I nodded. "I think so. It was dark. There were three of them, but I never got a good look at them. The one I hit may have been this Ballard boy. I only hit one of them. After that the other two were all over me."

"It was Justin Ballard you fought with last night," she said. "And the other two. They were bragging around town this morning about it and Justin's face was all smashed up."

"Well, then, that let's me out," I said. "I've been on the river all day long . . ."

And then my words ran out. There was no way to prove I'd been on the river. I'd not seen a soul and probably had been seen by no one.

"I don't understand," I said.

"They were around this morning, bragging about what they'd done to you and they said they were going to hunt you up and finish the job. Then someone found Justin dead and the other two have disappeared."

'They don't think I killed all three?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I don't know what they think about it. The village is shook up. A bunch of them were going to come down here and get you, but George Duncan talked them out of it. He said they shouldn't try to take the law into their own hands. He pointed out there was no proof you'd done it, but the village thinks you did. George called the motel and found you were out fishing. He said for everyone to leave you alone and he called the sheriff. He figured it would be best to let the sheriff handle it."

"But you?" I asked. "You came out to warn me . . ."

"You bought my basket and you walked me home and we made a date," she said. "It sort of seemed to me I should be on your side. I didn't want them to catch you by surprise."

"I'm afraid the date Is canceled," I said. "I am very sorry. I had been looking forward to it"

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'll have to think about it."

"You haven't got much time."

"I know that. I suppose the only thing is to paddle in and sit and wait for them."

"But they may not wait for the sheriff," she warned.

I shook my head. "There's something in my unit that I have to get. There is something strange about all this."

And there was something strange about it. There had been the rattlesnakes and now, less than twenty hours later, a farm boy dead. Or was it a farm boy dead? Was anybody dead?

"You can't come in now," she told me. "You have to stay out fishing at least until the sheriff gets here. That's why I came to warn you. If there's something in your unit, I can get it for you."

"No," I said.

"There is a back door to all the units," she said, "off the patio that faces on the river. Do you know if that back door is unlocked?"

"I suppose it is," I said.

"I could slip in the back and get..."

"Kathy," I said, "I can't..."

"You can't come in," she said. "Not for a while, at least"

"You think you could get into the unit?"

"I'm sure I could."

"A big manila envelope," I said. "With a Washington postmark and a thick bunch of papers inside. Just get the envelope and then clear out. Keep out of the entire business once you have that envelope."

"This envelope?"

"Nothing incriminating," I said. "Nothing illegal. Just something that must not be seen, information that no one should have."

"It's important?"

"I think it's important, but I can't let you get involved. It wouldn't be ..."

"I'm already involved," she said. "I've warned you and I suppose that's not very law-abiding, but I couldn't let you just come stumbling into them. You get back on that river and stay there..."

"Kathy," I said, "I'm going to tell you something that will shock you. If you're sure you want to take a chance with that envelope."

"I want to do it," she said. "If you tried it, you might be seen. Me, even if I was seen around the place, no one would pay attention."

"All right, then," I said, hating myself for letting her do a dirty job, "I'm not only going out on that river, but I'm going to run, very fast and hard. Not that I've killed anyone, but there's another reason. I suppose the honest thing would be to give myself up, but I find, regretfully, that I have some cowardly tendencies. I can always give myself up, later on, perhaps."

She stared at me, frightened-for which I couldn't blame her. And perhaps with somewhat less regard for me than she'd had to start with.

"If you're going to run," she said, "you'd better start right now."

"One thing," I said. "Yes?"

"If you get that envelope, don't look inside. Don't read it."

"I don't understand any of this," she said. "What I don't understand," I told her, "is why you're warning me."

"I've told you that You might at least say thank you."

"I do, of course," I said.

She began backing up the bank.

"On your way," she said. "I'll get your envelope."

10.

Night fell and I did not have to hug the bank so closely, but could get out into the stream, where the current would help me. There had been two towns, but both of them had been on the other side of the river and I had seen their lights, shining across the water and the wide stretch of boggy bottomlands that stretched between the far sh.o.r.e and the river.

I was worried about Kathy. I had no claim to any help from her and I felt considerably like a heel for letting her take on what could turn out to be a very dirty ch.o.r.e. But she had come to warn me, she had aligned herself with me-and she was the only one around. Furthermore, most likely, the only person I could trust. The chances were good, I told myself, that she'd be able to manage it, and it was important, terribly important, it seemed to me, that the manila envelope should be kept from falling into the hands of someone who might make it public.

As soon as possible I'd have to get in touch with Philip and alert him to what was going on. Between the two of us, we might be able to figure out what would be best to do. I had to put some distance between myself and Pilot k.n.o.b, then find a telephone-far enough away so that the call would not arouse suspicion.

I was piling up the distance. The current was fast and I helped the speed along as best I could with steady paddle work.

As I drove the canoe along, I was thinking of the night before and about the finding of Justin Ballard's body. And the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that Ballard had not died. There was no question, it seemed to me, that the three who had attacked me the night before had been the three who had stood ranged against the wall. They had bragged about the beating they had given me and then they had disappeared, but where and how had they disappeared? But wherever or however, with them out of the way, for a time at least, what would be simpler than the planting of a body to enmesh me with the law-perhaps to get me lynched? And if Kathy's version had been true, a lynch party had been forming before George Duncan broke it up. If the things, whatever they were, could fashion out of themselves, or the energy that was themselves, a house, a jacked-up car, a woodpile, two people, a supper on the table, a jug of good corn whiskey, they could do anything. A dead and rigid body would be a cinch for them. And also, I realized, they could bring their abilities to bear upon keeping the missing three from showing up until it made no difference. It was a crazy way to do things, certainly, accomplishment by indirection, but no crazier than killing a man with a car that disappeared, or the strange and elaborate scheme which they'd gone about to introduce a potential victim to a den of rattlesnakes.

Soon, I hoped, there'd be a river town where I could find a public telephone booth and put in my call. The alarm might have spread by now and the river towns might be watched, although there would be no certainty in the sheriffs mind that I had fled downriver. No certainty, of course, unless Kathy had been apprehended. I tried to turn off this thought, but try as I might it kept coming back to me. But even watched, I probably could make it And after I had made my call, what did I do then? Surrender myself, perhaps, although that was something that had to be decided later. I could, I realized, have surrendered myself and still made the call to Philip, but it would have been made within the hearing of an officer and there'd have been no opportunity to do anything after it was made.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with the way I'd handled the situation and I felt a sense of guilt, but as I beat it back and forth in my mind I could see no other acceptable alternative.

Night had fallen, but a faint light still hung above the river. From the sh.o.r.e came the distant lowing of a cow and the faint barking of a dog. All about me the water whispered with its eternal talk and at times a fish flopped, making a sudden plop and setting up a concentric eddy of ripples. I seemed to be moving across a great plain; the dark, tree-lined river banks and the distant hills were simply shadows at the periphery of the plain. It was a deeply peaceful place, this realm of water and of shadow. Strangely, I felt safe out there on the river. Detached might be a better word. I was alone and hi the center of a tiny universe and the universe stretched out on every side, untenanted. The sounds that came across the water, the lowing of the cow and the barking of the dog, had so much the sense of distance in them that they accentuated, rather than destroyed, the smug sense of detachment.

Then the detachment ended. In front of me the water humped and as I paddled frantically to steer free of the hump, a blackness rose up out of the river-yards and yards of blackness, with water streaming off it The chain of blackness reared into the air, a great, long, sinuous neck with a nightmare head attached. It came up into the air and bent in a graceful curve so that the head hung just above me, and looking up, I stared in fascinated fear into the red, jewellike eyes that glittered in the faint light reflected from the surface of the water. A forked tongue flickered out at me and then the mouth came open and I saw the fangs.

I dipped the paddle and with a mighty heave drove the canoe forward in a sudden surge. I felt the hot breath of the beast upon my neck as the lunging head missed me by bare inches.

Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw the head poised again, ready for another strike and I knew that the odds were stacked heavily against me. I'd fooled the creature once; I doubted that I'd be able to do it a second time. The sh.o.r.e was too far away to reach and the only thing that was left for me to do was to dodge and run. For a moment the thought of abandoning the canoe crossed my mind, but I was not too good a swimmer and this was some sort of water monster that undoubtedly could scoop me out of the water with remarkable ease.

It was taking its time now. It didn't need to hurry. It knew it had me, but this time it wasn't going to take a chance of missing. Water rippled behind it in a neat V as it moved toward me, the long neck curved and ready, the head with jaws agape, the fangs shining in the starlight.

I swung the canoe sharply in the hope of catching it off balance, forcing it to get squared around again to make a new approach.

As I swung the canoe sharply some object rolled and rattled hi its bottom. And when I heard that rattle, I knew what I had to do-no reason to it, no logic, it was just plain d.a.m.n silly, but I was at the end of my rope and fast running out of time. I had no hope that I could do what I planned to do-well, not a plan, more like a reflex response-and no idea what I'd do if it really worked. But I had to do it Mostly, I suppose, because it was the only thing that I could think of doing.

I hit the water a lick with the paddle to turn the canoe end for end, so I could face the creature. Then I reached down and picked up the rod and stood up. A canoe ordinarily is not the sort of craft a man should stand up in, but this one was fairly steady and I'd been doing some practicing, standing up in it, that afternoon.

I had a ba.s.s plug hooked onto the line and it was a fairly heavy plug (perhaps a bit too heavy for good ba.s.s fishing) and it had three gang hooks hi it.

The critter was fairly close now and its mouth still was open wide, so I brought the rod back and I aimed, hi my mind, where I wanted that plug to go and I swung my arm.

I watched in fascination as the plug flashed out, the metal of it glittering just a bit in the river light. And it plopped into that open mouth and I waited for a split second, then lifted the rod tip and lunged back hard with all my strength to set the hooks. I felt the tug as the hooks bit deep and there I was, with the monster hooked.

I hadn't thought beyond the casting of the plug. I hadn't figured out what I would do if I hooked the monster. Mostly, I suppose, because I had not thought for an instant that I would really hook him.

But now, having hooked him, I did the only thing I could. I dropped quickly into a crouch and held fast to the rod. The monster's head jerked back and pointed sharply toward the sky and the reel was singing as the line went out I jerked the rod again to set the hooks still deeper and out in the water in front of me a tidal wave went into action. A mighty body heaved into the air and it kept on coming and I thought it would never stop. The head, on its lanky neck, was thrashing back and forth and the rod was whipping wildly and I hung onto it like grim death, although I can't imagine why I hung onto it. One thing for certain, I didn't want this fish that I had hooked.

The canoe was pitching and bucking in the waves set up by the creature's struggles and I crouched lower in it, huddling in it, with my elbows braced against the gunwales, trying to keep the center of gravity low to prevent an upset And now the canoe began to move, faster and faster, down the river, towed behind the fleeing creature.

And through it all, I hung onto the rod. I could have let go of it, I could have thrown it away, but I hung onto it and as the canoe started to move I whooped in jeering triumph. The thing had been chasing me and I had been the hunted, but now I had it hooked and it was running in pain and panic and so far as I was concerned I was set to run it ragged.

The thing went streaking down the river and the line was thrumming and the canoe was riding high and fast and I whooped like a zany cowboy astride a bucking horse. I forgot for a moment what was going on or what had led up to it. It was a wild ride through the night of this river world and ahead of me the creature was twisting and humping, with the serrated row of fins along its back sometimes arched into the air and sometimes low against the water and awash in the turmoil of its struggle.

Suddenly the line went slack and the creature disappeared. I was alone upon the river, crouching in a canoe that was bucking up and down in the turbulence of the water. As the water quieted, I eased myself back upon the seat and began reeling in the line. There was a lot of reeling to be done, but finally the plug came clattering aboard and snugged against the rod tip. I was somewhat astonished to see the plug, for I had thought the line had snapped and that with the snapping of it, the creature had sounded and made its escape. But now it became apparent that the creature had simply disappeared, for the hooks must have been set deeply and solidly into its flesh and the only way that the plug could have come clean was for the flesh hi which it had been embedded to have disappeared.

The canoe now was floating gently on the river and I reached down and picked up the paddle. The moon was rising and the sky glow of its rising made the river glisten like a road of flowing silver. I sat quietly with the paddle in my hand and wondered what to do. The instinctive thing was to get off the river before another monster came heaving from the depths, to get busy with the paddle and head in for sh.o.r.e. But I felt sure, on second thought, that there'd not be another monster-for the business of the monster could only be explained if it were considered in the same frame of reference as the den of rattlesnakes and Justin Ballard's death. My old friend's other world had tried another gambit and had failed again, and it was not in the nature of their operation, I was sure, to repeat a scheme that failed. And if that reasoning was valid, for the moment at least the river probably was the safest place in all the world for me to be.

A sharp, shrill piping broke my line of thought and I swung my head around to try to identify the origin of the piping. Squatted on the gunwale, eight feet or so away, perched a little monstrosity. It was grotesquely humanoid and covered by a heavy coat of hair and it clung to its perch with a pair of feet that resembled the talons of an owl. Its head rose to a point and the hair grew from the top of this point to fall about the head in such a manner as to provide a hat resembling those worn by natives in certain Asian countries. Projecting from the side of its head were juglike, pointed ears and its eyes glared redly at me from behind the hanging mat of hair.

Now that I saw it, its piping began to make some sense. "Three times is a charm!" it was saying, gleefully, in its high, shrill piping. "Three times is a charm! Three times is a charm!"

Gorge rising in my throat, I swung the paddle hard. The flat side of the blade caught the little monstrosity sharply and popped it off the gunwale, high into the air, as a high fly might be hit by a baseball bat. The piping changed into a feeble scream and I watched it in some fascination as it_ sailed high above the river, finally reaching the top of its parabola and starting to come down. Halfway down it blinked out, like the bursting of a soap bubble-one moment there, the next moment gone.

I got down to work with the paddle. I was looking for a town and there was no use fooling myself any longer. The quicker I reached a phone and put in a call to Philip, the better it would be.

My old friend might not have been entirely right in all that he had written, but there was something d.a.m.n funny going on.

11.

The town was small and I could find no phone booth. Nor was I absolutely sure what town it was, although, if my memory did not play me false, it was a place called Woodman. I tried to summon up in my head a map of the locality, but the town and the country were too far in the past and I could not be sure of it. But the name of the town, I told myself, was not important; the important thing was to place that phone call. Philip was in Washington and he'd know what was best to do-and even if he didn't know what to do, he at least should know what was going on. I owed him that much for sending me the copy of his uncle's notes. Although I knew that if he had not sent them to me, I might not be in this mess.

The only place in the block-long business district that still was open was a bar. Yellow light shone dimly through its dirt-grimed windows and a slight breeze blowing up the street set a beer sign to creaking back and forth upon its iron bracket suspended above the sidewalk.

I stood across the street, trying to screw up my courage to go in the bar. There was no guarantee, of course, that the place would have a phone, although it seemed likely that it would. I knew that in stepping across the threshold of the place I'd be running a certain amount of risk, for it was almost certain that by now the sheriff would have put out an alarm concerning me. The alarm might not have reached this place, of course, but it still was a chance to take.

The canoe was down at the river landing, tied to a tottery post, and all I had to do was to go back and get into it and push out into the stream. No one would be the wiser, for no one had seen me. Except for the place across the street, the town was positively dead.

But I had to make that phone call; I simply had to make it. Philip should be warned, and I might already be too late. Once warned, he might have some suggestion of something we could do. It was apparent now that anyone who read what my old dead friend had written faced the same danger that he had faced in writing it.

I stood in an agony of indecision and finally, scarcely realizing I was doing it, I started walking across the street. When I reached the sidewalk, I stopped and looked up at the creaking sign and the creaking seemed to wake me up to what I had been about to do. I was a hunted man and there was no sense in walking in there and asking for the kind of trouble that I was apt to get. I walked on past the bar, but halfway down the street I turned about and started back again and when I did that, I knew it was no use. I could go on like that, walking back and forth all night, not knowing what to do.

So I climbed the steps and pushed open the door. A man was hunched over the bar at the far end of the room and a bartender was leaning on the bar, facing the door, looking as if he'd been waiting there all night for customers to come in. The rest of the place was empty, with the chairs pushed in close against the tables.

The bartender didn't move. It was as if he didn't see me. I stepped in and closed the door, then walked over to the bar.

"Whatll it be, mister?" the bartender asked me.

"Bourbon," I said. I didn't ask for ice; it looked like the sort of place where it might be a breach of etiquette to ask for a piece of ice. "And some change-'that is, if you have a phone."

The man jerked his thumb toward a comer of the room. "Over there," he said. I looked and the booth was there, jammed into the corner.

"That's quite an eye you have," he said.

"Yes, isn't it," I told him.

He set a gla.s.s out on the bar and poured.

"Traveling late," he said.

"Sort of," I told him. Glancing at my wrist.w.a.tch, I saw that it was eleven thirty.