Dave hesitated. Then he took a step closer and held out his hand.

  “Luck,” he said.

  Ranald reached up and took hold; but with his hand grasping Dave’s forearm above the wrist, so that Dave had no choice but to fold his own fingers around Ranald’s forearm in return. They let go.

  “If I’m to die soon,” said Ranald, “I’d like to see you free first, Brother Piers.” He added, almost muttering under his breath, “‘Cessez, cessez, gens d’armes et piétons — de piller et manger le bonhomme…’”

  “You’re full up with poems, today,” said Dave.

  “It’s Walt and his question about Caesar that opened my memory to them,” said Ranald. “Walt was right. His question is the question, after all…”

  He stopped talking as if he had run down.

  “As I say, luck, then,” said Dave after a second. But this time Ranald did not answer. Dave shook his head, turned, and went off with a loose, swinging stride toward the far end of the meadow where the trees came together, hiding the road to Medora.

  Near the middle of the road beside the openness of the meadow, the two deputies watched him go. Then they turned back. Ranald was the last left amidst the litter of the open space, sitting cross-legged and unmoving. One of the deputies started toward him; but the other, who walked like Tom Rathkenny, caught the first by the arm and turned him around. They went to their motorcycles, the other got on his and left in the opposite direction Dave had taken, back toward the city. Tom started his own bike after a minute and slowly followed. Ranald was alone in the meadow.

  Now that there was no human activity around to retreat from, he came all the way back into the present, opening all his senses to the land around him and its inhabitants. Already half a mile distant, the other sheriff’s deputy droned on his motorcycle back toward his headquarters. Tom Rathkenny, just out of sight beyond the meadow, had pulled his machine off the road behind a willow clump and stopped. He put the kickstand down carefully and got off.

  A few hundred yards beyond and out of sight on the winding road from Tom, the panel truck had stopped with a flat tire, which Rob was just now replacing with a spare from inside the truck, while the driver stood by and watched.

  In the opposite direction, already out of sight beyond the meadow, Dave swung along the people-empty route to Medora, the sound of his bootsoles in the loose gravel on the shoulder of the roadway noisy in the noon silence. Down beside the river, beyond the woods and not moving — possibly on his knees — Walt was praying out loud.

  “… I’m this way because this is the way You made me, Lord,” he was praying. “No, I don’t mean to put all the responsibility on You; but You ought to share in what I am…”

  All these things — the rushing of the river, the rustling of tree leaves, the drone of a nearby wasp — came clearly and unavoidably to Ranald’s acute hearing. There was a flutter of wings, and a male Western song sparrow came to a perch on the end of a leaning tent-pole near Ranald, a tent-pole abandoned, but still stuck in the earth and semi-upright. The song sparrow threw back his head and sang, and Ranald understood. Like the intentions of humans, the messages of birds and animals had become clear to him through long time and familiarity. But he had never understood a bird as clearly as this one, at this moment.

  “I am me!” cried the song sparrow. “Me. Me! And this meadow is mine! Mine — and no other’s! Mine — and no other’s!”

  “… Lord,” Walt was praying to a God in whom he had no trust, no hope, “You should help me…”

  “… All right,” Rob was saying to the driver of the panel truck, “suppose you get something into your head. We came along to help with your flat tires; not do all the work while you stand around juicing! The next tire that goes flat, you’re going to do as much fixing as we do!”

  “That’s what you get for trying to do favors,” said the driver, climbing back into the front seat of the truck. “To hell with you. Just to hell with you! You can walk into town!”

  He closed the door of the truck, started the panel up and drove off.

  “Wait —” Maybeth called after him.

  “Let him go,” said Rob. “They’re all alike. I ought to’ve known.”

  Dave had begun to whistle as he strode along. Walt was still praying. Tom Rathkenny had left his motorcycle and was walking down the curve of the wooded road toward Rob and the others, although he could not yet be close enough for them to see him. The breeze blowing against the left side of Ranald’s face ceased for a moment. Abruptly, he sprang upright; and headed down the road in the direction everyone but Dave and Walt had taken, breaking into a run.

  He ran with the oddly long strides he had used down by the river when he had taken the gun from Tom. His running was effortlessly swift, so that he seemed to soar slightly with each step, the way a deer soars with each bound. He crossed the road and headed on a direct line through the trees, toward that spot beside the road where Rob and Letty were dividing up some of the load in their packs, so that Maybeth could help them carry it on foot back into town.

  Ranald ran. Up ahead of him, out of sight beyond the trees, Tom Rathkenny came around a curve and walked up to the three as they were redistributing the load they had to pack.

  “So, you’re still here,” said Tom.

  Rob’s answer was lost to Ranald. He was in full stride, now. He coursed the woods like a wild animal, hurdling fallen logs and small bushes in his path as if some instinct deep within him told him when to go over, and when around. The slope of the hillside and its sun-dappled tree trunks swam around him; and the late morning breeze was cold on face and neck where he had begun to sweat. Ahead, talk between Tom and the others had become some kind of an argument between Tom and Rob; and as Ranald rocketed down the wooded slope, close to the others now, Rob’s voice reached clearly through the leaves and pine needles.

  “You and Letty?” Rob was saying. “Oh, sure… You know what she does? She collects cats, man; and squirrels; and birds with half a leg missing. But she doesn’t keep them.”

  They were all right ahead of Ranald now, although the trees still hid them. He burst through that last screen and came out only a few running steps from them. Maybeth and Letty stood back by the side of the road with the opened packs, and one blanket that had been tied up to make it into a sort of packsack. Between the girls and the trees Tom stood facing Rob with perhaps eight feet of space between them. Rob’s back was arched; the narrow, tight muscles of his shoulders under their shirt were thrust forward. Tom was stiffly upright and pale, with the sweat rolling down his face. In his hand he held his revolver, pointed at Rob.

  “Go ahead,” Rob said. “Let’s see you shoot me. You’ve been talking about it long enough —”

  Running at full speed, Ranald came between them, turning his upper body toward Tom just as the revolver went off. The battering-ram impact of the heavy revolver slug high on his left side spun him around. He tried to carry the spin on around in a full circle and stay on his feet. But his legs staggered and dropped him. He lay on his back on the soft roadside earth, looking at the clouds.

  The blow of the bullet had left him without breath to speak. There were voices above him, and faces, looking down — Letty and Maybeth, particularly Maybeth. His eyes met hers. He could not remember a woman who had looked at him so.

  Both she and Letty were kneeling over him, one on each side. Letty ripped his jacket and shirt open, popping buttons as if they had been sewn with paper.

  “It’s down there,” said Letty, staring at his bare chest. “He needs a doctor. He’s got to have a doctor, quick.”

  “I didn’t,” Tom was saying. “I didn’t pull the trigger. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone. It just went off. It — exploded. By itself. I wasn’t going to shoot anyone…”

  “God…” Rob said. His voice was like the thick voice of a drunk. “God, you bastard…”

  “We’ve got to get help,” said Maybeth, looking up. “An ambulance!”

  “Where’s his motorcycle?” Letty asked. She had tom off a portion of Ranald’s shirt and wadded it up. She was holding this against the bullet hole in his chest. “It’s hardly bleeding at all. Maybe he’s bleeding inside.”

  “Please…” said Maybeth, almost crying. She had lifted Ranald’s head softly onto her knee and was trying to wipe dry his forehead with the edge of her skirt. “Please, will somebody please go get an ambulance?”

  “It just went off,” Tom said. “I was holding it like this — I didn’t even have my finger —”

  “Where’s your cycle?” Letty asked over her shoulder. “Get on it and get going. Can’t you see we need some help?”

  “You don’t understand. It’s not supposed to go off unless it’s cocked,” said Tom. “Well, I mean you can pull the trigger, but unless it’s cocked… I didn’t have it cocked. I don’t think I —”

  “That iron’s got to be back where we were camped. He walked here just now.” Rob’s voice was still thick, but sensible. “I’ll go find it. I’ll ride the thing.”

  “No, I’ll go… I’ll go,” said Tom’s voice, moving away. “It’s just back around the curve, there. I’ll ride up the other way to Medora. That’s where the hospital is.”

  “You’ll go someplace else…” said Rob, thickly. “You’ll let him die — we all saw it, how you shot him!”

  “No — I’m going…” There was a sound of boots running off. Tom’s voice floated back. “Over the hill, there — down a ways — a farm. Maybe you can get to their phone before —”

  He did not finish, running off.

  “The farm — you go, Rob!” said Letty. “You —” Her face jerked for Maybeth. “Run back to the camp. Maybe there’s somebody still there, or still near, who can help. Get going, damn it, will you both?”

  Rob turned and went running into the trees up the hillside.

  “No,” said Maybeth, not moving, “I won’t leave him. You go. Hurry!”

  Letty lifted the wadded shirtcloth from the wound. It had all but stopped bleeding. For a second it looked as it she were about to hit Maybeth with the fist holding the cloth. Then she shoved the cloth instead into Maybeth’s hand.

  “Watch him!” Letty said, and scrambled to her feet. She started off at a trot back toward the meadow.

  Left alone with Ranald, Maybeth pressed the cloth gently against the hole in his chest and let her head drop until her face was hidden by the long mass of hair that spilled forward like a dark wave onto the leather-brown skin of his lean chest. He had recovered his breath now; and he felt only something like an emptiness, a heavy emptiness, where the bullet had gone in and stopped.

  “Do not mourn,” he said to her, a little faintly, “this is a great moment. I’m like the rest of them, after all. I did what any one of them would do.”

  She lifted her head and shook her hair back so that she could see his face, and he, hers. Her face was simply a face, now, but very still. She, who had been able to cry so easily, could make no tears in this moment.

  “You’ll be all right,” she said. “Don’t talk.”

  “I am all right,” he said. “And why not talk? I came here knowing what would happen. Men and women do always the same things. It happened; and I will fall from the cliff now, leaving some other climber my handholds and my footholds.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” she whispered, as if her throat were raw. “As if it was nothing — as if you were just being wasted.”

  “That is man,” he said, “who can waste himself. It’s a gift. The small birds and all other creatures don’t know how.”

  She twisted as if a bullet had just entered her own body.

  “No!” she said. “Don’t agree with me like that. You saved Rob’s life with your own, and he isn’t worth it!”

  “There is no worth,” he said. “What is paid to God, or paid to Caesar, has only the value the giver gives it. A man must choose which one to pay, though, even though he’s like me and needs neither of them. I was wrong about that. I had to choose; and I chose to pay the least foolish of the two.”

  “No!” she said. “No — you saved someone’s life. You threw away your life after all this time to save somebody else. Because you love people, you really do. You just won’t admit it.”

  “Do I?” he asked. “Even if I do, it doesn’t matter. Man loves man. They love each other — that’s the important thing, even when they don’t know it. Look at them; they love each other even when they hurt and kill each other. It’s their pride. Which is why they will accept no god-help.”

  She shook her head.

  “All this,” she said, “just to satisfy yourself! All this!”

  “No, no,” he said. “To find home, again. I was a wanderer and I’ve discovered my own place, again. I was a stranger and I’ve found my people. You — and Dave, and Rob and Letty and Tom and all the others.”

  He closed his eyes for a second, looking for the image of the green clearing and the log houses, but they were gone for good. He felt Maybeth’s hands, suddenly frantic on his face.

  “No,” she was saying. “Don’t… hold on… They’ll have help here in just a minute…”

  He opened his eyes.

  “I’ll have to be going now,” he said. “Walt is down by the river. Go to him.”

  “Walt!” She went suddenly from her knees to a squatting position with her feet under her, ready to rise. “He’s probably got things in his pack. Maybe he knows — where is he?”

  “You remember where Dave and you and I came first to the edge of the river,” he said. “Close to there. Go there and call him. He’ll hear you.”

  “Oh, yes —” She started to rise, then stopped. “But I can’t leave you.”

  “It makes no difference whether you leave me or not,” he said.

  “It does! But —” She looked back toward the meadow and the woods. “If Walt can help… I’ve got to go. Maybe he knows something about medicine, or he was a medic in the army once, or something. Don’t move. I’ll be right back —”

  She started to rise. He caught her arm with surprising strength for a wounded man and held her for a moment while he spoke.

  “I’ll lie still a while,” he said. “But things don’t hurt me easily. It takes more to kill me than most imagine. If we don’t speak again, remember to trust yourself as you would have trusted me.”

  “Don’t talk like that!” She pulled away and he let her go, to her feet and running back toward the meadow. He lay still for a little, listening until the intervening trees softened the sound of her footfalls.

  The sun was warm upon him, the heavy emptiness was only a little larger within him. He rose on his left elbow, rolled to his side, and climbed to his feet. For a moment he swayed and tottered, a little off balance. Then he put out one foot before the other and began to walk.

  He went in the same direction in which Maybeth had left, running. But once more, his path was a straight line, and soon it took him away from the road and back into the trees of the hillside. He walked more surely now, and faster. Soon, he began to run — at first only at a slow trot, staggering a little, but then with more speed and balance.

  Still, it was a slow and clumsy pace he made, compared to his earlier soaring run. The easiness was gone from his coursing. His legs, which had been weightless and instinctive, now were heavy and needed to be driven, one past the other, by the push of his will. At the same time, it was not all work and weakness. The sun flicked at him through the treetops, the breeze cooled his face, and the woods gathered around him as he went. He passed through the trees above the road by the meadow, hearing Maybeth, now out of sight toward the river, calling for Walt, and Walt answering.

  He ran on, leaving the meadow and the two of them together, behind. A Western song sparrow flew past him, perched on a low-swung sugar maple limb and watched him pass, cocking its head at him.

  He ran on. Angling downslope now — until the straight line he followed once more intersected the road, so that he crossed it and went on into the woods on that same side as the meadow had lain, a way back. He could hear the river growing louder, now, as it swung in toward the road and him; and the angle of the ground on which he ran bent into an upslope, for he was coming close now to that point of land from which he and Maybeth and Dave had looked beyond to river and road running side by side toward Medora.

  The heaviness was larger in him now; but now it made no difference. He had had some doubts earlier, but now he knew that even the stubborn will to live could be slain. He ran now almost as he had run before, not as lightly but nearly as fast as he had run to meet the slug from Tom Rathkenny’s revolver. The woods swam past him and the song sparrow flew steadily to keep up with him.

  Now, the meadow was more than a short distance behind and the heaviness in his chest was grown large enough to make him stagger again for all the length of his strides and his speed. It was done now. To stop would end it. He could hear not only the river loudly now but, even more loudly, Dave, whom he had caught up with and was now passing, above, and out of sight among the trees.

  He passed Dave and saw the end of the woods, the edge of the cliff overlooking the partnering of river and road. His head spun, and his chest felt as heavy as if it contained a cannonball. He staggered to a stop and dropped to his knees at the edge of the cliff, looking out through a screen of low bushes and popple saplings at the road below. Dave, below and a little behind him now, had begun to sing:

  “There was a rich man and he lived in Jerusalem.

  Glory, Hallelujah, hi-ro-de-rum.”

  He seized the pencil-thin stem of one of the saplings to hold himself upright on his knees. For a moment doubt chilled him with something like terror; but his body cried the truth to reassure him. It was a hard body to kill; but there was a limit to any flesh and bone and the cunning toughness of a thousand years. This last run had finished what the revolver bullet had started; and the cliff that only he could see was growing misty and insubstantial before his inner vision, as the life-hold of his will upon its craggy surface slackened.

 

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