Throwing terrified, creaky-necked glances back over his shoulder, he slid across the warm plastic seat as if it were grease and got out on the passenger's side. He ran down the shoulder. There was a barbed wire fence and he leaped over it, sailing up and up like a blimp, and he thought: I'm going to make it, I can run forever- I'm going to make it, I can run forever- He fell down on the other side with his leg caught in the barbs. Screaming at the sky, he was still trying to free his pants and dimpled white flesh when the two young men came down the shoulder with their guns in their hands.

Why, he tried to ask them, but all that came out of him was a low and helpless squawk and then his brains exited the back of his head.

There was no published report of disease or any other trouble in Sipe Springs, Texas, that day.

CHAPTER 18.

Nick opened the door between Sheriff Baker's office and the jail cells and they started razzing him right off. Vincent Hogan and Billy Warner were in the two Saltine-box cells on Nick's left. Mike Childress was in one of the two on the right. The other was empty and it was empty because Ray Booth, he of the purple LSU fraternity ring, had flown the coop.

"Hey, dummy!" Childress called. "Hey, you fuckin dummy! What's gonna happen to you when we get outta here? Huh? What the fuck's gonna happen to you?"

"I'm personally gonna rip your balls off and stuff em down your throat until you strangle on em," Billy Warner told him. "You understand me?"

Only Vince Hogan didn't participate in the razzing. Mike and Billy didn't have too much use for him on this day, June 23, when they were to be taken up to the Calhoun County seat and jugged pending trial. Sheriff Baker had leaned on Vince and Vince had spilled his yellow guts. Baker had told Nick he could get an indictment against these ole boys, but when it got to a jury trial, it was going to be Nick's word against these three-four, if they picked up Ray Booth.

Nick had gained a healthy respect for Sheriff John Baker these last couple of days. He was a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound ex-farmer who was predictably called Big Bad John by his constituents. The respect Nick felt for him was not because Baker had given him this job swamping out the holding area to make up for his lost week's pay, but because he had gone after the men who had beaten and robbed Nick. He had done it as if Nick were a member of one of the oldest and most respected families in town instead of just a deaf-mute drifter. There were plenty of sheriffs here in the border South, Nick knew, who would have seen him on a workfarm or roadgang for six months instead.

They had driven out to the sawmill where Vince Hogan worked, taking Baker's private car, a Power Wagon, instead of the county prowler car. There was a shotgun under the dash ("Always locked up and always loaded," Baker said) and a bubble light Baker put on the dash when he was on police business. He put it up there when they swung into the lumberyard parking area, two days ago now.

Baker had hawked, spat out the window, blew his nose, and dabbed at his red eyes with a handkerchief. His voice had acquired a nasal foghorn quality. Nick couldn't hear it, of course, but he didn't need to. It was clear enough that the man had a nasty cold.

"Now, when we see him, I'll grab him by the arm," Baker said. "I'll ask you, 'Is this one of em?' You give me a big nod yes. I don't care if it was or not. You just nod. Get it?"

Nick nodded. He got it.

Vince was working the board planer, feeding rough planks into the machine, standing in sawdust almost to the top of his workboots. He gave John Baker a nervous smile, and his eyes flicked uneasily to Nick standing beside the sheriff. Nick's face was thin and battered and still too pale.

"Hi, Big John, what you doin out with the workin folk?"

The other men in the crew were watching all this, their eyes shifting gravely from Nick to Vince to Baker and then back the other way like men watching some complicated new version of tennis. One of them spat a stream of Honey Cut into the fresh sawdust and wiped off his chin with the heel of his hand.

Baker grabbed Vince Hogan by one flabby, sunburned arm and pulled him forward.

"Hey! What's the idea, Big John?"

Baker turned his head so Nick could see his lips. "Is this one of em?"

Nick nodded firmly, and pointed at Vince for good measure.

"What is is this?" Vince protested again. "I don't know this dummy from Adam." this?" Vince protested again. "I don't know this dummy from Adam."

"Then how come you know he's a dummy? Come on, Vince, you're going to the cooler. Toot-sweet. You can send one of these boys to get your toothbrush."

Protesting, Vince was led to the Power Wagon and deposited inside. Protesting, he was taken back to town. Protesting, he was locked up and left to stew for a couple of hours. Baker didn't bother with reading him his rights. "Damn fool'd just get confused," he told Nick. When Baker went back around noon, Vince was too hungry and too scared to do any more protesting. He just spilled everything.

Mike Childress was in the jug by one o'clock, and Baker got Billy Warner at his house just as Billy was packing up his old Chrysler to go someplace-a long piece from the look of all the packed liquor-store boxes and strapped-together luggage. But somebody had talked to Ray Booth, and Ray had been just smart enough to move a little quicker.

Baker took Nick home to meet his wife and have some supper. In the car Nick wrote on the memo pad: "I am sure sorry it's her brother. How is she taking it?"

"She's bearing up," Baker said, both his voice and the set of his body almost formal. "I guess she's done some crying over him, but she knew what he was. And she knows you can't pick your relatives like you do your friends."

Jane Baker was a small, pretty woman who had indeed been crying. Looking at her deeply socketed eyes made Nick uncomfortable. But she shook his hand warmly and said, "I'm pleased to know you, Nick. And I apologize deeply for your trouble. I feel responsible, with one of mine being a part of it and all."

Nick shook his head and shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"I offered him a job around the place," Baker said. "Station's gone right to hell since Bradley moved up to Little Rock. Painting and picking up, mostly. He's gonna have to stick around for a while anyway-for the... you know."

"The trial, yes," she said.

There was a moment then in which the silence was so heavy even Nick found it painful.

Then, with forced gaiety, she said, "I hope you eat redeye ham, Nick. That's what there is, along with some corn and a big bowl of slaw. My slaw's never been up to what his mother used to make. That's what he he says, anyway." says, anyway."

Nick rubbed his stomach and smiled.

Over dessert (a strawberry shortcake-Nick, who had been on short rations during the last couple of weeks, had two helpings), Jane Baker said to her husband: "Your cold sounds worse. You've been taking too much on, John Baker. And you didn't eat enough to keep a fly alive."

Baker looked guiltily at his plate for a moment, then shrugged. "I can afford to miss a meal now and then," he said, and palpated his double chin.

Nick, watching them, wondered how two people of such radically different size got along in bed. I guess they manage, he thought with an interior grin. They sure look comfortable enough with each other. And not that it's any of my business anyway.

"You're flushed, too. You carrying a fever?"

Baker shrugged. "Nope... well. Maybe a touch."

"Well, you're not going out again tonight. That's final."

"My dear, I have prisoners. If they don't specially need to be watched, they do do need to be fed and watered." need to be fed and watered."

"Nick can do it," she said with finality. "You're going to bed. And don't go on about your insomnia; it won't do you any good."

"I can't send Nick," he said weakly. "He's a deaf-mute. Besides, he ain't a deputy."

"Well then, you just up and deputize him."

"He ain't a resident!"

"I won't tell if you won't," Jane Baker said inexorably. She stood up and began clearing the table. "Now you just go on and do it, John."

And that was how Nick Andros went from Shoyo prisoner to Shoyo deputy in less than twenty-four hours. As he was preparing to go up to the sheriffs office, Baker came into the downstairs hall, looking large and ghostly in a frayed bathrobe. He seemed embarrassed to be on view in such attire.

"I never should have let her talk me into this," he said. "Wouldn't have done, either, if I didn't feel so punk. My chest's all clogged up and I'm as hot as a fire sale two days before Christmas. Weak, too."

Nick nodded sympathetically.

"I'm stuck between deputies. Bradley Caide and his wife went up to Little Rock after their baby passed away. One of those crib deaths. Awful thing. I don't blame them for going."

Nick pointed at his own chest and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.

"Sure, you'll be okay. You just take normal care, you hear? There's a .45 in the third drawer of my desk, but don't you be takin it back there. Nor the keys either. Understand?"

Nick nodded.

"If you go back there, stay out of their reach. If any of em tries playin sick, don't you fall for it. It's the oldest dodge in the world. If one of em should should get sick, Doc Soames can see them just as easy in the morning. I'll be in then." get sick, Doc Soames can see them just as easy in the morning. I'll be in then."

Nick took his pad from his pocket and wrote: "I appreciate you trusting me. Thanks for locking them up & thanks for the job."

Baker read this carefully. "You're a puredee caution, boy. Where you from? How come you're out on your own like this?"

"That's a long story," Nick jotted. "I'll write some of it down for you tonight, if you want."

"You do that," Baker said. "I guess you know I put your name on the wire."

Nick nodded. It was SOP. But he was clean.

"I'll get Jane to call Ma's Truck Stop out by the highway. Those boys'll be hollering police brutality if they don't get their supper."

Nick wrote: "Have her tell whoever brings it to come right in. I can't hear him if he knocks."

"Okay." Baker hesitated a moment longer. "You got your cot in the corner. It's hard, but it's clean. You just remember to be careful, Nick. You can't call for help if there's trouble."

Nick nodded and wrote, "I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, I believe you can. Still, I'd get someone from town if I thought any of them would-" He broke off as Jane came in.

"You still jawing this poor boy? You let him go on, now, before my stupid brother comes along and breaks them all out."

Baker laughed sourly. "He'll be in Tennessee by now, I guess." He whistled out a long sigh that broke up into a series of phlegmy, booming coughs. "I b'lieve I'll go upstairs and lie down, Janey."

"I'll bring you some aspirin to cut that fever," she said.

She looked back over her shoulder at Nick as she went to the stairs with her husband. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Nick. Whatever the circumstances. You be just as careful as he says."

Nick bowed to her, and she dropped half a curtsy in return. He thought he saw a gleam of tears in her eyes.

A pimply, curious boy in a dirty busboy's jacket brought three dinner trays about half an hour after Nick had gotten down to the jail. Nick motioned for the busboy to put the trays on the cot, and while he did, Nick scribbled: "Is this paid for?"

The busboy read this with all the concentration of a college freshman tackling Moby-Dick. Moby-Dick. "Sure," he said. "Sheriff's office runs a tab. Say, can't you talk?" "Sure," he said. "Sheriff's office runs a tab. Say, can't you talk?"

Nick shook his head.

"That's a bitch," the busboy said, and left in a hurry, as if the condition might be catching.

Nick took the trays in one at a time and pushed each one through the slot in the bottom of the cell door with a broomhandle.

He looked up in time to catch "-chickshit bastard, ain't he?" from Mike Childress. Smiling, Nick showed him his middle finger.

"I'll give you the finger, you dummy," Childress said, grinning unpleasantly. "When I get out of here I'll-" Nick turned away, missing the rest.

Back in the office, sitting in Baker's chair, he drew the memo pad into the center of the blotter, sat thinking for a moment, and then jotted at the top:

Life History By Nick Andros

He stopped, smiling a little. He had been in some funny places, but never in his wildest dreams had he expected to be sitting in a sheriff's office, deputized, in charge of three men who had beaten him up, and writing his life story. After a moment he began to write again: I was born in Caslin, Nebraska, on November 14, 1968. My daddy was an independent farmer. He and my mom were always on the edge of getting squeezed out. They owed three different banks. My mother was six months pregnant with me and my dad was taking her to see the doctor in town when a tie rod on his truck let go and they went into the ditch. My daddy had a heart attack and died.Anyway, three months after, my mom had me and I was born the way I am. Sure was a tough break on top of losing her husband that way.She carried on with the farm until 1973 and then lost it to the "big operators," as she always called them. She had no family but wrote to some friends in Big Springs, Iowa, and one of them got her a job in a bakery. We lived here until 1977 when she was killed in an accident. A man on a motorcycle hit her while she was crossing the street on her way home from work. It wasn't even his fault but only bad luck as his brakes failed. He wasn't even speeding or anything. The Baptist Church gave my mamma a charity funeral. This same church, the Grace Baptist, sent me to the Children of Jesus Christ orphanage in Des Moines. This is a place that all sorts of churches chip together to support. That was where I learned to read and write...

He stopped there. His hand was aching from writing so much, but that wasn't why. He felt uneasy, hot and uncomfortable at having to relive all that again. He went back to the jail quarters and looked in. Childress and Warner were asleep. Vince Hogan was standing by the bars, smoking a cigarette and looking across the corridor at the empty cell where Ray Booth would have been tonight if he hadn't run so quick. Hogan looked as if he might have been crying, and that led him back in time to that small mute scrap of humanity, Nick Andros. There was a word he had learned at the movies as a kid. That word was INCOMMUNICADO INCOMMUNICADO. It was a word that had always had fantastic, Lovecraftian overtones to Nick, a fearful word that echoed and clanged in the brain, a word that inscribed all the nuances of fear that live only outside the sane universe and inside the human soul. He had been INCOMMUNICADO INCOMMUNICADO all his life. all his life.

He sat down and re-read the last line he'd written. That was where I learned to read and write. That was where I learned to read and write. But it hadn't been as simple as that. He lived in a silent world. Writing was code. Speech was the moving of lips, the rise and fall of teeth, the dance of a tongue. His mother had taught him to read lips, and had taught him how to write his name in struggling, sprawling letters. But it hadn't been as simple as that. He lived in a silent world. Writing was code. Speech was the moving of lips, the rise and fall of teeth, the dance of a tongue. His mother had taught him to read lips, and had taught him how to write his name in struggling, sprawling letters. That's your name, That's your name, she had said. she had said. That's you, Nicky. That's you, Nicky. But of course she had said it silently, meaninglessly. The prime connection had come when she tapped the paper, then tapped his chest. The worst part about being deaf-mute was not living in the silent movie world; the worst part was not knowing the names of things. He had not really begun to understand the concept of naming until he was four. He had not known that you called the tall green things But of course she had said it silently, meaninglessly. The prime connection had come when she tapped the paper, then tapped his chest. The worst part about being deaf-mute was not living in the silent movie world; the worst part was not knowing the names of things. He had not really begun to understand the concept of naming until he was four. He had not known that you called the tall green things trees trees until he was six. He had wanted to know, but no one had thought to tell him and he had no way to ask: he was until he was six. He had wanted to know, but no one had thought to tell him and he had no way to ask: he was INCOMMUNICADO INCOMMUNICADO.

When she died he had retreated almost all the way. The orphanage was a place of roaring silence where grim-faced thin boys made fun of his silence; two boys would run up to him, one boy with his hands plastered over his mouth, one boy with his hands plastered over his ears. If none of the staff happened to be near, they would punch him out. Why? No reason. Except that maybe in the vast white class of victims there is a subclass: the victims of victims.

He stopped wanting wanting to communicate, and when that happened the thinking process itself began to rust and disintegrate. He began to wander from place to place vacantly, looking at the nameless things that filled the world. He watched groups of children in the play yard move their lips, raise and lower their teeth like white drawbridges, dance their tongues in the ritual mating of speech. He sometimes found himself looking at a single cloud for as long as an hour at a time. to communicate, and when that happened the thinking process itself began to rust and disintegrate. He began to wander from place to place vacantly, looking at the nameless things that filled the world. He watched groups of children in the play yard move their lips, raise and lower their teeth like white drawbridges, dance their tongues in the ritual mating of speech. He sometimes found himself looking at a single cloud for as long as an hour at a time.

Then Rudy had come. A big man with scars on his face and a bald head. Six feet, five inches tall, might as well have been twenty to runty Nick Andros. They met for the first time in a basement room where there was a table, six or seven chairs, and a TV that only worked when it felt like it. Rudy squatted, putting his eyes on approximately the same level as Nick's. Then he took his huge, scarred hands and put them over his mouth, his ears.

I am a deaf-mute.

Nick turned his face sullenly away: Who gives a fuck? Who gives a fuck?

Rudy slapped him.

Nick fell down. His mouth opened and silent tears began to leak from his eyes. He didn't want to be here with this scarred troll, this bald boogey. He was no deaf-mute, it was a cruel joke.

Rudy pulled him gently to his feet and led him to the table. A blank sheet of paper was there. Rudy pointed at it, then at Nick. Nick stared sullenly at the paper and then at the bald man. He shook his head. Rudy nodded and pointed at the empty paper again. He produced a pencil and handed it to Nick. Nick put it down as if it were hot. He shook his head. Rudy pointed at the pencil, then at Nick, then at the paper. Nick shook his head. Rudy slapped him again.

More silent tears. The scarred face looking at him with nothing but deadly patience. Rudy pointed at the paper again. At the pencil. At Nick.

Nick grasped the pencil in his fist. He wrote the four words that he knew, calling them forth from the cobwebby, rusting mechanism that was in his thinking brain. He wrote: