26.

Billy rode wildly through the brush, thick BMX tires rolling over weeds and rocks, plowing through thin bushes. He and Lane had both signed up weeks ago for the motocrosscompetition,.and while he had always planned on winning, it was now a necessity rather than a desire. He didn't really care at this point whether or not he came in first -- he just wanted to beat Lane. To beat him bad.

He spun around a large boulder, taking the turn as sharp as he dared without slowing. He and Lane were about equal in skill and experience, and he knew it was going to take a lot of practice and dedication to beat his ex friend.

But he _was_ going to beat him.

He was going to make him eat dirt.

Billy had not been planning to ride anywhere in particular, but he found himself heading down the hill toward the archaeological site. He hadn't been down here since he and Lane had had their falling out, not because he hadn't wanted to, but because Lane had always done most of the talking for the two of them and he felt a little nervous going to the dig by himself.

Today however, he found himself speeding down the hill toward the narrow valley. Ahead was a small natural ditch carved by runoff, and he yanked up on his handlebars, jumping it. The bike wobbled on the hard landing, but he maintained his pace and balance, pedaling furiously.

The ground leveled off, and he slowed as he approached the site, not wanting to startle anyone. When he reached the trees on the perimeter of the dig, he hopped off his bike and walked it the rest of the way.

But there was no one there.

The site was deserted.

He looked around. The university had not been scheduled to conclude their excavation until sometime in late August, but obviously they had decided to leave early. Billy's first thought was that they had all taken a day off, gone to town or to the lake or to one of the streams, but it was clear that they had packed everything up, finished their work, and gone home. Nothing was left save a few stakes embedded in the ground and a scattering of torn envelopes on the dirt.

Billy frowned. Something was wrong here. There had been no litter left behind on the dig last summer. None at all. The professor's motto had been "Pack it in, pack it out," and he'd made sure that his students left the area as close as possible to the way they'd found it.

He was suddenly scared, and he realized that he was all alone out here, that the closest person to him was up at the top of the hill. It came over him instantly, this feeling of being isolated, cut off from everything and everyone, and he quickly turned his bike around . . .

And he saw the mailman.

The mailman was striding toward him across the dirt, his hair a fiery red against the green background. There was no mail sack on his back, no letters in his hand, and the fact that he had come here to do something other than deliver mail scared Billy more than anything else. He jumped on his bike, swung it around, and began to pedal.

But he did not see one of the excavation trenches, and his front tire slid sideways, spilling him onto the ground. His head connected with the hard dirt.

He was stunned but not hurt, and he jumped to his feet. The mailman was standing right next to him, smiling.

"Billy," the mailman said quietly, horrifyingly gently.

He wanted to run but was powerless to do so. All the will seemed to have been drained from his body. The forest around the archaeological site seemed heavy and impenetrably thick, like a tropical jungle.

The mailman put a hand on Billy's shoulder. His touch was soft and tender, like a woman's. "Come here," he said.

He led Billy with unused force across the empty dig to a large pit at the far end of the clearing. Billy could not remember seeing the pit before, and he tensed as the two of them drew closer to it. He knew he didn't want to see what the mailman wanted to show him.

"Look," the mailman said, smiling.

The pit was filled with bodies and parts of bodies, eyes staring upward, hands fallen limply over torsos. In the split second before he shut his eyes against the horror, Billy saw an alternating color scheme of pink flesh, red blood, and white bone, and he thought he saw, somewhere near the top of the pile near his feet, amid a tangle of arms and legs, fingers and toes, the bottom portion of the professor's face.

Billy awoke from the nightmare drenched with sweat, his mouth dry. For a second, the loft seemed strange, facing the wrong direction, the individual elements of its composition, the furniture and posters, slightly off. Then his brain kicked into its awake mode and everything fell neatly into place.

Well, not everything.

For the images of his dream stayed with him, not as something he had viewed secondhand, like a movie or a regular dream, but as a five-sensory recollection of an actual event, something he had actually experienced, and try as he might to repeat to himself, "It's only a dream It's only a dream It's only a dream," something inside him told him it was not.

27.

"It's gotten to the point," Irene said, "where I'm afraid to open the mail."

Tritia , seated on the antique love seat, nodded. "I know what you mean.

The first thing I do these days is check the return address. If it's unfamiliar, I toss it."

"I throw away all mail, even letters from people I've known for years. The last one I opened was from Bill Simms, accusing me of poisoning his dog. Can you believe that?" The old woman licked her lips nervously, and Tritia realized that her friend was frightened. Badly frightened. She frowned. Irene was not a woman who was easily scared, and Tritia was unnerved by the sight of her in such an uncharacteristic state. Something other than a few hate letters had made her so fearful.

Tritia put down her glass of iced tea. "What is it?" she asked. "What's the matter? This is more than just Bill Simms."

Irene shook her head. "Nothing."

"It's not nothing,dammit ! Tell me."

Surprised by the vehemence of her reaction, Irene stared at her. Then she nodded. "Okay," she said. "You want to know what it is? Come here." Her voice was low, conspiratorial, tinged with more than a hint of fear.

Tritia followed her down the hallway into the closed room that had been her husband's den. It was now simply a storage room, filled with the physical forms of painful past memories, items either owned by or associated with her late husband. Tritia looked around. She had never been in this room before, had never even been brave enough to ask about it. Now she saw that it was dominated by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined two opposing walls. Clothes and personal effects were piled high on an old oak dining table that had been placed in the middle of the room next to other unused pieces of furniture.

"There," Irene said. Her voice was shaking.

Tritia followed the old woman's pointing finger. On top of the open rolltopdesk, next to a dusty pile of old western paperbacks, was a small box still half-wrapped in the brown butcher paper in which it had been delivered.

There was an irregular trail of clearness, a skid mark through the dust on top of the desk, which made it obvious that the box had been thrown there in haste.

Irene stood in the doorway, tightly grasping the brass doorknob. "It was sent to me yesterday," she said. She swallowed with obvious difficulty. Her hands were shaking, and Tritia could hear her uneven breathing in the silence of the room. "There's a toe in there."

"What?"

"There's a toe in the box."

Tritia moved slowly forward. Her own heart was pounding loudly. She reached the desk, picked up the box, and opened it.

She had known what to expect, but it was still a shock. A toe, a human toe, lay in the bottom of the box, unnervingly white against the brown cardboard. It was such a small thing that she would have expected it to look fake, to look rubbery. But it was distressingly real. She could see the smooth rounded tip, the curved lines around the joints, the individual hairs growing from the flat skin below the pinkish nail at the top. It had been severed cleanly, cut somehow, but there was no blood, not even a drop.

Tritia put the box down, feeling slightly nauseous. The toe rolled over, and she could see red muscle, blue vein, and a core circle of white bone. The room suddenly seemed too closed, too cramped, and she backed up, away from the desk.

"Jasper lost his big toe in a logging accident in 1954," Irene said quietly.

The severed joint seemed suddenly more sinister, invested with a documented past that lent it a decidedly supernatural aura. Tritia looked at her friend. Irene was pale, frightened, and for the first time since Tritia had known her she looked far older than her years.

Irene closed the door as soon as Tritia came out into the hall, and led the way silently back to the living room. She picked up her iced tea before sitting down on the sofa. Ice cubes rattled nervously against the glass. "He was working in the Tonto," she explained, "out by Payson, and was doing ax work when he swung and missed and chopped off his big toe. I don't know how he got that toe and missed the others, or how he didn't chop off a whole chunk of his foot, but he chopped off only the toe. He said he was screaming so loud that loggers miles away could hear the echoes through the trees. He said the spurting blood turned the green pine needles all around him red.

"They always had someone with them who knew first aid, because there were always logging accidents like these, and somehow they got the bleeding stopped and took him to the hospital in Payson. They didn't have surgical techniques like they do today, and the doctor said he wouldn't be able to sew the toe back on, even though they brought it with them. He said it would be better to close up the existing wound and let it heal." She was silent for a moment.

"What happened to the toe?" Tritia asked.

"Jasper called me, told me what happened, and I had someone drive me to Payson. I didn't drive in those days. The toe was in a jar in his hospital room, floating in this clear liquid, and he asked me if I wanted to save it, but I couldn't think of anything more repulsive. I hated just seeing it there, and I had a nurse cover the jar while I was in the room. I certainly didn't want a severed toe in my house, so I told him to have the hospital dispose of it." She shook her head at the recollection. "Instead, I found out later, he and his logging buddies got drunk, had a mock funeral in the woods, and buried it." She looked at Tritia , her eyes haunted. "That was a long time ago. There's not many left who even know that story. And I can't figure out how the mailman learned what happened, let alone how he found the toe again or how it could be in such good shape."

"Maybe it's not --" Tritia began.

"It is," Irene said firmly.

"Did you call the police?"

"What for?"

"This is against the law. Some --"

Irene put a hand on her arm. The old woman's fingers felt dry, cold.

"Look," she said, "this is not a police matter. This is something private."

"No it's not." Tritia leaned forward. "You know what's going on in this town. And you know there's no way we can get the mailman. We have no proof to back up any of our allegations." She gestured toward the hallway and the den beyond. "Now we have proof."

"We have nothing. Do you know what will happen? He will say that he only delivers the mail and is not responsible for its contents, and he'll deny any knowledge of this. You know that as well as I do."

Tritia stared into her friend's eyes. She was right. Much as she hated to admit it, she was right. Irene knew exactly what the mailman would do.

"At least let me call Doug, tell him. He'll get rid of it for you. You don't want a --"

"No," Irene said. "I don't want anyone to touch it. And no one but you will ever see it." She lowered her voice and Tritia felt a chill creep down her spine. "It's evil."

Tritia nodded, feigning for her friend's sake an understanding she did not feel. Irene was slipping, she thought. This had pushed her dangerously close to the edge, and if something else occurred, it might push her all the way over.

Of course, that was exactly what the mailman wanted.

Tritia stood. "I have to go," she said.

"You can't go to the police," Irene said.

"I really think you should tell someone. This isn't right."

"No."

Tritia met her friend's gaze, then sighed. "Okay," she said. "It's up to you." She walked to the door, turning around before opening the screen. "Call me if you need anything," she said. "Anything. Doug and I can be right over, if there's an emergency."

"Thanks," Irene said. "But I'll be fine." She smiled. "Maybe I just won't open my mailbox."

"That's probably not a bad idea."

The old woman laughed, and for a moment she sounded almost normal. "Good bye,hon ," she said. "I'll see you."

Tritia walked slowly down the porch steps. " 'Bye."

She heard the sound of the door being locked behind her as she walked out to the car, the deadbolt being thrown.

Tritia waved as she drove off, not checking to see if her wave was returned. She turned onto the street, heading toward home. She'd known that the mailman was responsible for the deteriorating state of affairs in town, for the unpaid bills, the misdirected mail, the hate letters, and yes, probably for the deaths. But the extent to which he was willing to go in order to get someone, the extent to which he was _able_ to go in order to get someone, had never been brought home more forcefully than when she had looked in that box and seen the toe. Such random but well-thought-out malevolence was impossible for her to comprehend.

What frightened her even more was the realization that a mailman was the only person who had access to everyone in town, who dealt daily with each household, each individual. She had never been a religious woman, had not even been sure if she believed in such nebulous and culturally variable concepts as "good" and "evil." But she believed now. And she thought that evil had chosen a perfect form in which to do its work. If John Smith had been a preacher or a teacher or a politician, he would not have had access to nearly the number of people he did now and would not have been able to insinuate himself so subtly, so easily, so effortlessly into people's lives.

That bothered her, too. The passiveness of the town. The unwillingness of the people of Willis to face what was happening and do something about it. She and Doug themselves, for all their talk, had done very little to try to block the mailman, to put a stop to his plans. It was as if they were waiting for someone else to take on the responsibility, someone else to solve the problem.

But, then, what could they do? Even though they were aware of what was going on, had tried to effectively gird themselves against it, the mailman had made unwanted inroads into their lives. They had resisted the siren song of the mail, had turned deaf ears and blind eyes to the obvious psychological assaults on themselves, yet the ordeal had still subtly changed the dynamics of their family life. They had not drawn closer in the face of adversity but had, in a sense, retreated into themselves. There were no obvious walls or barriers, relationships were not tense or strained, but the comfortable spirit of joking camaraderie Doug and Billy had always shared was gone, replaced by a friendly but slightly more formal and less intimate set of roles. Her own relationships with Doug and Billy had gone through similar changes. She and Doug were more distant with each other; even their lovemaking seemed less a giving form of loving expression than the gratification of selfish needs, although the outward techniques had changed not at all. And lately she had taken to lecturing Billy in an authoritarian manner she had sworn she would never adopt.

She knew Doug had noticed these differences too, although neither of them had spoken of it to the other. She could see it in his eyes, read it in his attitude. It was expressed more by what he did not say than by what he did. They still talked of current events, household affairs, even, tentatively, of the mailman, but there was a superficiality to their conversations, a superficiality that extended even to subjects and thoughts that were not superficial, a failure to meet and communicate on the deep and important level so necessary to lasting relationships. More than once she'd felt as though they were talking at each other rather than to each other.

And it was the mailman's fault.

But she would not let him win. She refused to let him tear apart her family. It would be easy to succumb, to allow the breach between her and Doug to widen. But she vowed that she would not let things deteriorate any further. She was going to reach out to her husband and son, to put an end to this emotional lethargy, and she was going to force them to do likewise.

Part of her wanted to stop by the post office, to let the mailman know that she was no longer going to put up with his attempts to break her, that she was going to take a stand against him, but she remembered the last time she had tried to confront him, and the emotional clarity of the encounter remained horrifyingly undimmed. A field of goose bumps arose on her bare arms, the peach fuzz hair at the back of her neck pricked. She was angry now, she was determined, but she was not stupid.

_You're nice_.

Never again would she go to the post office alone.

Tritia was nearly to thetumoff that led toward home when she realized she had forgotten to pick up food for dinner. She had come to town this afternoon not merely to see Irene, but also to pick up groceries. They hadn't been shopping in days and were in desperate need of milk and butter and other essentials as well as something for tonight's meal.

She made a U-turn, turning back toward the store. Usually, she planned out the family's meals a day in advance, but for the past week or so she'd been too tired and distraught to do anything but throw something together at the last minute, an attitude so entirely out of character for her that she wondered why she hadn't noticed it before. This craziness had affected not only the emotional life of her family but its culinary life as well.

She decided to stop by the delicatessen to see if they had any fresh fish.

She was in the mood for trout, and if there'd been a good catch, she'd pick some up for dinner. Barbecued fish sounded wonderful right now.

She pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center. Although the spaces in front ofBayless were filled with cars, she was surprised to see that the area in front of the delicatessen was nearly empty. That was weird. Todd had the finest selection of cheeses and the best fresh fish in town, and usually whenBayless was busy, his store was even more crowded.

She parked in an empty space directly in front of the small store and walked inside.

She noticed the difference immediately. It was nothing she saw, more like something she felt. A tension. A strange uncomfortable feeling in the air that was entirely uncharacteristic of the store's usual atmosphere. She looked around. The deli was empty save for her and Todd behind the counter. She moved forward, examining the meats in the meat counter. She smiled at the shopkeeper, but he did not smile back, and she decided to quickly buy her food and get out of the store.

She pointed toward a selection offileted trout on ice behind the counter.

"Fresh catch?" she asked.

Todd nodded silently.

Her unease increased, and she said quickly, "I'll take three large fish."