose we get them?”
“With a rock if you’re not squeamish,” Garvix said, the old truculence back in his voice. Then he laughed and added: “But I know you’re squeamish.”
Sybil Jamison made a face of extreme revulsion.
“I’m sure it won’t come to that.” Gage laughed reassuringly. “But I just want to make it absolutely clear we have everything we need to hold out until we do get out of this.”
“Now you’ve really scared the hell out of me,” Gladys said.
“Yes,” Sybil said. “Isn’t this survival lecture a bit premature, Doctor?”
“Precisely my thought,” said Freddy.
It suddenly occurred to Gage he’d taken the wrong tack. “Yes,” he said, almost contritely. “It is. Of course it is.”
“Then don’t be so bloody goddamned solemn,” Freddy snarled. “All this talk about provender and water supplies.”
Sybil looked a trifle uneasy. “Surely you don’t think—”
“I don’t think anything,” Gage said emphatically. “We’ll have no trouble. That was very stupid of me. I just wanted to allay any fears.”
“I’ll have you home for breakfast, Sibby,” Leo Garvix blustered. “Like the doctor says, there’s nothing to fear.”
“Nothing to fear,” Tom Putney said, echoing the words dreamily. There was a rustle of noise and suddenly Ollie Gelston appeared shuffling toward them. “I fear wandering aimlessly,” she said. She stepped into the circle of light, and they made a space for her beside the fire.
Gage looked round at the grave faces regarding him. He laughed lightly. “Well, I’m not afraid to wander here a bit. It’s a nice change. As I say, there’s food and water a-plenty. We have a good supply of matches and unlimited fuel.” His arms made a wide circling sweep of the entire forest as if it were all at his beck and call.
Gladys tossed twigs pensively into the flames. “What a comfort you are.”
“Yes,” Freddy muttered morosely.
Tom Putney suddenly rose and held out his beaten-up old fedora. “Well, here’s supper anyway.” He extended the hat to Garvix, who was standing nearest to him.
Garvix peered into the hat. “Blackberries,” he murmured with mild contempt.
“I’ve been gathering them while we walked along,” said Tom. He looked round at the others proudly as if he were expecting applause.
“Oh, dear God,” moaned Gladys and rolled her eyes heavenward.
Gage took a small handful and began to pop them into his mouth. “Try some, Mrs. Garvix. I think you’ll find them excellent. And quite nourishing.”
“I don’t want any blackberries!” Gladys snapped. “I don’t want any sorrel soup! I don’t want any roots or herbs! I just want to go home—”
“We all want to go home, dear,” Sybil said assuagingly. “But as long as we’re out here, we’ll simply have to make the best of it.”
Gladys’ eyes flashed. She put her hands on her hips and squared her legs. “Oh, fuck off.”
“Don’t be disgusting,” Sybil replied sweetly.
“Well, don’t talk to me that way.”
“What way?”
“As if I were a child.”
“Well, you are being childish,” Sybil went on in that irritatingly patronizing tone.
“Am I?” said Gladys, her cheeks flamed. “Very well, then, I’m being childish.” She turned suddenly to Gage. It was with the motion of an eagle pouncing. “I hold you personally responsible for all this.”
For a moment Gage thought she was talking to someone else. Then he realized it was he who was the focus of her anger. He started to laugh. “Me?” Then a long column of air like a flattening tire sighed from his throat. “I didn’t put you out here—I didn’t create this mess.”
She appeared not to have heard him. She was all wound up and rattling on. “If you hadn’t inherited the Stuart place, we wouldn’t be out here in this ridiculous situation.”
“Oh for Chrissake, Gladdy,” Garvix bawled.
“I’m sorry that my retirement plans conflict with your ideas of an orderly universe,” Gage said.
“Well, they do.” She rose abruptly and started her angry prowling up and down the circle of light. Sybil watched her for a moment. “For God’s sake, Gladys. The doctor was only trying to help.”
“Well, I don’t recall who appointed him our leader,” said Freddy.
“I wasn’t pretending to be any kind of a leader,” Gage said. He laughed a little helplessly at his predicament.
“Well, what was all that rot about food and water?” Freddy muttered, wiping his neck with the rumpled foulard.
“It’s perfectly evident that we need such advice,” Sybil went on reasonably. “And Doctor Gage is the best qualified among us to give it.” She smiled suddenly. “Besides, isn’t it a charming idea to spend a night beneath the stars close to the bosom of mother earth! We’re all too soft and spoiled for our own good. Look at poor Freddy.” She cast him a disparaging glance. “Gone all soft and paunchy. A double chin.”
“Never mind the double chin, will you, Sybil?”
“Well, I do dear. You used to cut such a dashing figure. Now you have those awful wattles.” She reached across and strummed the fold of flesh beneath his chin.
Jamison went all florid and swatted her hand away. “If we’re getting down to that, you’ve got a few extra pleats of flesh of your own, my dear. And I still say—” He turned from her and thrust an accusatory finger at Gage. “I don’t need him to tell me to eat blackberries and drink water. What I need is a martini and a hot bath and someone to get me out of here at the earliest possible time.”
Bayles had been standing in the shadows just beyond the circle. Suddenly he laughed bitterly.
Garvix swung his thick torso round so he faced him. “If you don’t stop that goddamn laughing—”
“I was only thinking,” Bayles said, his eyes glinting with satisfaction, “that just a few hours ago we were all dividing up the forest because we owned it.”
“So?” Garvix demanded, his expression a mixture of rage and incomprehension.
“Well,” Bayles chuckled softly to the flames, “now it appears the forest owns us.”
The thought reduced them all to sudden silence. Garvix blinked at him across the fire. “What do you mean owns us? Nothing owns us. We’re not lost and that kind of talk doesn’t help anything.”
“I fully agree,” said Gage. “And let’s have no more of it.”
“Have you ever thought,” Bayles went on, “has it occurred to any of you that no one knows we’re out here?” He gazed round at them. “I know it has to Doctor Gage. But has it to any of you?”
Garvix appeared a little buffaloed. But only for a moment. “So what?” He hurled his voice back at Bayles across the shadows. “Does that mean we’re not going to get back? Where are we? A mile from home? Two miles? Just where do you think we are? Cut the crap, John. Don’t make catastrophes where they don’t exist. Let’s stop squabbling right now. There’s no need to panic. We’ll be home in the morning.”
“Hear! Hear!” said Freddy Jamison and rapped a log with the stone of his signet ring for emphasis.
Garvix had made his points well. They were grateful for his words and they leaned back against the fire and let the great warm waves of his confidence wash over them. Almost instantly he felt the surge of the tide running with him.
“That’s right,” Tom Putney said, nodding eagerly at Garvix. “You can’t panic. I seen what panic can do. I seen ’em taken out of the woods after they been in a while. Funny expression on their faces. Strange look in their eyes. Tetched and never the same. I seen one boy up here—’bout 19 he was. Walked into the woods one day for a stroll—”
“Tom—” Gage said, trying to head him off, but Putney was mesmerized by his own tale, determined to tell it. “Found him a day later sitting up against a tree trunk. Stone dead. Full canteen of water. Matches he never struck. Food in a rucksack he never ate.”
He gazed round at them, enjoying the effect of his story.
“When they found him he was only twenty-five foot from the road,” he rattled on, caught up in his own momentum. “Panic I s’pose, and his heart just give out. Woods can get to a man if you give ’em a chance.”
A great pall of silence descended on the grove and the purr of peepers and crickets once more flowed in upon them.
“Thank you, Tom,” Gladys’ voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “We needed that.”
There was more silence and they sat around awkwardly, fidgeting and staring at the ground.
Freddy Jamison sighed and looked round at them all. “Well, what do we do now?”
Sybil pondered the question, then brightened immediately. “We could amuse ourselves.”
“I see you’ve given up the supper idea,” Freddy said mockingly. “No sorrel soup, ay?”
“Well, I got so little encouragement—”
“Thank heaven for that!” said Garvix.
But Sybil was still brimming with enthusiasm. “Oh, come. Let’s do something. Let’s entertain ourselves.”
“How—pray tell,” Gladys said.
“I don’t know,” Sybil said. “A song. A story.”
“Good idea,” said Gage.
“Cunning,” said Gladys with all the acid she could muster.
Sybil clapped her hands in a touchingly childish way. “Let’s have a song then.”
Gladys made a sour face and tossed a twig into the flames. “I’m really not in the mood for fun and games.”
“Why not?” said Leo Garvix surprisingly. “If we’re stuck out here for the night? Anything to help pass the time.”
“Come on!” said Sybil eagerly. “Be a good sport. Someone give us a song.”
Freddy Jamison’s croaking baritone rose suddenly above the crickets:
We’re poor little lambs
who have lost our way—
Baa-baa-baa—
“Oh, shut up, Freddy,” Sybil said. “You ruin everything.” She turned heatedly to the others. “What about a story? Someone tell a story.”
“Once upon a time,” Gladys’ voice quavered in a childish singsong. “There were two little children who went walking in the woods. Their names were Hansel and—”
“Oh, never mind.” Sybil flung her hands up in despair. “You see, Doctor, how they are?”
She had appealed to Gage as if his being the only stranger to this circle of people had put him on some special footing of sanity. But the appeal left him somewhat at a loss.
Sybil however wasn’t easily defeated. “Very well, then.” She rose a little stiffly. “I’ll sing a song.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Freddy said with a small whimper of resignation.
“This is a little German lied,” she went on, ignoring him. “It tells the story—”
“Skip the lengthy prologues, Sib,” Freddy snapped impatiently. “Just get on with it.”
Suddenly they were all silent, strewn like shipwrecks on a tiny spit of beach in the midst of a vast, unending sea. They might have been spectators at a recital. Somewhere a baton had been tapped directing their attention to a podium, and someone was about to perform.
For the fleetingest moment Sybil appeared rattled. Rattled by their attitude of sullen expectation, by their bored, restless inattention, rattled by the shock of having had her way, which she scarcely expected. But the moment of wavering was over instantly and then suddenly she was filling her lungs, straightening her carriage, massing her concentration on a single point.
In the next moment a low, husky, throbbing voice filled the grove. The words of a mournful Schumann lied, so incongruous in that setting, drifted upward through the trees.
Es zog eine Hochzeit den Berg entlang,
Ich horte die Vogel schlagen,
Da blitzen viel Reiter, das Waldhorn klang
Des war ein lustiges Jagen.
The voice on the one hand had a fetchingly erotic quality. On the other it was wildly funny—the worst possible parody of a twenties Berlin cabaret singer.
The voice hovered above the grove like a dense, sluggish air.
Und eh ich’s gedacht, war alles verhallt,
Die Nacht bedecket die Runde;
Nur von den Bergen neck rauschet der Wald
Und mich schauert’s im Herzengrunde.
They waited, expecting more. But when it became apparent that no more was coming, there was a flutter of polite, embarrassed applause.
“What’s it mean?” Tom Putney asked.
“It’s just a little story,” Sybil replied, and gazed dolefully into the fire.
“Does it have a happy ending?” Leo Garvix inquired.
“No,” Sybil said, her eyes riveted on the idly leaping flames. “Very sad.”
“Well, for Christ sake,” Gladys fumed, “Tell us what it means.”
“No need to be so damned secretive,” Freddy said.
Sybil raised her head and smiled at Gage across the fire. “The doctor knows what it means, don’t you?” Sybil said. For a moment their gazes met, and they seemed to share a secret. Gage sucked pensively on his pipe, but he said nothing.
Sybil roused herself and began to stroll round the grove. It was a leisurely, meandering course she took, pausing here and there, to kneel or stoop and look at specimens of plant life scattered round the place.
“This forest is not at all like a Viennese forest,” she said. She was suddenly indignant. As if the forest itself had cheated her.
“Really?” Gladys Garvix said, full of mock sympathy. “How awful!”
“What makes a forest Viennese?” Gage asked. He was intrigued by the idea.
“Light,” said Sybil pensively, gliding like a swan round the small circle. “Shadow. Foliage. Spirit—” The word reverberated through her mind. “Mostly spirit.”
Garvix laughed and rolled his paunchy frame over till he lay hummocked on his belly. “How you complicate things, Sibby. A forest is a forest.”
“No, it isn’t,” Sybil said with sudden vehemence. “A forest is—” She paused, searching her mind for the appropriate metaphor, and failed to find it. “Well—all I can say is, once you’ve seen a Viennese forest—” Nostalgia suddenly swamped her. “I was never so happy as I was in Vienna. I want to go back there once before I die.”
“Well, if I had it to do all over,” said Freddy struggling to his feet, “it’s Rome I’d want to see again.” His face was transported by an almost boyish joy. “There was a city for a man to be a bachelor in!” He laughed and punched his palm with his fist. “The Metropole and the Little Bar in the Via Margutta and Doney’s right up on the Porta Pinciani, and eating snails at the Hassler. Wherever I went they knew me. I cut a figure then. ‘Right this way Mr. Jamison, your table.’ They knew how to treat a man there!”
The corner of Sybil’s mouth crept upward in a mocking grin. “Of course they did. You were an Englishman and an aristocrat. A grandson of the Tenth Earl of Sandwich—or something—”
“Your mother seemed impressed.”
Garvix gave a short, hooting laugh. “She didn’t know the earl was broke and that she’d have to send him money every six months.”
Freddy’s cheeks flamed. “Keep your goddamned nose out of this, Leo.”
Garvix whooped at the sky. Even Sybil was laughing.
“But it’s true, darling.”
“Serves you right then for being so damned ambitious!” Freddy smoldered. “That’s what ought to happen to every self-seeking little—”
“How long do you think it will take us to reach home tomorrow?” They all turned at once and saw the slight, indefinite figure of Ollie Gelston wavering at the edge of the circle.
“No time at all,” Gage said. He rose and took her by the arm, leading her into the small, huddling pocket of humanity.
“We must get poor Albert home,” she said in her gentle, lamenting voice. Passing the sprawling figure of Garvix, she halted above him and peered down. “How long, Leo?”
“Yes, how long?” Bayles flung the question at him again.
Garvix rolled over and lay on his back staring up at the star-flung sky as if he hadn’t heard them. There was such an abundance of stars that the skies appeared to shimmer with a curious milky-white glow.
“Oh, fifteen minutes,” he said, after a moment’s speculation. “Half-hour at the most.”
His certainty had a buoying effect. Gage noted how they all hung on his words. Even Gladys’ petulant grimace appeared to soften.
“Leo says fifteen minutes,” Bayles said, talking aloud to himself. “A half-hour at the most.”
“You think differently?” Garvix asked.
“Quite differently.”
“How differently?” Garvix smiled but his face was flushed. “An hour? Two hours?” He hurled the words like small pebbles at him.
Bayles shrugged. “I couldn’t even begin to guess.”
“How about a little wager? Just to sweeten the pot. Name your stakes.”
“I’m not a gambler.”
“Fifty? A hundred?” Garvix was all hot and eager. “A thousand? Ten thousand?” The figures flew upward like sparks.
Bayles gazed at him silently. Suddenly a spiteful little glint came into Garvix’s eye. A fork of bluish veins throbbed at his temple. “What about final settlement on the 1944 emendation?”
Bayles folded his arms and stood silent. He seemed planted there.
“Come on—five and a half acres—what the hell is it? Winner take all.”
“You’ll never get that strip of land, Leo. I’ll take it with me to the grave.”
Garvix laughed aloud. “Come on and bet, you bastard. Put your money where your mouth is!”
Bayles’ eyes fluttered beneath the scorching stare. Then he said, very quietly: “I’m not a gambler, Leo.”
“Then shut your face for Chrissake.” Garvix spun round on his heel. He turned to Ollie and thrust his arm like a saber skyward. “See the top of that hickory?”
She nodded with a pathetic vacancy. She hadn’t even bothered to look where he was pointing.
“First thing in the morning I’ll be up to the top of that hickory,” Garvix said. He was once again full of boisterous good will.
Gladys started to laugh. “You’re going to climb that tree, Leo?”
“You betchalife, sweetheart!” He started to pump his little piston legs up and down. “And from the time I get up there, spot the church steeple, and get back down, it’ll take us fifteen minutes to get to my door.” His eyes darted defiantly round at the others.
“That’s reassuring,” said Bayles, his voice full of quiet cynicism.
Garvix began to steam visibly.
Gage coughed nervously and made a conscious effort to change the subject. “Well, I’m also pretty sure we’re not too far from home. I should judge we’d be back before breakfast.”
Tom Putney, sitting a lonely vigil beside the surveyor, stirred from his thoughts at the mention of food.
“I’ll have me some ham and eggs and pancakes,” he said as if he were already at a luncheon counter ordering them.
“We’ll have to be back by ten,” Garvix announced with all the sober purposefulness of a man of the world.
“Ten?” Gladys said with a vague curiosity. “Why ten?”
Garvix seemed to enjoy the mystery he’d created. “I’m expecting an important call.”
The faintly mocking smile faded from Gladys’ lips. She was suddenly apprehensive. “What important call?”
Garvix beamed. He rather enjoyed titillating them. “I hadn’t told you yet. I was keeping it a surprise.” He paused, gazing from one to the other while they dangled there before him in breathless expectation. His eyes finally fell on Gladys. “Garvix Enterprises, Inc., is going public.”
There was one of those full and significant pauses.
“No!” Sybil gasped, full of admiration. “Not really, Leo?”
“The hell—not really,” Garvix boomed, jaunty and effusive. “Garvix Enterprises. Right up there on the big board. With all the big boys.”
“How gorgeous,” Sybil was ecstatic. “Aren’t you pleased, Gladys?”
“Thrilled,” said Gladys. She was trying to sound contemptuous but it was apparent she was impressed. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
Garvix winked playfully. “I was keeping it a secret. Was gonna surprise you when the papers were all signed. But I figured I’d tell you now just so the night isn’t a total bust.” He looked round at the immense gloom that encircled them and then smiled with a boyish pride that Gage found oddly likable. He hadn’t thought he could like anything about Garvix.
“It’s been the dream of my life,” Garvix babbled on excitedly. “That’s why I’ve gotta be home early. The SEC is calling. There are applications. All kinds of papers to be signed. Lawyers—”
Suddenly a rush of warmth flowed through that chilly, inhospitable place. They were all talking at once, expressing their congratulations and their good wishes. Lively, even amiable chatter flooded the grove, and Leo Garvix basked in the warm, rejuvenating sun of their collective admiration.
Then suddenly there was a noise, as of wind, rushing behind them. They all turned at once and heard a moan coming from where the figure of the surveyor lay stretched like a long shadow, supine beneath the spruce boughs.
Tom Putney covered the space between himself and Rogers in three or four bounds, and crouched by his side.
“Listen,” his voice came at them sideways across the shadows. “He’s trying to say something.”
In the next moment they were all up on their feet and streaming across the grove to where Rogers lay. Sparks showered upward in their wake.
Rogers lay on his back, his palms folded on his chest, as if he were at prayer. His long, gray, disheveled hair spread out around him like a matted wreath.
“19—north—northwest—30 degrees—14 minutes—due southeast—” The voice was remote and infinitely tranquil, as if he were talking to them across great icy vacant spaces. “30 rods—6 chains—to the stone wall—”
“What are all those numbers he keeps mumbling?” Gladys demanded. Her voice was full of its old petulance, but for some reason she’d lowered it almost reverentially to a whisper.
“Trails,” Bayles replied. “Paths that have vanished. Courses leading nowhere.”
The fire sputtered and crackled behind them. A light breeze kicked up and the huge ancient limbs of spruce creaked and swayed like huge fans above them. The branches in them clicked like old dry bones.
Suddenly Rogers sat up. He turned his face toward the fire and for a moment the reflection of the flames leaped in his eyes.
“7 stars—7 golden candlesticks—”
Bayles’ ears pricked up. “What? What did he say?”
“I didn’t catch it,” Gage said. He knelt quickly down beside the surveyor and pressed an ear to his chest. “Rogers,” he called softly, and in the next moment lifted the lid of one eye so that a thin white crescent of eyeball flashed suddenly. “Rogers—”
“Hair white as snow—Eyes as flames of fire—”
“What in hell,” Garvix sputtered. Suddenly they were all swarming around the prostrate figure of the surveyor.
“The Keys of Hell. The Church in Smyrna—”
Tom Putney’s eyes opened like huge blooming peonies. “Jeesus—”
“What’s he saying?” Freddy asked.
“God knows,” Sybil said. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”
Gage nudged and prodded him. “Rogers. Are you all right? Mr. Rogers—”
“4 and 20 seats. 4 and 20 elders. Lamps of fire. A sea of glass. 4 beasts full of eyes.”
“Golly God,” Tom said, his eyes growing larger by the moment.
“The Lion. The Calf. The Eagle,” it went on—a voice not quite Rogers’ voice but rather a deep, resonant voice rising out of caverns—out of eons. It had the quality of distant thunder. It swelled and receded like the roar of the sea.
“6 Wings. 7 seals. 7 horns. 7 eyes.”
“Jibberish!” Garvix picked up a twig and snapped it with an odd quality of vengefulness.
Gage glanced up. Bayles was hovering above him. “Mean anything to you?”
Bayles shrugged helplessly.
“He’s crackers!” Garvix said, and started to laugh wildly. “The old boy’s crackers!”