SOMETIME SHORTLY BEFORE DAWN, Gage turned in his fitful sleep. Except for the quiet hiss of dying embers, the forest was silent. All about the grove were the sprawled slumbering forms of the wanderers. One by one, during the course of the night, they had each straggled back to that dimly flickering light for whatever warmth and comfort it still contained.
Great gobs of mist hung all about the place, enshrouding the trees and transforming simple objects into dark, gibbous shapes. Gage turned again and through half-waking eyes he became aware of a slight but decided movement in his vicinity. It was a slow rhythmic motion, blurred at times and at other times quite distinct. When he opened his eyes more fully and made a conscious effort to focus, he became aware of the gray silhouette of a person. That person was kneeling beside the grave of Albert Rogers.
He imagined it was Tom Putney maintaining that strange, graveside vigil of his that had begun the night before. He was about to speak, when he suddenly realized it wasn’t Putney he was looking at at all. It was John Bayles and the motion that had caught his attention was the slow, rhythmic rocking of Bayles’ body, beside the grave.
He watched for a while through the mist as the light changed and the shade of night lifted. Soon he could see the outline of Bayles’ features quite clearly. He could see the eyes fixed intently on the shallow hump of earth and the lips moving but making no sound. He had a keen, inescapable sense of being witness to a communion of sorts. He felt that he was spying on some intimate and immensely critical moment in the lives of two men—one of whom was already dead—and he was uncertain what to do.
Gage turned, making a good deal of obvious noise, as if he were just waking. Then he rose up on his elbows and squinted toward the slowly rocking figure. Still Bayles appeared not to notice him. Starting up slowly, Gage shook out his aching joints, and fumbled with the dishevelment of his clothing. Nettles clung to his hair. His face, unshaven for days, had a thick, unruly stubble and his mouth had a putrid taste.
Bayles didn’t see him until he was actually standing there above him, searching his numbed, drowsy mind for words.
“You all right?” Gage asked. His voice sounded alien and unfamiliar. Its sudden intrusion into that noiseless dawn barely phased Bayles. When he looked up, he was smiling.
“Are you all right?” Gage asked again.
He stared at Gage for a moment. Then he said. “Sure. I’m fine.” There was a curious quality to his smile. He gestured at the grave with a slight thrust of his head. “I was just looking at him.”
“Oh?”
“Recalling him. How he looked these last few days—not sick really.”
“He was,” Gage said. “I can assure you of that.”
“I know—I know. I mean I accept the death and the technical reasons for it. But still—he never really looked sick to me.”
“For a man his age, he had astonishing vitality.”
“Yes—didn’t he?” Bayles agreed with almost childish enthusiasm. “I can still see him lying there, before the fire—his face in such repose. His eyes—so calm, so beautiful. And whispering—always whispering those numbers, those ancient paths.”
They sat silently, watching the gray dawn spill slowly up the eastern sky. From somewhere deep in the forest came the hollow, distant rattle of a woodpecker drumming through the early morning mist. It was an oddly disquieting sound. Foreboding. It seemed to carry within its sharp, staccato tattoo some vaguely unpleasant augury of things to come. A rumpled figure near the fire groaned and turned in its sleep.
“He was remarkable,” Gage continued. “I don’t recall ever seeing that kind of vitality and spirit in a man of those years.” He glanced at Bayles and saw that he was still smiling. “Sure you’re all right?” he inquired.
“Yes—fine. Why do you ask?”
Gage shrugged. “You look strange to me.” His own words jarred harshly in his head. “I don’t mean that negatively. I mean—you look different.”
Bayles’ face brightened, and he said, “I wasn’t very good at the beginning, was I?”
“No better and no worse than anyone else. Possibly a little better.”
They laughed softly. A strange ease had come between them. “I must say,” Gage went on. “You’re taking this whole thing better than I thought you would.”
“You thought I’d go off the deep end didn’t you?” Bayles stared hard at the grave. “Especially when he died.”
“You more or less said you would.”
“Yes—I know. I told you I thought I was destined for the same end as my father.”
“That’s what you said.”
“Yes—I know. That’s always hung over my head. I can’t tell you how it’s crippled me.” His cheeks colored vividly in the gray, moist dawn. “Waiting for myself to dissolve. For my mind to slip away. I’ve always been terrified of it. I grew up with the idea that I had to fight for every inch of normalcy I’ve got.” He looked at Gage inquisitively—as if he hadn’t seen him there before. Then suddenly seeing him there, crouched, soggy, exhausted in that improbable place, he laughed. “Well, I no longer feel that. I feel different. I feel—somehow changed. You know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Gage nodded.
“I can’t explain it. Except to say that I’ve been feeling something happening to me these past few days. As if I’d been shedding an old skin in which I’d been imprisoned for years.”
“Something is different about you,” Gage said, with a grudging admiration.
“Can’t you guess what it is?”
Gage looked at him quizzically. Bayles was beaming. “It’s only that the more lost we get, the more free I feel.”
“Free?” Gage’s voice rose. The ring of it brought Jamison’s tousled, weed-strewn head up. It hung for a moment, disembodied in shards of mist, then slipped back down, out of sight, like the head of a drowning man disappearing beneath the surface of a murky pond.
Bayles nodded eagerly. “When I was young I was frightened of these woods.” He glanced down at the shallow grave beside him. “He was never frightened of them—of anything. When he was very young, people used to say he was dim-witted. Did you know that? For a long time he was treated around here like some kind of a moron until people discovered his uncanny knowledge of these woods. Of all the boundaries in the area. He had this phenomenal memory—idiot savant, I suppose is what you call them. He committed to memory the metes and bounds of every property in this region. That’s how he became surveyor. He loved these woods and never feared them.” He stared round at the forest with a smile of recognition—old friends meeting after many years. “And I’m not frightened of them anymore either.”
They were silent for a while, listening to a warbler who’d been joined by another in some distant branches. Bayles gathered himself up. There was now a look of resolution about him. Gage leaned forward as he spoke.
“All the while we’ve been out here, I’ve kept asking myself, ‘Why has he led us out here and then just abandoned us like this?’ And then, only this morning, sitting right here, I thought—but he hasn’t abandoned us. Till the very end he was still here with us, chanting the numbers, charting the route.”
Gage stared at him. “Charting the route?”
“Of course he was. In the last few days he was setting the course for us. We just never listened.”
Gage felt a sudden unaccountable anger. “What do you mean?”
“He said it over and over again: 18 degrees—south-southwest—30 minutes—12 seconds to a stone marked Y—it’s the way home.” Bayles said, the smile glowing all about him.
Gage gaped at him. “You surely don’t take those readings seriously?”
“Why not? He’d been giving off those same readings for the past two days. He never stopped and he never changed them.”
“Yes, but—”
“But—you’re about to point out the state of his mind. His age.”
“Of course,” Gage said. “Wouldn’t you?”
“With anyone else except Rogers. You, yourself, noted the extraordinary condition he was in for a man of his age. His vitality, you said, his spirit.”
“I know I said that. But—”
“Have you ever thought,” Bayles rushed on, “that Rogers wasn’t really lost at all?”
“But my dear man—he’d had a stroke.”
“Oh, I don’t say he didn’t have a stroke. But I don’t think it ever affected his faculties.”
The sun, half-risen now, tinged the forest with a pale, pewter glow.
“I don’t think Rogers was ever lost,” Bayles said suddenly. “He only seemed lost because we were lost.”
“I’ve never heard such a pack of nonsense.” Gage flung his hands up. “If he knew the way out of here he had a responsibility to tell us. It was his job to guide us. Not to lose us out here in the woods, and let us wander around aimlessly bumping our way through the dark.”
“But he did tell us,” Bayles persisted. “He never stopped telling us. We just stopped listening.”
“What the hell are you trying to say?” Gage demanded, his emotions somewhere between exasperation and pity.
“That I’ve made up my mind.”
Gage gaped at him. The smile had deepened until it now appeared in the half-light of dawn that Bayles was positively glowing. For a moment Gage was convinced he was peering at another kind of lunacy. He glowered back at that irritatingly tranquil smile. “Exactly what have you made your mind up about?”
The scorn of it scarcely phased Bayles. His eyes were quiet and he pressed on with some great need to speak. But before he could go on the thick, square bulk of Garvix’s outline lumbered into sight.
“What’s up?” he barked amiably at them from across the clearing.
Gage, seeing him then, had the sudden impression that Garvix had been watching them a long while.
“Nothing,” he called back. “Just chatting.”
Freddy Jamison’s tousled head popped up from somewhere to the left of them. “Is it time?”
Tom Putney rose and stretched his arms above his head. “I been up nearly half-an-hour.”
“My mouth tastes awful,” Sybil Jamison said from beneath a sour mound of outer clothing.
In the next moment Garvix was up, clashing his hands like cymbals and strutting all about the place. “Everybody up. Everyone out of the sack.”
Gladys Garvix moaned and rolled sleepily over onto her stomach.
“Come on,” Garvix’s palms crashed together. “The early bird catches the worm.” He was up now on his stumpy legs, his barrel torso swaggering about the clearing—jostling each of them and laughing. “Come on—up—up—up. Poppa’s got a date with the SEC.”
Sybil Jamison was sitting up now, chafing her bones, trying to coax the circulation back into her numbed limbs. “Why don’t you all just leave me here?” she whimpered. “Freddy, I’d consider it a most charitable act if you just buried me here, beneath this tree.”
Jamison rubbed his belly where the ulcer was already stabbing at him with a vengeance. He looked at her, his eyes full of a sudden unaccountable tenderness. “If I had a shovel, Sibby, I’d help you dig the hole.” He paused, considering what he had just said. “I didn’t mean that unkindly.”
“I know, dear.” She smiled at him. “I know you meant it kindly.”
Garvix came barreling up to them, banging his meaty palms together. “Come on. Come on. Procrastination is the thief of time. He who hesitates is lost.”
“And an empty barrel beats the loudest,” Gladys said.
Garvix laughed and clapped his hands harder. “Let’s get going!”
“Where, for God’s sake?” Freddy whined. “Will someone please tell me where?”
“We have no place to go,” said Sybil.
“Home,” Garvix said. “We’re going home.”
“We’re going nowhere,” Freddy said forlornly. “We’re just getting in deeper and deeper.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Garvix said, his enthusiasm brimming. “We’re almost out now. Almost home.”
“You keep saying that,” said Sybil.
“Have you no shame, Leo?” Freddy said.
Gage turned to Garvix with sudden forcefulness. “Now that Rogers is out of the picture, I think you do owe us some kind of an explanation.”
Garvix smiled indulgently. He looked as if he loved each one of them. “All right,” he said with an air of easy, almost charming finality. “We can go home now.”
The suddenness of it took their breath away. It was uttered so simply and easily, but it came with the weight of a proclamation of law.
Freddy began to laugh quietly, making small yipping sounds. “We can go home now?” There was a funny, baffled look on his face, as if he couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of the words.
“Yes,” Garvix smiled benevolently. “We can go home now.”
“What do you mean, now?” Bayles said, his ears perking up.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Gage said.
They swarmed together into a tight little knot encircling him.
“Why couldn’t we go home before?” Gage snapped. “What’s changed?”
“Yes,” Sybil demanded. “What’s changed, Leo? You talk as if you could have gotten us home at any time.”
Garvix smiled and in that moment, Gage felt his blood run cold.
“Maybe I could’ve,” Garvix said. He winked at them mischievously. “Anyway, I will now.”
Gladys’ frightened eyes swung round the circle of wanderers. “Don’t believe him. I warn you. Don’t believe a word he says.”
Garvix went on talking as if she weren’t there. She stood among them, feeling drained and helpless as he spoke.
“Oh, look now. I’m willing to admit I got myself a little befuddled here—” His voice was gentle and assuaging. He seemed almost apologetic. “A little turned around. I didn’t want to say anything because I know what a pack of whiners and snivelers you are. If I’d have said anything you’d have all been peeing your pants. But yesterday when Tom and I were out having our little dinner, we finally got our bearings. Isn’t that right, Tom?”
They all turned to Putney. He looked back at them with a cocky little smile. “That’s right.” He nodded at Garvix in the morning shadows.
Garvix hurried on: “I know exactly where we are now.”
“Oh?” said Bayles, his brows cocked skeptically. “Where are we?”
“In the southeastern corner of my property—right below the dagger.” Garvix flung the words back at him. “We just went a little too far west and a little too far south of my place. Probably just brushed past it at dusk without even realizing. Goes to show you,” he said and laughed easily.
Some of the others laughed too, a little timidly, and for a moment they seemed cautiously relieved.
“How do you know?” Bayles asked. The challenge in his voice brought the tension and uncertainty creeping back into the others. “How do you know this is the southeastern corner of your property?”
“How do I know?” Garvix asked. Even as he spoke he sensed their doubt surging back in waves again. He went on more earnestly. “Because when Tom and I were out there yesterday I suddenly remembered the whole damned topography. The whole thing came back to me. I even recognized a tree I used to climb in the southeastern corner as a kid. Didn’t I point it out to you, Tom?”
“Yes, you did, Mr. Garvix.” Tom nodded his head fitfully at the others.
“A big catalpa,” Garvix laughed richly. “And I even saw marks we carved in it when we were kids.” He could feel a pulse of new hope, slight but unmistakable, resuming in them. “Then when Tom climbed the tree and we saw the church steeple—”
“The steeple?” Their cry went up in unison and they all surged round him.
“You saw the steeple?” Bayles said.
“Course we did,” Garvix boomed, full of affability and good will. “Home’s not more than a good hour’s march from here. Straight east into the sun.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this last night?” Gage demanded.
“Because quite frankly, Doctor,” his smile glinted spitefully, “I didn’t want to. You wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”
“I don’t believe you either,” Bayles said.
“I didn’t expect you to,” Garvix said. “That’s why I didn’t bother telling you.”
“Where is this tree?” Gage asked.
“About two miles from here.”
“Take us to it,” said Gladys.
“I’d be glad to, but I’m sure none of you could climb high enough in it to satisfy your doubts. I know I couldn’t. I don’t suppose the doctor or Freddy could either. And I know John can’t. He’s afraid of heights and has been ever since he was a kid. That leaves the ladies.” He laughed affably.
It was all true enough. With the exception of Tom Putney, they were all well past the age of sprinting up tall trees. And as for Bayles’ fear, that was true, too. Heights terrified him to the point of sickness.
“You’re lying.” Bayles said quietly. “Lying in your teeth.”
“That’s unkind of you, John. And after I’ve offered to take you home.”
“You’re a liar,” Bayles stared at him unflinchingly.
“Tom here saw it too, didn’t you, Tom?”
Putney’s head fell into that fiercely obedient nod.
“Tom’s a liar, too,” Bayles said, without heat or rancor. “You’ve promised him things and got him to lie for you.”
“That ain’t so,” Tom stumbled forward. “He ain’t promised me nothin’. And I did see the steeple.”
Gage could sense the faith struggling back into them. The chilling effect of Bayles’ skepticism and Gladys’ warning had all but melted and washed away like patches of stubborn old snow in a spring thaw.
Garvix was booming heartily now. He chatted and laughed with everyone. He was full of warmth and a new benevolence. He had affection and concern for everyone. They had just attended a funeral, but the memory of that death was a million miles from where they stood at that moment. Garvix had waved his wand and banished the memory.
Standing aside, Gage watched the others swarm and flock round Garvix. Bayles and Gladys, however, like himself, stood a little apart, in quiet bewilderment. Gage noted it well. He was stunned at the bright arrogance of the man. Stunned and frankly impressed at his ability to keep up the demonic pretense of knowing. Knowing something the others didn’t. Privy to secrets no other mortal knew. It was an admirable performance but Gage couldn’t forget the cold, ruthless cynicism of it all. He’d seen it flicker tentatively in Garvix’s smile when he’d told him Rogers was dying—and when he’d boasted he could have got them home at any time. Did Garvix really know the way out? Had he always known? Gage was beginning to have rather definite ideas on the subject.
Freddy stood legs apart, hands on hips, blinking his eyes uncertainly. His stance was a funny mixture of scorn and craven fright. “Straight into the sun you say?” He gave an exasperated little laugh.
Garvix gazed back at him imperturbably. “That’s right. And if we do that I guarantee we’ll all be drinking martinis in my back yard by noon.”
The vision of martinis—several of them, cool and pale, the glass beaded with frost, slim crescent of lemon peel drifting on their limpid surfaces—wasn’t wasted on Jamison. But in the next moment he was all sneers. “Anything that man proposes is wrong.” He glared at Garvix.
“You can do anything you damn please, Freddy.” Garvix smiled amiably, a trace of mockery in his voice.
Bayles walked off several paces and stood alone, staring back at them, as if he were taking a new perspective of things. “I’m going to follow Rogers,” he said.
“Rogers?” Several of them cried out in unison.
It took a few moments before the implausibility of his words registered.
Garvix’s smile curled upward. “That may be difficult in view of the circumstances.” His eyes traveled to the shallow, unmarked grave.
“What do you mean, ‘follow Rogers’?” Freddy asked peevishly.
“Just that—I’m going to follow the directions he was giving us. They’ll lead me home.”
Sybil looked cross. “What directions?”
“18 degrees south-southwest 30 minutes 12 seconds to a stone marked Y.” Bayles glanced up at the sun as if he were already taking his bearings. “For the past two days he never stopped giving those readings.”
“And you propose to follow those readings?” Freddy asked.
“I do,” Bayles said. Once again the quiet self-containment he had felt earlier that morning was upon him.
Garvix made a grunting sound. “I’d sooner walk off the edge of a cliff.”
“You’re not going to let yourself be guided by that jibberish?” Sybil said. “You’re really not!”
He stood there regarding them quietly.
“You’re putting your fate in the hands of that poor, demented old man?” Freddy cried unbelievingly.
Bayles smiled wearily. “No, Freddy. In my own hands.”
“But why?” Gage persisted. “Why suddenly now? What’s changed?”
Bayles smiled gently. “I have.”
The simplicity of the answer startled them. They could find in it nothing to argue with. Bayles felt a sudden need to clarify his position—not for himself, but for them. “Rogers has been giving off the same set of directions for nearly the past forty-eight hours,” he said. “At first I paid no attention. I thought they were just the ravings of a mad man. Then I heard this pattern of consistency in them—18 degrees south-southwest 30 minutes 12 seconds to a stone marked Y. And then it occurred to me that he was trying to tell us something.” He looked round at them eagerly, trying to convey his enthusiasm. “So very early this morning I took his compass and went out to verify the points. I must have gone for about three miles until I found blazings on trees south-southwest of here.”
“Blazings?” Gage asked.
“What about them?” said Garvix. He studied Bayles warily.
“They’re markings on my west line,” Bayles said. He looked round at them. “Rogers was right. He was right all along. I know the way back now.”
Garvix made a scoffing sound.
“Are you sure?” Freddy asked.
“Yes,” Bayles said, and something wavered momentarily in his eye. “I’m sure.”
For Bayles, that moment was a fatal lapse of confidence, and Garvix caught it.
“You’re bluffing, John,” he smiled sadly. “Good try but not good enough.”
“I’m sure this time, Leo.”
Garvix shook his head sagely. “South-southwest is the wrong way. If you go south-southwest of here, you go into the big state wilderness preserve. You’ll never get out of there.”
Gladys turned on him heatedly. “How do you know? You lied to us before. Why should we believe you now?”
“I told you why,” Garvix spoke with a note of reasonableness that sounded strange in him. “Because Tom and I saw the church steeple about three miles east of here.” He turned to her earnestly. “I’m not lying this time, Glad. I’ve no reason to.”
“You’re wrong,” Bayles said quietly. “Dead wrong. Your place is south-southwest of here, Leo.” He didn’t sound angry or contentious. He sounded emphatic.
“But how can you be sure?” Gage asked.
“It’s unreasonable to expect anyone to really be sure,” Bayles said. “But I’m reasonably sure.”
Garvix smiled tolerantly. “Reasonably is not good enough, John. Not with so much at stake.”
The remark brought them round to Garvix. He seemed a new man. More tolerant. More sympathetic. More forgiving. And never before had he gone so far as to admit that there was anything at stake at all.
But the new Garvix, far from convincing Bayles, made him more wary. “Going east from here would be suicide,” he said quietly. “I’m going south-southwest. Would any of you care to join me?”
There was a silence while he waited. Several of them fidgeted and coughed. No one came forward. Freddy looked round at them desperately. His eyes had a trapped expression. “I—I’d like to.” He lumbered forward. “But—I want someone else too.” He looked round at them miserably. “One other person—Sybil?”
She looked up at him startled.
“What about it?” he asked.
She stared at him for a moment, as if she scarcely recognized him. Then slowly her eyes lowered to the ground and rooted there.
“Gladys?” Freddy went on, a grieved look on his face.
Gladys closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if she were about to dive from a high board. She took one unequivocable step toward Jamison. In that moment her glance fell on Garvix and she froze dead in her tracks. With her lips trembling slightly, she spoke: “If Dr. Gage will, I will.”
Freddy looked crushed. With the miserable eyes of a chastised puppy, he turned to Gage. “Well, what about it?”
Gage looked up quickly. He appeared baffled. His gaze traveled from Bayles down to the shallow mound of earth covering the surveyor. When he glanced again at Bayles he found him smiling enigmatically at him. For some reason unbeknownst to him, his heart started to thud wildly in his chest. He could feel Gladys watching him intently. He avoided her eyes. “I think,” he said after a moment, “I’ll stick with the steeple.”
Gage looked up at her guiltily, and then back over to Bayles, whose enigmatic smile had deepened. The back of his neck was burning. He knew what they were thinking.
Bayles’ eyes sought Ollie in the small huddle of wanderers. When at last they found her he said: “Ollie—will you come with me now?”
At first the question startled her. For a moment she almost smiled. Then, as his words gradually sank in, she became frightened.
“I—” the word gagged in her throat.
“Don’t be frightened,” Bayles said. He took a step toward her. “Come.” Her eyes opened wide and she stumbled backward as if she were trying to evade a blow. “I want to—I want to—”
“Then come.”
“I—I want—”
“You were ready to follow me before.”
“Yes—but—”
“Come,” said Bayles; his hand reached toward her. “I promise we’ll be all right.”
“I believe you, John,” she said, her eyes filling. “I feel you’re right.”
“He’s nuts,” Garvix said. “Crackers.”
“Come,” Bayles urged her gently, cajoling her like a skitterish animal you want to pet.
Her lips trembled and there was a look of despair on her face. “No,” she said, backing away from him. “I want to—but I can’t. I want to be with you—but I have to be with the others.”
“But why?” he asked, full of a weary patience.
“Because—” She struggled to hold back her tears. “I’m less frightened that way.”
A look of betrayal crossed his features and was gone in a moment. He smiled at her, a smile full of quiet acceptance.
“And you, Tom?” he turned slowly to the boy. “Will you follow your master?”
Putney glared at the mound of freshly dug earth. During the night it had settled and sunk into the shallow chasm of earth beneath it so that now the center sagged between the two small peaks that marked the feet and head.
“He’s not my master anymore,” Tom said grimly.
Bayles stared round at the others. “Anyone?” he asked with his quiet wistful smile. But he knew the answer to that even before he asked it. He pointed a long, accusatory finger at Garvix. “You all know he’s wrong now. You see that very clearly.”
He looked from one to the other searchingly. No one answered him. He turned to Gage. “May I borrow the compass?”
The doctor studied him warily.
“I need it for that setting,” Bayles added.
Gage took the compass from his pocket reluctantly and handed it to him.
Bayles glanced upward at the sun, then methodically took the reading of 18 degrees south-southwest. They watched him while he tied his shoes, then took one of the freshly filled water canteens.
“I won’t let you do it,” Gage said.
Bayles gestured at the grave with his thumb. “I follow him.”
“To hell!” Garvix laughed.
“But John,” Freddy pleaded. “The poor devil was mad at the end. You can’t—”
“You saw it,” Sybil said. “The doctor will verify it.” She looked at Gage for support. “Wasn’t he? Wasn’t he mad?”
Bayles looked round at them. He felt suddenly very much alone. But when he spoke his voice had a quiet, imperturbable calm. “I find Rogers’ madness infinitely preferable to Leo’s sanity.”
Garvix laughed scornfully. “Like father, like son—mad as a hatter.”
There was a shudder of silence. Even the birds paused from their incessant trilling. Something like a flame leapt in Bayles’ eyes. His body lurched forward, then stopped dead and shivered there on a point as if an immense momentum were still sweeping it forward. “If you had said that to me yesterday,” he said very softly, “I would’ve bashed your skull with a rock.”
The stoniness in his face softened and he smiled at them.
“Well, I’m on my way,” he said at last. He appeared almost cheerful.
Ollie made a small whimpering sound and started to cry.
“It’s your life,” Freddy said, gazing ruefully at him.
“Yes, it is,” Bayles said still smiling. “At last.” His hand swung lightly at them in space. “See you all.”
He turned and started out of the grove. Garvix glowered after him. “After you’ve been out there a little while by yourself, you’ll be back here again with your tail between your legs.”
Bayles didn’t turn. He continued to march unswervingly on the compass setting that had been determined for him by the surveyor.
“You’ll be back—you’ll be back,” Garvix jeered after him. “You won’t be able to stand the gaff.”
“Bayles,” Gage cried. Something in his voice made the others turn. At the edge of the clearing, Bayles turned, too.
“Promise me one thing,” Gage stood there, an odd expression on his face. “Promise you won’t stop.”
Bayles nodded.
“That’s the secret,” Gage went on. “Hold one point and keep going.”
They could see Bayles smiling at them across the cool, green shadows of early morning.
“I will,” he called back. “I promise you.”
In the next moment he was gone, swallowed up by the forest. As if he’d never been. And where he’d been standing, huge fronds still trembled and nodded from the brief passage of his body.
They stood silent there awhile, a tight little knot of bewildered humanity, looking stricken and forlorn.
Garvix turned on Gage. “What the hell was all that about just now between you two?” He turned and snarled at Freddy. “Do you know what the hell they were talking about?”
Freddy slumped wearily against a tree. “Yes, I s’pose I do.”
“Walking out!” Ollie suddenly cried shrilly at the point where Bayles had disappeared. “That’s what you’re best at—walking out!” She listened, half-expecting his reply. Nothing came back except the strident jeer of her voice in faint echo. “Come back—do you hear me? Come back I said.”
Suddenly she started out after him, her arms flailing at the fronds as if she were striking him.
When she reached the point where Bayles had vanished she started to run. Gage was right behind her. He grabbed her and they did a funny little jig together until, sagging tearfully against him, she was subdued. After a while she sat on the ground hugging her knees tight up against her chest. She wept briefly while the others silently gathered their few belongings together.
Sybil paused for a while above Rogers’ grave. Looking down upon it, she looked like the first of his true mourners. “He wasn’t really my father, was he?” Her question was addressed to no one in particular.
Freddy glanced up and saw her standing over the grave. “What did you say, Sybil?”
“Nothing,” she replied brusquely, and turned away from the mound of earth. “I feel cold—”
They were silent as they continued to gather their things together.
“Cold—cold—cold.” Sybil walked slowly off, murmuring distantly to herself.
Garvix watched her aimless, meandering course. Then he grinned. There was something tough and boyish in his face. A kind of indestructibility. He appeared to have grown younger and more vigorous during the night. “Well, let’s get our asses going,” he blustered. “That SEC guy must be wondering where the hell I am. What a story I’ve got to tell him.” He laughed.
For a long while Freddy sat quietly pensive, slumped against a tree. He appeared to be absorbed in some nagging and persistent rumination. Suddenly something flickered in him and in that instant his whole being appeared violently animated. He rose and stood swaying on rubbery legs before them. “Up to now I’ve been content to drift along with the tide, let things take their course. But now—” He swallowed hard as if he were marshaling his energy, trying to remember what it was he had to say. “But now—I insist on a real direction—a course. I’m not just tagging along any more.”
He looked round at them, a little stunned at the heat of his own words. Nor was he entirely unimpressed with himself.
Sybil gazed pityingly at him.
“Do you have a course we can follow?” Gage asked.
The immediacy of the question flustered him. “No—I don’t have a course,” he stammered. “But I have a plan.” He looked around him and saw amusement and contempt.
Gage leaned toward him intently. “What is your plan?”
“We all depend on each other now,” Freddy rattled on, his courage wilting in the face of all that silent mockery. “We organize ourselves into different parties. We work systematically. Each day we set out and explore different directions, always returning to the same base at night to compare notes. We might miss once or twice. But eventually one of us is bound to stumble onto a path out.”
Garvix smiled blandly. “But I know the path out. I told you, I’ve seen the steeple.”
“You haven’t seen it,” Freddy corrected him. “Tom has seen it.”
“Same thing,” Garvix said.
“That’s right,” said Putney. “I seen it all right.”
Freddy gazed at Garvix doubtfully. “You’ve been lying to us right along. Why should we believe you now?”
Garvix’s eyes glinted meanly. “I s’pose you just gotta take it on faith, Freddy.”
“Are you sure this time, Leo?” Sybil asked, a note of pleading in her voice. “Absolutely sure?”
“‘Course I am. I agree with you though, Freddy. We do need organization and leadership—and I vote myself the leader.”
“I don’t accept that,” Freddy said.
Garvix flashed his taunting little smile. “You don’t.”
“No, I don’t—you’ve been leading us right along. And God knows where you’ve got us. All we have is your word that Tom saw the steeple.” He looked round desperately. “I’m just as fit as you to lead.”
Putney made a sound like PSHAW. Garvix laughed aloud. “You couldn’t lead your way out of a paper bag, Freddy.”
“He couldn’t do much worse than you have,” Gladys said. This time Freddy laughed, delighted with even that meager support. He tried to appear jaunty, but his courage was badly shaken.
Just then the sun rose fully, moving suddenly up the sky like a white helium balloon. For a moment its pale illumination gave them the appearance of an overexposed photo.
“Look—there’s the sun now,” Garvix cried. “Big as a beacon for us to follow. Let’s get going. It’s gonna be a beautiful day.”
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to follow you,” Freddy nearly shouted.
“Suit yourself!” Garvix shrugged and turned.
Freddy stared round at the others hopefully, looking for some sign of encouragement. But they’d all begun to shuffle into place behind Garvix. His eyes fell imploringly upon Gage.
“What about you?” he shouted. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Garvix turned, smiling sardonically. “Go ahead, Doctor. I’d like to hear the suggestions of a reasonable man.”
“I have none,” Gage replied emphatically. “Other than that we remain reasonable.”
“Reasonable?” Garvix smiled. He found the word laughable.
“Keep our options open,” Gage said, trying to lend weight to his somewhat airy notions.
“What about you?” Freddy turned desperately to Gladys. She gazed at him pityingly for a moment. Then she turned and walked slowly to where the others had clustered round Garvix. His eyes followed her miserably.
In his poor, feckless way he’d tried to make a stand. His attempt had fizzled badly. Now suddenly seeing them all there, falling in behind Garvix, he panicked.
“Wait!” he cried, his voice high and quavering. “Wait for me!” With a canteen and a few wretched belongings he stumbled toward them. Garvix howled gleefully. “Listen—listen to the man with a plan. The man who wanted to lead a revolution.” He was about to go on rubbing poor Freddy’s nose into his own ineffectuality when something caught his eye.
“Oh, for Chrissake, Gladdy—”
She was leaning against a tree, her face turned away. “What the hell’s the matter now?”
“Nothing,” she said, but he could tell from her shoulders and the back of her head that she was crying. He was puzzled and in order to conceal his puzzlement he unleashed one of those shattering guffaws. “‘Nothing’ she says, and she’s bawling like a baby.” There was another guffaw and his tongue flicked out lizardlike over his dry, thick underlip. He reached for her. There was something conciliatory in the gesture. “Gladys, what’re you crying for?”
She turned and stared hard at Rogers’ grave. “If you really must know,” she said warily, “for everyone.” She looked round at them.
The remark angered Garvix strangely. He turned a deep red. In his wrath, he appeared to be swelling. But he spoke in a tender voice, controlling his anger, as if he were appealing to her. “Don’t push me too hard, Gladdy, or you may have cause to regret it.”
The others hovered there petrified before Garvix. They had the look of figures struck in marble—penitents before an angry god.
Garvix pumped his arms in a curious sideways motion, giving them the appearance of the pincers of a crab. It was his way of recapturing momentum.
“Look!” There came a sudden cry from off to the right of them. They turned in time to see Ollie Gelston pointing to a spot in the forest. “There she is again,” she cried.
Their eyes followed her finger and at last they found themselves staring blankly at a clump of fronds.
“There who is again?” Freddy asked.
“Look at her,” Ollie went on, a look of childish wonderment on her face.
Garvix frowned deeply. “Who?”
“The little girl,” she said sweetly as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Sybil’s jaw dropped. “Little girl?”
“What little girl?” Gage asked.
Ollie’s gaze remained transfixed on some indeterminate point in the forest. Gage took a wary but emphatic step toward her. “The little girl sleeping beneath the tree,” she said in a transport of joy.
She walked airily—almost drifted as in a dream—to the place where the small child of perhaps seven or eight, dressed in a white Communion gown of organdy and lace, lay slumbering beneath a withered oak. The girl wore a white pillbox hat with a veil of white gauze which rose and fell above her face with the peaceful rhythm of her breathing.
They followed Ollie with their eyes to the clump of fronds and the withered oak, where she stood now, arms outstretched and crooning softly to herself: “It’s me, it’s me.”
“Oh, dear God!” Sybil whispered.
Gage approached her warily from behind. “Come,” he said gently when he reached her. She was scarcely aware of the pressure of his fist encircling her upper arm.
Suddenly she saw other little figures whirling about her through the forest. Children flashing through the foliage, screaming and laughing across the dusk, their high, sweet voices echoing all around her:
Ana, Mana, Mona, Mike,
Barcelona, Bona, Strike—
Here—Catchme Ollie—Cutchme—
Ollie—Ollie—Scaredy Dolly—
Care, Ware, Frow, Frack
Hallico, Wallico, Wee, Wo, Wack—
“It’s me,” she beckoned feebly at the vision fading in the cool green shadows. “See, it’s me.”
“Yes. I see,” said Gage. “Come away, now.”
She permitted him to lead her, submitting like a docile, oversized child, her movements curiously stilted, the voices dying in echoes all around her. Suddenly she halted in her tracks. He tugged her gently but she stood riveted to the spot. She looked round at them smiling sweetly. “We’re all alone now,” she said to no one in particular. “Father’s died and left us all alone.”
“Ye Gods!” Freddy Jamison murmured.
In the next moment Garvix marched directly up to her, thrusting himself like an impassable slab before her, obstructing her way. He held both hands out to her, palms upward, as if he were offering something. “Touch me, Ollie.”
She stared strangely at the palms for a moment, as if she were trying to read them. Then, slowly, she shrank backward, away from them, having read some awful portent there.
“Ollie,” Garvix thundered. His gaze riveted her. “Go ahead. Touch me!”
She raised a hand tentatively. Then let it drop.
“Go ahead!” His voice boomed out through the forest.
This time she permitted the cold, trembling tips of her fingers to graze the stubby, paddlelike palms. In that moment his fist closed over her fluttering hand, imprisoning it.
“It’s Leo,” he said, his voice oddly gentle. “Leo’s here.”
She nodded, vaguely comprehending. Garvix went on in a soft, cajoling voice. “Leo does what he has to—remember, Ollie—Leo’ll take you home.”
Suddenly her eyes were brimming over with gratitude and she was talking—rambling rapidly, diffusely, fragments of words and thoughts showering all around her—oscillating wildly between short angry bursts and the high, sweet voice of a child.
“Oh, Dada, take me home. I’m coming home, Dada. Take me home now—”
She came toward Freddy. He fell back and away from her as if she were a specter. “Ye gods!” he mumbled over and over again, struck dumb at her approach.
Garvix trailed cautiously behind her, the pincer-like arms outstretched, ready to snatch her.
“Let me take her,” Gladys said, pushing him off. “I’ll take her now.” He stepped back and in the next moment she enfolded her like an infant to her bosom. “Come on, honey—it’s all right. Come to Gladys now.”
They clung there together in ragged dishevelment, the grime and sweat of four days’ sojourn in the wilderness encrusted on their hides—lines of fatigue and fright etched in dirt on their haggard features.
Ollie sank to her knees, her arms clasped round Gladys’ thighs, and for a while they were silent, listening to the muffled sound of her sobs smothered into Gladys’ skirt.
“Well, time’s a-wasting,” Garvix said, pitiless energy bristling in him. “Let’s get going.”
He stooped and hoisted Rogers’ small knapsack of charts and surveyor’s tools onto his back. But no one moved. They stood there in a small circle of baffled ineffectuality.
Then suddenly Sybil said, “Let’s try screaming.”
“Screaming?” Freddy said.
“For help,” she added.
“There’s no one out here to hear you,” Garvix said.
“Somebody might,” Sybil pleaded. “Maybe somebody.”
“Maybe somebody would,” Freddy said, the idea catching fire in his mind.
“We’re going to be home soon,” Garvix insisted. “No need for that now.”
Sybil looked round at them. “Would you all just try it with me?” Her eyes entreated them. “Please.” Her last word emerged halfway between a sob and a shout. Whatever resistance they might have had to the idea dissolved in the face of Sybil’s desperation. In the next moment they were looking helplessly from one to the other for some clue as to how to start screaming.
Since Sybil had presented the plan she felt under some obligation to launch it. But even after four days of futile wanderings, some few shreds of pride and embarrassment clung to her. They stood there waiting for her lead. She knew they waited. Knowledge that leadership had momentarily passed to her, paralyzed her.
The first cry was soft and tentative.
“Help!” She paused, evaluating the effect of that first cry. Then she tried it again. This time a bit louder.
“Help!”
They listened to the sound of her voice cautiously probing the great lonely forest. The next time Freddy joined her and they cried out together.
“HELP—”
Gladys followed and their next three cries rose from them in unison as a single shout.
“HELP!”
Crying out as one, their voices stabbed like a bright lance through the great forest and out beyond that to the cold, remote hills lying round them.
They’d hoped, in some pathetically futile way, to hear a voice crying back at them, answering their plea, guiding them home. When none came they prepared to try again. This time Gage joined them.
Now they were four—crying out at evenly spaced intervals, like a pulse beat.
“HELP!”
“HELP!”
“HELP!”
“HELP!”
Sybil’s voice soared high above the rest. But it was only after the echo of their cries coming back at her over vast distances that she could hear the naked desperation in their voices.
When they finished, they found Garvix staring at them, a curiously sad look on his face. It might even have been pity. At no time had he joined in. Nor had Putney, nor Ollie Gelston. She remained sitting on the damp earth, legs tucked up beneath her, exactly where they’d placed her shortly before. Her lips moved but no sound came from them. Her eyes, cloudy and distant, continued to smile at some nameless and unseen shape drowsing in the fronds.
They tried it again.
“HELP!”
But this cry had none of the conviction of the earlier attempts and when they tried it yet again, whatever unity and volume they’d achieved before deteriorated into a garble of ragged squawks and half-articulated bleatings.
Garvix’s lips curled meanly upward in a smile. The huge, beetled dome of a head shook indulgently back and forth. “Well, have we had enough of that now?”
“What do we do next?” Gage asked.
“March!” Garvix snapped the word out like a command.
“March where?” said Freddy. Hunger had given his face a drawn, unaccustomed angularity. He appeared almost ascetic.
“March home,” Garvix replied.
“Oh, Leo,” Sybil’s eyes lit up. “Do you really think we’ll be there by noon?” She asked it with the vivacity of a little girl who’d just been told she could go to some beloved place.
“Think?” Leo laughed boisterously. “I know. I’ve seen the steeple, I told you. If we start now we’ll be back at my place for lunch.”
Ollie glanced up suddenly. “Can we have a party when we get there? A welcome-home party?”
“Of course we can,” Garvix said. He patted her paternally on the head.
“And can Malty come?”
“Of course he can. We’ll have a cookout. Hot dogs and clams.”
“And fresh corn on the cob?” Sybil crooned.
“Why not?” Garvix said, more expansive than ever. “And I tell you what—I’ll even crack a case of champagne.”
Freddy’s ears cocked. “Champagne?”
“To celebrate our homecoming,” Garvix continued. “And the birth of GARVIX ENTERPRISES INC. GEI on the Big Board.”
“A party, a party!” Ollie clapped her hands ecstatically. “And what about John? Can John come?”
At the mention of the name Garvix’s face darkened. “Forget about John,” he said abruptly, then clashed his palms like cymbals. “Let’s get going. Let’s get ourselves organized. First of all, I’m the leader. Tom is second-in-command.”
Garvix paused a moment, permitting those first harsh facts of life to sink like a dagger into their hearts.
“I think I deserve to be at least second-in-command,” Freddy whined.
“Why?” asked Garvix.
Freddy appeared puzzled. “By age,” he stammered. “By birth. By all rights.”
“You heard him,” Putney snarled. “I’m second-in-command.”
“Well, I simply can’t accept that,” Freddy became peevish. “Who is he? What is he? A boy. A waif. A mere—”
“Sorry, Freddy,” Garvix waved him to silence. “You just haven’t demonstrated to my satisfaction that you’ve got leadership qualities.”
It was not said unkindly, but with almost a sympathetic firmness—rather like a wise, strong father counseling a slightly obtuse son.
Freddy appeared crestfallen. That made Garvix feel more conciliatory. Accordingly he held out some hope for him. “I’m perfectly willing, though, to watch and see how you develop and handle yourself under stress situations.”
“I believe I should be second-in-command,” Gage said suddenly.
Gladys whirled round to face him. He tried to ignore her incredulous stare.
“Well, well, well.” Garvix was amused. “Who would’ve ever thought—?”
“I’ve things to offer,” Gage proposed.
“What things?”
“Skills, talents—things these others don’t.” Gage waved at the others with a disparaging gesture.
Gladys’ mouth fell open. She looked at Gage distantly. She no longer recognized him.
“For instance?” Garvix inquired with a mocking curiosity.
Gage eyed him directly, then said, “I could help you manage these people.”
“Manage us?” Gladys gasped. The words took her breath away.
Gage paid her no heed. It was to Garvix, and Garvix alone, that he was addressing himself. “You need someone to help you make your system work.”
“System?” Gladys fumed. “Listen to him. Listen to the man. Do you hear him? Mr. Voice of the People. Mr. Majority Rule.” She laughed scornfully.
“You need me, Garvix,” the doctor went on with a kind of deadly intent.
“Need you?” Garvix’s squat, hulking frame shook with merriment. “I don’t need you. You’re nothing.”
Gage’s cheeks colored. “Now, just a minute—”
“Shut up!” Garvix thundered. “If you want to travel along with us, you keep your mouth shut. And another thing”—his eyes narrowed and he squinted round at the others—“as of this moment no one’s to mention John Bayles’ name. From this moment on, John Bayles is dead to us. Just as Albert is. We’ll never mention either of them again. They don’t exist. They never existed. They never were.”
They stood there before him, heads drooping and cowed, while he waved his fist at them and read off the new law.
“Well, I don’t buy it,” Gladys said when he’d finished. Her voice was high and tremulous. “I’m not going to follow. I won’t be a party to this.”
What she’d said had required all of her courage. Her face was ashen. She started out at a dash, like someone with her clothing on fire.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Garvix thundered after her.
“After John,” she said, half-turning. “He can’t be too far off.”
“I’m with you,” Freddy cried, and started after her.
“So am I!” said Sybil.
The Jamisons streamed past Garvix like refugees from a disaster. He watched them go. Then, just as Gladys was streaking past Putney, Garvix raised his finger and snapped it. It was the gesture of a wizard making magic.
At the sound, Putney seized Gladys from behind, and with an arm coiled round her neck, he dragged her kicking and screaming into the bushes.
Freddy stopped dead in his tracks, a look of incredulity on his face. The others stood frozen, watching the dreamlike pantomime of Gladys, flailing and panicky, legs thrashing the air, hauled off into the underbrush. In the next moment they were gone, the leaves and branches still quivering madly at the point where they’d vanished. From somewhere just beyond that point they could hear the sickening sound of a desperate struggle on the forest floor. Then, pitiful squealings like a stricken animal in the jaws of a predator.
Jamison made a lurching motion toward the sound.
“Better not, Freddy,” Garvix planted himself before him. “You may be next.”
There was a high, piercing scream and in the next moment Tom stepped slowly back into the clearing. He was closing a razor. Blood dripped from his hands. They watched silently while he strolled casually toward them.
“All right,” Garvix boomed. “Let’s all line up.” He clapped his hands and obediently they fell into line. Garvix continued: “Now when we march out of here I want everyone to walk single file with a distance of five feet between the person in front of you and the person behind you. When I hold up my right hand that means we all stop. When I hold up my left, we all go. We’ll pause for rest every forty-five minutes. Rest periods last for seven minutes. We’ll halt twenty minutes at noon for lunch. Then we’ll proceed again until dusk. No one is to question the direction in which we go. We are now all of one mind. One will working together. United we stand; divided we fall. All right—” He clapped his hands again. “When I give the signal we all move out smartly.” He clashed his palms once more—this time so loud it pealed through the forest like a clap of doom. “All right. Ready. March.” Garvix strode out of the clearing while, one by one, the others fell silently and obediently into single file behind him. The birds chattered, fluttering excitedly from branch to branch. Already the crickets had begun their incessant day-long litany and as the wanderers marched swiftly and smartly toward the molten bubble of sun, they had the look of children suddenly come upon at a game of soldiers.