At 2 pm, at Devil's Gate Camp the last few stragglers were climbing aboard the press bus, which had its motor running and was ready to leave. The group had lunched; their journey back to the city would take four hours. Fifty yards away, Teresa Van Buren, who was also going on the bus, told Nim, "Thanks for all you did, even though you hated some of it."

He said with a smile, "I get paid to do a few things, now and then, that I'd rather not. Was anything accomplished, do you . . . ?"

Nim stopped, not certain why, except for a sudden chilling instinct that something was wrong in the scene around him, something out of place. They were standing roughly where be had been this morning when he paused en route to breakfast; the weather was still beautiful clear sunshine highlighting a profusion of trees and wild flowers, with a breeze stirring the fragrant mountain air. Both bunkhouses were visible, the bus in front of one, a couple of off-duty employees sunning themselves on a balcony of the other. In the opposite direction, over by the staff houses, a group of children was playing; a few minutes earlier Nim had noticed among them the redheaded boy Danny, whom be had spoken to this morning. The boy was flying a kite, perhaps a birthday present, though at the moment both boy and kite had disappeared from view. Nim's gaze moved on to a GSP & L heavy-duty service truck and a cluster of men in work gear. among them he caught a glimpse of the trim, bearded figure of Wally Talbot Jr. Presumably Wally was with the transmission line crew he had mentioned earlier. On the road leading into camp a small blue tradesman's van appeared.

Someone at the bus called over impatiently, "Tess, let's go!"

Van Buren said curiously, "Nim, what is it?"

"I'm not sure. I . . ."

An urgent, frantic shout cut across the camp clearing and all other sounds.

"Danny! Danny! Don't move! Stay where you are!"

Heads turned-Nim's and Van Buren's simultaneously-seeking the source of the voice.

Another shout, this time close to a scream. "Danny! Do you hear me?"

"Over there." Van Buren pointed to a steep path, partially hidden by trees, on the camp's far side. A red-haired man-the technician, Fred Wilkins-was racing down it, shouting as he ran.

"Danny! Do what I tell you! Stop! Don't move!"

Now the children had stopped playing. Bewildered, they turned together in the direction where the shouting was aimed. Nim did the same.

"Danny! Don't go any further! I'm coming for you! Keep still!"

"Oh Christ!" Nim breathed.

Now he could see. High overhead, on one of the towers carrying high voltage lines across the camp, the small boy, Danny Wilkins, was ascending. Clinging tightly to a steel support member more than halfway from the tower base, he was clambering upward, slowly, steadily. His objective was visible above him-the kite he had been flying, now entangled in a transmission line atop the tower. A flash of sunlight showed Nim what moments earlier he had seen, so swiftly and briefly that it barely registered-the reflection from a slim aluminum pole the boy was clutching, a pole with a hook at one end. Clearly, Danny planned to use it to retrieve the kite. His small face was set determinedly as his sturdy body moved higher, and either he failed to bear his father's shouts or was ignoring them.

Nim and others began running hard toward the tower, but with a sense of helplessness as the small boy continued climbing steadily toward the high voltage lines. Five hundred thousand volts.

Fred Wilkins, still some distance away, was forcing himself to even greater speed, his face despairing.

Nim joined the shouting. "Danny! the wires are dangerous! Don't move!

Stay there!"

This time the boy paused and glanced down. Then he looked up again at the kite and continued climbing, though more slowly, the aluminum pole extended out in front. He was now only a few feet from the nearest power line.

Then Nim saw that a new figure, nearer to the tower than anyone else, had sprung into action. Wally Talbot. Shooting forward, his stride long, feet barely seeming to touch the ground, Wally was racing like an Olympic sprinter.

The press reporters were scrambling from the bus.

The tower, like others in the camp area, was surounded by a protective chain link fence. Later it would be learned that Danny had surmounted the fence by climbing a tree and dropping from a low branch. Now Wally Talbot reached the fence and leaped. With what seemed a superhuman effort he grabbed the top and scrambled over. As he landed inside it could be seen that one of his hands was cut and bleeding. Then he was on the tower and climbing fast.

Breathlessly, tensely, the hastily assembled group of spectators, reporters and others watched from below. While they did, a trio of workmen from Wally's transmission line crew arrived and, after trying several keys, unlocked a gate in the chain link fence. Once inside the enclosure they, too, began climbing the tower. But Wally was far ahead, rapidly closing the distance between himself and the small redheaded boy.

Fred Wilkins had reached the base of the tower; he was winded and trembling. Briefly he moved as if to climb also, but someone restrained him.

All eyes were focused on the two figures nearest the top-Danny Wilkins, only a foot or two from the transmission lines, and Wally Talbot, now close behind.

Then it happened-so swiftly that those watching could not agree afterward on the succession of events or even precisely what they were.

In what seemed a single moment, Danny-perched, it seemed, within inches of an insulator which separated the tower from a transmission line conductor-reached out with the aluminum pole in an attempt to snare the kite. Simultaneously, from just below and slightly to one side, Wally Talbot grabbed at the boy and pulled and held him. A pulsebeat later both appeared to slip, the boy sliding downward, clinging to a girder, and Wally losing his grasp. At the same time, Wally, perhaps instinctively to maintain a precarious balance, seized the metal pole as Danny released it. The pole swung in an arc. Instantly a great ball of crackling orange light erupted, the pole disappeared, and Wally Talbot was enveloped in a corona of transparent flame. Then, with equal suddenness, the flame was gone and Wally's body sagged limply, motionless, across a tower support.

Miraculously, neither fell. Seconds later two of Wally Talbot's crew reached his body and began easing it down. The third man pinned Danny Wilkins to a girder and held him there while the others descended. The boy was apparently unhurt; he was sobbing and the sound could be heard below.

Then, somewhere on the other side of the camp, a siren began sounding short, sharp blasts.

17.

The cocktail bar pianist switched nostalgically from Hello, Young Lovers! to Whatever Will Be, Will Be.

"If he plays manymore of those oldies," Harry London said, "I'm gonna start crying in my beer. Another vodka, pal?"

"Why the hell not? Make it a double." Nim, who had been hearing the music too, now listened to himself objectively. His speech was slurring at the edges, he observed, which figured. He had already had too much to drink, and knew it, but found himself not caring. Groping in a pocket, he took out his car keys and pushed them across the small, black-topped table.

"Take care of these. See that I get a taxi home."

London pocketed the keys. "Sure thing. You can stay at my place overnight, if you want."

"No thanks, Harry." Soon, when the liquor had dulled his perceptions further, Nim intended to go home, in fact wanted to. He wasn't worried about appearing there drunk-at least, not tonight. Leah and Benjy would be asleep and wouldn't see him. And Ruth, with her compassion and sympathy, would be forgiving.

"Testing, testing," Nim said. He had wanted to bear his voice again before using it. Now, satisfied with his coherence, he told Harry, "Y'know what I think? I think Wally'd be better off dead."

London took a swig of beer before answering. "Maybe Wally won't see it that way. Okay, so be got burned had and lost his pecker. But there's other . .."

Nim's voice rose. "For Chrissakes, Harry! Do you understand what you're saying?"

"Take it easy," London cautioned. Others in the bar had glanced their way.

He added quietly, "Sure, I understand."

"In time . . ." Nim leaned across the table, balancing his words the way a conjurer might stand a plate on edge. "In time the burns will heal. They'll do skin grafts. But you can't order a new penis from the Sears catalogue."

"It's true. Can't deny it." London shook his head sadly. "That poor benighted bastard!"

The cocktail pianist was now into Lara's theme and Harry London wiped away a tear.

"Twenty-eight!" Nim said. "That's how old he is. For God's sake, twenty-eight! Why, any normal man that age has still got ahead of him a lifetime of. . ."

London said curtly, "I don't need a diagram." He finished his beer and motioned a waiter for another. "One thing you gotta remember, Nim. Not every guy's an all-star cocksman like you. With you, if you lost out the way Wally has, I could understand it being the end of the road, or you thinking it was." He asked curiously, "You ever kept score? Maybe you could get in the Guinness Book of World Records."

"There's a Belgian writer," Nim said, his thoughts for the moment diverted, "Georges Simenon, who says he made it with ten thousand different women.

I'm not up to that many, or even near it."

"Leave out the numbers, then. The point is, maybe his dong was never as all-fired important to Wally as yours is to you."

Nim shook his head. "I doubt it." He remembered the times be had seen Wally Jr. and his wife, Mary, together. Nim's finely boned instincts told him the two of them had a good thing going sexually. He wondered sadly what might happen to their marriage.

The beer and double vodka arrived. "When you're coming back," Nim told the waiter, "bring the same again."

It was early evening. The bar they were in-the Ezy Duzzit, smallish and dark, with a sentimental pianist who was just easing into Moon River-was not far from GSP & L headquarters. Nim and Harry London had walked over here at the end of their working day. The third day.

The past three days had been the worst short period of his life that Nim ever remembered.

On the first day, at Devil's Gate, the sense of stupefaction following the electrocution of Wally Talbot Jr. had lasted only seconds. Then, while Wally was still being brought down from the tower, standard emergency procedures went into high gear.

In any big utility company, electrocutions are rare but inevitably they happen-usually several times a year. The cause is either momentary carelessness, nullifying costly and rigid safety precautions, or a "thousandth chance" accident such as that which happened so swiftly while Nim and others watched.

Ironically, Golden State Power had an aggressive publicity program, aimed at parents and children, warning of dangers when kites were flown near overhead power lines. The utility had expended thousands of dollars on posters and comic books devoted to the subject and distributed them to schools and other agencies.

As Fred Wilkins, the red-haired technician was to disclose with anguish later, he knew of the warning program. But Wilkins' wife, Danny's mother, didn't know. She tearfully admitted having a vague impression that she might have heard something of the kind, but had forgotten when or where, nor had the memory surfaced when the kite-a birthday present from grandparents-arrived with the morning mail and she helped Danny put it together. As for Danny's climbing the tower, he was described by those who knew him as "a determined boy, and fearless." the hooked aluminum rod he had carried aloft was a gaff his father used for occasional deep sea fishing; it was stored in a tool shed where the boy had seen it often. None of that was known, of course, when a trained first-aid team, alerted by the camp siren, rushed to administer help to Wally Talbot. He was unconscious, had been badly burned over large areas of his body, and breathing had stopped.

The aid team, led by a registered nurse who ran the camp's small medical clinic, competently began mouth-to-mouth breathing in conjunction with external cardiac compression. While the resuscitation continued, Wally was carried to the one-bed clinic. There, the nurse-taking radiophone instructions from a doctor in the city-used a closed-chest defibrillator in an attempt to restore normal heart action. The attempt succeeded. That, and the other measures, saved Wally's life.

By then a company helicopter was on the way to Devil's Gate-the same machine which was to have collected Nim. Wally, accompanied by the nurse, was flown directly to a hospital for more intensive treatment. It was not until next day that his suryival was assured and the detailed nature of his injuries made known. On that second day, newspapers played the story big, its impact strengthened by eyewitness accounts from reporters on the scene. The morning Chronicle-West gave it front-page treatment with a headline: ELECTROCUTED MAN IS HERO.

By afternoon, though the immediacy had lessened, the California Examiner devoted half of page three to a Nancy Molineaux by-line story headed: Sacrifices Self in Saving Child.

The Examiner also ran a two-column cut of Wally Talbot Jr. and another of young Danny Wilkins with one side of his face bandaged-the result of abrasions when the boy slid downward near the top of the tower, the only injury he received.

TV and radio had carried bulletins the night before, but continued their coverage the following day. Because of its human interest, the story drew statewide and some national attention.

At the city's Mount Eden Hospital, shortly after noon on that second day, an attending surgeon held an impromptu press conference in a corridor.

Nim, who had visited the hospital earlier, had just returned and listened from the fringes.

"Mr. Talbot's condition is critical but stable, and he is out of immediate danger," the young surgeon, who looked like a reincarnated Robert Kennedy, announced. "He has severe bums over twenty-five percent of his body and has suffered certain other injuries."

"Could you be more specific, Doctor?" one of a dozen news reporters asked. "What are the other injuries?"

The surgeon glanced at an older man beside him whom Nim knew to be the hospital administrator.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press," the administrator said, "normally, out of respect for privacy, no additional information would be disclosed.

In this instance, however, after discussion with the family, it has been decided to be open with the press-quite frankly, to put an end to speculation. Therefore the last question will be answered. But before it is, I plead with you-out of consideration for the patient and his family-to be discreet in what you write and speak. Thank you. Please continue, Doctor."

"The effects of electrocution on the human body are always unpredictable,"

the surgeon said. "Often, death results when large charges of electricity pass through internal organs before escaping to ground. In the case of Mr. Talbot this didn't happen, so to that extent he was fortunate. Instead the electricity passed over the upper surface of his body and exited-to ground through the metal tower-by the route of his penis."

There were gasps, and a shocked silence during which no one seemed eager to ask the next question. Eventually an elderly male reporter did. "And, Doctor, the condition of . . ."

"It was destroyed. By burning. Totally. Now, if you'll excuse me . . .

The press group, unusually subdued, drifted away.

Nim had stayed on. He identified himself to the administrator and inquired about Wally Jr.'s family-Ardythe and Mary. Nim had not seen either since the accident, but knew he would have to meet both women soon.

Ardythe, Nim learned, was at the hospital under sedation. "She went into shock," the administrator said. "I presume you know about her husband's death just a short time ago."

Nim nodded.

"The younger Mrs. Talbot is with her husband, but no other visitors are being allowed for the time being."

While the administrator waited, Nim scribbled a note to Mary, telling her he was available if needed, and in any case would return to the hospital next day. That night, as during the preceding one, Nim slept only fitfully, the scene at Devil's Gate Camp repeating itself in his mind again and again, like a recurring nightmare.

On the morning of the third day he saw Mary, then Ardythe.

Mary met him outside the hospital room where Wally was still under intensive care. "Wally's conscious," she said, "but doesn't want to see anyone. Not yet." Wally's wife looked pale and tired, but some of her normal businesslike manner still came through. "Ardythe wants to see you, though. She knew you were coming."

Nim said gently, "I guess words aren't a lot of good, Mary. Just the same, I'm sorry."

"We all are." Mary led the way to a door a few yards distant and opened it.

"Here's Nim, Mother." She told him, "I'm going back to Wally. I'll leave you now."

"Come in, Nim," Ardythe said. She was dressed and resting on a bed, propped up by pillows. "Isn't this ridiculous-for me to be in the hospital too?"

There was hysteria beneath her voice, he thought, and her cheeks were too flushed, her eyes showed an artificial brightness. Nim remembered what the administrator had said about shock and sedation, though Ardythe appeared not to be sedated now.

He began hesitantly, "I wish I knew what to say pausing, he bent to kiss her.

To his surprise, Ardythe stiffened and turned her head away. He ended by clumsily touching his lips to her cheek, which felt hot.

"Noill Ardythe remonstrated. "Please . . . don't kiss me."

Wondering if he had offended her in some way, finding it hard to gauge her mood, he moved a chair and sat beside the bed.

There was a silence, then she said, half musingly, "They say Wally will live. Yesterday we didn't know, so at least today is that much better.

But I suppose you know how he will live; I mean, what's happened to him,"

"Yes," he said, "I know."