"Goddammit, Beth, I told you! How many times do I have to tell you that
he vanished!"
"Stop yelling at me!"
"Then believe me! It happened! I saw it happen, and I wasn't seeing
things! Go out and look. If you can find his body out there, I'll eat
it."
She uttered a little cry and came into his arms, holding him tightly.
"Oh, darling, I want to believe you. I want very much to believe you;
but men can't vanish."
"Brice did."
"All right. If you say he did. All right. Now what?"
"I don't know. I have to think. I have to try and remember what happened
to me. It's the only way that this crazy whirl will make sense, and it
has to make sense. It has to."
She nodded. "Let's go into the room. I want to be with you tonight. Let
me have the gun, dear?"
He stared at her, his jaws knotted. "You think I'm nuts, don't you? You
think I'm crazy."
"Darling, darling, of course not. But I wish you'd give me the gun."
Resignedly he unstrapped the gun and gave it to her. He shrugged. "I
don't blame you. Hell, I think I'm crazy too."
She didn't argue the point.
They both went into the front room and sat there staring into the ashes
of the dead fireplace while dusk fell about the cabin. Finally Beth
started the fire. When she had finished, she bent and kissed him.
"Why don't we get some sleep, honey," she said. "That may help."
"I'll be up later," he told her and she kissed him again. Then she went
to bed.
How long he sat there he had no way of knowing, but the fire was
steadily dying. The thoughts hammered in his head and he became lost in
them, trying mentally to find the key that would tear away the veil and
grant him a peek at his past. Bits and snatches had filtered through,
garbled and incoherent, that had tried to shed light yet could not. And,
while he leaned toward one conclusion, drawn from the dreams, he felt it
too fantastic for belief.
He was so absorbed in his thinking that he never heard the door open
slowly. When he did hear the soft tread behind him, it was too late! A
handkerchief of chloroform was clamped strongly over his face! He
struggled, trying to get away from the hands that held him, but he was
powerless! The chloroform got to him. He couldn't breathe...
He slept.