The answering voice had a falsetto that sounded faked. "Oh, it's you,
Dan. Blind man can't tell a thing like that."
"Want a ride into town?"
"No--no. I'll hobble along and make it myself. A blind man doesn't like
to think he's dependent on everybody. Tries to do the best he can."
"Okay. See you later."
"Sure, but I won't see you, Dan. Could of once, but can't any more."
* * * * *
Dan Parker jammed down the gas pedal and the jeep rammed forward
kicking up a cloud of dust that left Art Haney coughing. Dan
immediately felt guilty. Mean trick, but he hadn't done it on purpose.
Just thoughtless.
He rolled the jeep into town and lifted a hand as he passed the jail.
Cecil Bates, sheriff of the county, lifted one in return but his
expression never changed. Sour--that was the word, Dan thought. Cecil
felt himself wasted in a country sheriff's job. Fancied himself of
big-town caliber, but all he did was park on a chair in front of the
jail and think about it. Sour was the word all right. In fact, Dan
thought, sour was the word for the whole damned town of Sage Bend. Come
to think of it, there wasn't a happy person in the place.
Except Biddy.
Dan parked the jeep and went in the house and got a bottle of beer out
of the refrigerator. He went on through and out into the backyard
where Jane was taking down the last of the wash. Damn--it seemed women
were always washing. Come home and everytime they were hanging clothes
or taking them down.
He stopped in the doorway and looked at Jane. Looked to actually see
her which was not the same as the ordinary looking people usually did.
There was a stoop in her slim shoulders and something--well, something
in the way she carried her body. Tired-like. She'd been so deuced
pretty when he'd married her; so pretty he'd just had to have her
and that was the only way. Why kid himself? He'd married her because
he wanted her and love, if there really was such a thing, had come
afterward. But it had come; or maybe it was habit. Anyhow, he couldn't
think of life anymore except in terms of Jane and Biddy.
But it would be nice if just one more time--just one night--there could
be the old spark, the old breathless fire that flamed so briefly and
had now smouldered down into a sort of tired consideration--an habitual
companionship with each knowing the other's habits and likings and
responding automatically.
But what the hell? What could you expect in this day and age? With
tension for breakfast and dinner and supper. With those two space
stations floating around up there waiting to blow the world up.
Watching day and night. There was little room to think of anything else.
* * * * *
Jane turned with an armful of clothes and saw him. Her smile was a
quick up-turning of her lips and then it was gone. "Home, dear? Have a
hard day?"
"Rough. We moved three hundred head in from the north range to the
loading platforms."
Jane pushed past him and laid the clothes on the kitchen table. She
straightened and pushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes. "Three hundred
head. That's quite a few. What are they worth apiece, Dan?"
"Around two hundred and fifty dollars probably."
"And with all that money old Sam can't give you a little raise. I think
it's a sin."
"It isn't clear money, hon. Not by any means."
"All the same--"
Dan caught her as she tried to pass and kissed her. She responded
after a fashion but when it was over it was over. "I've got to get the
potatoes on. You go sit on the front porch, I'll call you."
"Where's Biddy?"
Jane stopped with a gesture of frustration as though this was something
she'd forgotten. "Oh, that child! I sent her to her room, Dan."
"To her room? Why?"
"I just had to. We've got to do something about that imagination of
hers. She can't separate reality from fantasy anymore."
"What was it this time?"
"Something about a cave up in the ridges with a big metal box in it.
The Eastern Bloc is going to use it to blow our station out of the sky."
* * * * *
Dan shrugged. "Kids live in their own world, honey. Isn't sending her
to her room a little rough?"
"I had to. She was going down to tell Cecil Bates about it. Can you
imagine what--?"
Dan laughed. "He'd have probably arrested her for spreading rumors.
I'll take her out on the porch and talk to her, okay?"
"Just so you keep her out of my hair until I get supper ready."
Dan opened the door of Biddy's room and said, "Hi, pigeon. Hot in
there?"
"Not bad, Pop. There's a breeze through the window."
The gruesome leg brace smote him as usual and his inward tightening
against it was so habitual that he hardly noticed the slight tension
of his chest muscles. He said, "How about coming out on the porch and
telling me all about this cave?"
"Is it all right with Mom?"
"Uh-huh. I fixed it."
"She told you about the cave and the box?"
"Just mentioned it in passing. Told me to get the details from you."
He picked her up and carried her out front where they sat down side
by side on the front steps and looked out across the miserable little
desert town. Dan's eyes fell on the tavern front over near the depot.
There would be at least half a dozen drunks in there and after sundown
there would be foremen from the ranches roundabout talking them into
going back to work.
"The cave wasn't there before."
"It wasn't?"
"No. It's the place I always played Roy Rogers, but I went there
yesterday and there was a door in the rock."
"The door was open?"
"Wide open. I went inside and there was a big shiny box in there."
Maybe a man was better off in the city--in the war plants. "Well what
do you know about that!"
"Pop! You aren't listening."
"Oh yes, I am."
"But you don't believe me."
"I sure do."
"The box had a lot of tubes and dials on it."
Of course, now they'd taken the profit out of war there wasn't much
more money there either unless you worked fifteen hours a day. "Was Roy
there waiting for you?"
"Pop! It wasn't make believe! The box was really there and the Eastern
Bloc is going to use it to wreck our space station."
"They'd better not!" That was another thing. If the blow ever fell and
all the brains thought it was sure to, a man had better have his family
as far from a city as possible.
"I thought maybe they would capture Buck and me so we couldn't tell on
them but there wasn't anybody there. We got away all right."
Not that it would do much good. The radiation would get everybody
eventually. Maybe it would be better to be killed quick and get it over
with.
"Pop--I'm not fibbing to you--"
Dan roused himself from his somber thoughts. "I know you're not honey.
Listen, let's go out and give Buck some water and about that time Mom
will have supper ready. What do you say?"