TWO

Leaving the lighthouse, Sheriff Amos Tarbell belched sourly as he drove to the village. The girls had made a nice-­tasting shrimp salad, but his lunch felt like lead in his middle. He was in a hurry to reach High Ridge and get the Laidlaws and Tintons out of their houses—diplomatically and tactfully—but he had to stop at the jail first. Stephen Scott, as Justice of the Peace, had ordered the release of the hoodlum jailed for nudity and drugs. The ferry for Chatham was delayed by the weather but they wanted the man on it, with a stern warning not to exercise his constitutional right to come back to Yarkie.

After releasing the prisoner, Amos Tarbell turned to the piled-­up papers on his desk. Thus, he did not see the freed man turn up Main Street heading for High Ridge instead of going downhill to the ferry dock. Tarbell did not know that the three sunbathers had spotted jimson weed growing wild down at the cove. Indeed, the sheriff was not familiar with what the three experts gleefully recognized at once. Jimson weed was the latest discovery on the drug scene, better than marijuana because it was free to hand when found and—to the best of their knowledge—not even illegal, though it produced a similar high. But men like these were beyond caring about jimson’s side effects, which included frightening hallucinations and irrational, dangerous conduct.

All Alex Matthews knew was that he wanted the open air after the lock-­up. He was sure his friends would be hanging out at what they had jubilantly labeled their private Paw-­Paw Patch. He had wondered for a while why Bo and Tony hadn’t shown up at the jail. He decided they had gotten away from the fuzz and hidden in the woods. He was hazy about the whole thing. The sheriff told him he had nearly drowned, but he didn’t remember anything. He’d had a great dream—like flying, only better. Being an actual fish! He could have swum under water forever. Still, some part of his head suggested he should be thankful that the sheriff had come along. It was one thing to dream a great trip like being a fish—it was another to make it real. Well, hell, everyone knew hallucinogens could be dangerous. The risk was part of the fun. Like Russian roulette, in a way. You really never did know when the shit might turn on you instead of turning you on.

He shouldn’t be worrying about it, the man frowned at himself. He knew what he was doing, all the way. If there was danger, it was worth it to him. Hopheads of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but the chains of the fools of convention!

The man broke into a run as he reached the tarred road bordering the woods. He remembered the path to the cliff and the cove. His excitement grew as he thought of the stash of Acapulco Gold his main men had waiting down there.

For a fleeting moment, he had considered stopping in the village and phoning his parents, but the hell with them, with college, with practicing Beethoven. This music was what he wanted—the loud rustling of the leaves in the forest, the songs of nature, like that hissing some neat animal was welcoming him with, the sound of the wind in the trees. Ah, here his gut and his head and his soul came together as he wanted! This was what he had come to Cape Cod for! He leaped on the path, coming down hard on the ground. He kicked his heels and cavorted at being out of the crumby cell. He stamped and scattered leaves as he bounded along. “God’s dandruff!” he laughed at the leaves flying in the wind. The hissing, louder now, was like the whistling call of his friends.

Alex Matthews plunged into the thick of the darkening woods with a near-­hysterical cry of joy: “Hey, you dudes! Ready or not, here I come!”

The roaches were ready. Suddenly, an ice pick stabbed the man in one eye, then the other, so that he never saw what it was he had been calling to in the woods. He crashed down with an expression of amazement and stupefaction that was soon the grin of a skull on a deathbed of crimson leaves.