"Bates is a slovenly, dishonest--_hoodlum_. You know that Dan. They'll
do something out there--"
"What? What will they do? Bates is just going out to arrest that man
for questioning and I think he's got a right to do it."
Jane Parker looked at her husband in new surprise. There was something
in her face that had never been there before. A look he would have done
well to heed. She said, "Dan--I just don't understand you any more.
This isn't you. There's an--an evil coming into you."
"That's nonsense. Just because I won't stick my nose into the sheriff's
business--"
"At least do this for me, Dan. Go out and tell Sam Taber what's
happening. If Sam refuses to act, then I'll be satisfied. But go and
tell him."
Dan Parker's mouth twisted in anger and helpless frustration. "So you
think Sam Taber's a better man than your husband? So you have more
respect for him than you have for me?"
"I'm afraid I do--at the moment." Jane spoke quietly and there was a
distant regard in her eyes. "Will you go, Dan? Or will I?"
"I forbid you to go kiting off across the desert--"
"You go, or I will."
"All right--I'll go."
Jane stood in the yard watching the tail light of the jeep fade off
toward the Circle-7. There was a stark misery in her heart--a bleak
unhappiness she had never before known. "It's not Dan--not Dan at all!"
she whispered fiercely. Then she ran back to the porch and sat down on
the steps and began to cry.
But not for long. She came erect suddenly. Biddy was not home yet!
She was out there in the desert. A drunken mob was moving out there
somewhere. With a choked cry, Jane Parker ran off into the night. After
a while she began calling--"Biddy--Biddy baby--where are you? Where are
you?"
But the stars were silent and the night was silent too....
* * * * *
Joe had heard the sounds of the approaching crowd. He came from the
cave where he had just got the report of zero-minute two hours away and
waited in front of the cave. He looked up into the heavens from where,
very shortly, a small, dark ship would arc in and settle quietly down.
The headlights of the car leading the crowd cut two paths through the
night and he stepped out into their radiance. Instantly an unpleasant
voice barked, "You there! Stand still. Don't move. I've got you
covered."
From curiosity rather than fear, Joe remained where he was. The voice
and the harsh discordant vibrations from the crowd in the background
fascinated him. What sort of a demonstration was this? What strange
primitive motivations generated the black aura about these people?
A scowling figure emerged from the gloom and peered over his shoulder
into the cave. "What you got in there?"
"The equipment I brought with me."
"Where'd you bring it from?"
The mob was straining forward to hear and a baleful silence waited to
be broken by Joe's answer. "From the Galaxy--well, the Galaxy Capital I
suppose you'd call it."
"Where the hell's that?"
"I don't think you could understand if I told you."
"Is that so? Well, I'm not as stupid as you think, buster. You've snuck
in here from the East somewhere. You've been pretty damn clever, but no
Eastern fifth column is going to get a foothold in my territory. You
come along with me. You got some questions to answer."
An ugly tremor went through the crowd. It raced from drunk to drunk and
influenced even the sober. Fear mixed with panic.
"See that stuff in there?"
"Lousy Eastern fifth columnist."
"Brought his equipment with him."
"Bet it is something to blow up our space station just like they said."
Cecil Bates expanded under the reflection of these revelations. He'd
shown them all right. He'd brought them out here and shown them what
was going on and what he was going to do about it. He said, "All
right--come on you--into the car and right down to the jail house."
* * * * *
As Joe hesitated, four men came out of the crowd. "You heard what he
said. Get going," and they laid rough hands on Joe and carried him
bodily away.
But they did not stop at the car. The raucous-voiced leader of the
group yelled, "Don't worry, Ceec. We'll get him there for you. Don't
need no car. We know where the jail is!"
The spark was touched off--the thought suggested--by a blurred voice
from the crowd. "We don't need no jail house. What we need's a rope!"
Laughter--ugly laughter--and other suggestions: "There's the tree by
Indian Head Rock. About big enough to hold a rat his size."
More drunken laughter but laced now with viciousness and excitement.
Shouts and curses rising into a steady roar. A lynch mob.
* * * * *
Cecil Bates never quite knew how it happened. He made no resistance
because he lacked the courage and he was afraid to defend the prisoner.
After all, he rationalized--when he saw how things were going--these
were the people, the taxpayers, the hard core of the country. They had
an instinct for knowing when swift action was necessary. And by gosh,
when it was time, they acted!
But he realized these were only weak alibis for his own impotence
and that he was held helpless by his fear, his inner rottenness, his
lacking of stature as a man.
And when they took the stranger and hung him to the tree by Indian Head
Rock, Cecil Bates looked himself in the face for the first time in
his life and was sickened by what he saw. He screamed at himself--_do
something. For God's sake don't let this happen. That man hanging there
is you. When he dies you've come to the end of your rope too. But
there's still time. Do something. Stop them._
But the weakness he had nourished and fed within himself for so long
would not let him raise his voice or his gun. And he stood alone with
his sickness watching the body of the stranger twirl gently at the end
of the rope someone had brought along just in case....
* * * * *
Sam Taber and his riders prowled the dark desert and the desert was
a big place after sundown. Finally he pulled up and said, "I can't
figure this thing out. Bates must have used a car. Why can't we see the
headlights?"
"Maybe he turned them out so as to slip up on the man in the dark."
This from one of the men in his group; men who obeyed orders and seldom
spoke.
"With the whole town and half the county tailing along behind him? I
think not."