astered and then neatly papered
with scraps of wallpaper, and with a complete and cynical disregard for any
colour scheme.
     I moved farther into the room, swinging the light slowly back and
forth. At first it had been the big things I had seen -the stove, the table
and the chairs, the bed. But now I began to become aware of the other things
and the little things.
     And one of these smaller things, which I should have seen at once, but
hadn't, was the telephone that stood on the table.
     I shone the light on it and spent long seconds making sure of what I'd
known to start with - for it was apparent at a glance that the phone was
without a dial and had no connection cord. And it would have done no good if
it had had a cord, for no telephone line had ever been run to this shack
beside the swamp.
     Three of them, I thought - three of them I knew of. The one that had
been in my office and another in Gerald Sherwood's study and now this one in
the shack of the village bum.
     Although, I told myself, not quite so much a bum as the village might
believe. Not the dirty slob most people thought he was. For the floor was
scrubbed and the walls were papered and everything was neat.
     Me and Gerald Sherwood and Stiffy Grant - what kind of common bond
could there be among us? And how many of these dialless phones could there
be in Millville; for how many others of us did that unknown bond exist?
     I moved the light and it crept across the bed with its patterned quilt
- not rumpled, not messed up, and very neatly made. Across the bed and to
another table that stood beyond the bed. Underneath the table were two
cartons. One of them was plain, without any lettering, and the other was a
whisky case with the name of an excellent brand of Scotch writ large across
its face.
     I walked over to the table and pulled the whisky case out from
underneath it. And in it was the last thing in the world I had expected. It
was not an emptied carton packed with personal belongings, not a box of
junk, but a case of whisky.
     Unbelieving, I lifted out a bottle and another and another, all of them
still sealed. I put them back in the case again and lowered myself carefully
to the floor, squatting on my heels. I felt the laughter deep inside of me,
trying to break out - and yet it was, when one came to think of it, not a
laughing matter.
     This very afternoon Stiffy had touched me for a dollar because, he'd
said, he'd not had a drink all day. And all the time there had been this
case of whisky, pushed underneath the table.
     Were all the outward aspects of the village bum no more than
camouflage? The broken, dirty nails; the rumpled, thread-bare clothing; the
unshaven face and the unwashed neck; the begging of money for a drink; the
seeking of dirty little piddling jobs to earn the price of food - was this
all a sham?
     And if it were a masquerade, what purpose could it serve? I pushed the
case back underneath the table and pulled out the other carton. And this one
wasn't whisky and neither was it junk. It was telephones.
     I hunkered, staring at them, and it now was crystal clear how that
telephone had gotten on my desk. Stiffy had put it there and then had waited
for me, propped against the building. Perhaps he had seen me coming down the
street as he came out of the office and had done the one thing that would
seem entirely natural to explain his waiting there. Or it might equally well
have been just plain bravado. And all the time he has been laughing at me
deep inside himself.
     But that must be wrong, I told myself. Stiffy never would have laughed
at me. We were old and trusted friends and he'd never laugh at me, he. would
never do anything to fool me.
     This was a serious business, too serious for any laughing to be done.
     If Stiffy had put the phone there, had he also been the one who had
come back and taken it? Could that have been the reason he had come to my
place - to explain to me why the phone was gone?
     Thinking of it, it didn't seem too likely.
     But if it had not been Stiffy, then there was someone else involved.
     There was no need to lift out the phones, for I knew exactly what I'd
find. But I did lift them out and I wasn't wrong.
     They had no dials and no connection cords.
     I got to my feet and for a moment stood uncertain, staring at the phone
standing on the table, then, making up my mind, strode to the table and
lifted the receiver.
     'Hello,' said the voice of the businessman. 'What have you to report?'
     'This isn't Stiffy,' I said. 'Stiffy is in a hospital. He was taken
sick.'
     There was a moment's hesitation, thenthe voice said, 'Oh, yes, it's Mr Bradshaw Carter, isn't it. So nice that
you could call.'
     'I found the phones,' I said. 'Here in Stiffy's shack. And the phone in
my office has somehow disappeared. And I saw Gerald Sherwood. I think
perhaps, my friend, it's time that you explained.'
     'Of course,' the voice said. 'You, I suppose, have decided that you
will represent us.'
     'Now,' I said, 'just a minute, there. Not until I know about it. Not
until I've had a chance to give it some consideration.'
     'I tell you what,' the voice said, 'you consider it and then you call
us back. What was this you were saying about Stiffy being taken somewhere?'
     'A hospital,' I said. 'He was taken sick.'
     'But he should have called us,' the voice said, aghast. 'We would have
fixed him up. He knew good and well...'
     'He maybe didn't have the time. I found him...'
     Where was this place you say that he was taken?'
     'Elmore. To the hospital at...'
     'Elmore. Of course. We know where Elmore is.'
     'And Greenbriar, too, perhaps.' I hadn't meant to say it; I hadn't even
thought it. It just popped into my mind, a sudden, unconscious linking of
what was happening here and the project that Alf had talked to me about.
     'Greenbriar? Why, certainly. Down in Mississippi. A town very much like
Millville. And you will let us know? When you have decided, you will let us
know?'
     'I'll let you know,' I promised.
     'And thank you very much, sir. We shall be looking forward to your
association with us.'
     And then the line went dead.
     Greenbriar, I thought. It was not only Millville. It might be the
entire world. What the hell, I wondered, could be going on?
     I'd talk to Alf about it. I'd go home and phone him now. Or I could
drive out and see him. He'd probably be in bed, but I would get him up. I'd
take along a bottle and we'd have a drink or two.
     I picked up the phone and tucked it underneath my arm and went outside.
I closed the door behind me. I snapped the padlock shut and then went to the
car. I opened the back door and put the telephone on the floor and covered
it with a raincoat that was folded on the seat. It was a silly thing to do,
but I felt a little better with the phone tucked away and hidden. I got
behind the wheel and sat for a moment, thinking, Perhaps, I told myself; it
would be better if I didn't rush into things too fast. I would see Alf
tomorrow and we'd have a lot of time to talk, an entire week to talk if we
needed it. And that way I'd have some time to try to think the situation
out.
     It was late and I had to pack the camping stuff and the fishing tackle
in the car and Ishould try to get some sleep.
     Be sensible, I told myself. Take a little time. Try to think it out.
     It was good advice. Good for someone else. Good even for myself at
another time and under other circumstances. I should not have taken it,
however. I should have gone out to Johnny's Motor Court and pounded on Alf's
door. Perhaps then things would have worked out differently. But you can't
be sure. You never can be sure.
     But, anyhow, I did go home and I did pack the camping stuff and the
fishing gear into the car and had a few hours of sleep (I wonder now how I
ever got to sleep), then was routed out by the alarm dock early in the
morning.
     And before I could pick up Alf I hit the barrier.

        7

     'Hi, there,' said the naked scarecrow, with jaunty happiness. He
counted on his fingers and slobbered as he counted.
     And there was no mistaking him. He came clear through the years. The
same placid, vacant face, with its frog-like mouth and its misty eyes. It
had been ten years since I had seen him last, since anyone had seen him, and
yet he seemed only slightly older than he had been then. His hair was long,
hanging down his back, but he had no whiskers. He had a heavy growth of
fuzz, but he'd never sprouted whiskers. He was entirely naked except for the
outrageous hat. And he was the same old Tupper. He hadn't changed a bit. I'd
have known him anywhere.
     He quit his finger-counting and sucked in his slobber. He reached up
and took off his hat and held it out so that I could see it better.
     'Made it myself,' he told me, with a wealth of pride.
     'It's very fine,' I said.
     He could have waited, I told myself. No matter where he'd come from, he
could have waited for a while. Millville had enough trouble at this
particular moment without having to contend once again with the likes of
Tupper Tyler.
     'Your papa,' Tupper said. 'Where is your papa, Brad? There is something
I have to tell him.'
     And that voice, I thought. How could I ever have mistaken it? And how
could I ever have forgotten that Tupper was, of all things, an accomplished
mimic? He could be any bird he wanted and he could be a dog or cat and the
kids used to gather round him, making fun of him, while he put on a mimic
show of a dog-and-cat fight or of two neighbours quarrelling.
     'Your papa!' Tupper said.
     'We'd better get inside,' I told him. 'I'll get some clothes and you
climb into them. You can't go on running around naked.'
     He nodded vaguely. 'Flowers,' he said. 'Lots of pretty flowers.'
     He spread his arms wide to show me how many flowers there were. 'Acres
and acres,' he said. 'There is no end to them. They just keep on forever.
Every last one purple. And they are so pretty and they smell so sweet and
they are so good to me.'
     His chin was covered with a dampness from his talking and he wiped it
with a claw-like hand. He wiped his hand upon a thigh.
     I got him by the elbow and got him turned around, headed for the house.
     'But your papa,' he protested. 'I want to tell your papa all about the
flowers.'
     'Later on,' I said.
     I got him on the porch and thrust him through the door and followed
after him. I felt easier. Tupper was no decent sight for the streets of
Millville. And I had had, for a while, about all that I could stand. Old
Stiffy Grant laid out in my kitchen just the night before and now along
comes Tupper, without a stitch upon him. Eccentrics were all right, and in a
little town you get a lot of them, but there came a time when they ran a
little thin.
     I still held tightly to his elbow and marched him to the bedroom.
     'You stand right there,' I told him.
     He stood right there, not moving, gaping at the room with his vacant
stare.
     I found a shirt and a pair of trousers. I got out a pair of shoes and,
after looking at his feet, put them back again. They were, I knew, way too
small. Tupper's feet were all spraddled out and flattened. He'd probably
been going without shoes for years.
     I held out the trousers and the shirt.
     'You get into these,' I said. 'And once you have them on, stay here.
Don't stir out of this room.'
     He didn't answer and he didn't take the clothes. He'd fallen once again
to counting his fingers.
     And now, for the first time, I had a chance to wonder where he'd been.
How could a man drop out of sight, without a trace, stay lost for ten years,
and then pop up again, out of that same thin air into which he had
disappeared?
     It had been my first year in high school that Tupper had turned up
missing and I remembered it most vividly because for a week all of the boys
had been released from school to join the hunt for him. We had combed miles
of fields and woodlands, walking slowly in line an arm's length from one
another, and finally we had been looking for a body rather than a man. The
state police had dragged the river and several nearby ponds. The sheriff and
a posse of townspeople had worked carefully through the swamp below Stiffy's
shack, prodding with long poles. They had found innumerable logs and a
couple of wash boilers that someone had thrown away and on the farther edge
of the swamp an anciently dead dog.
     But no one had found Tupper.
     'Here,' I told him, 'take these clothes and get into them.'
     Tupper finished with his fingers and politely wiped his chin.
     'I must be getting back,' he said. 'The flowers can't wait too long.'
     He reached out a hand and took the clothes from me. 'My other ones wore
out,' he said. 'They just dropped off of me.'
     'I saw your mother just half an hour ago,' I said. 'She was looking for
you.'
     It was a risky thing to say, for Tupper was the kind of jerk that you
handled with kid gloves. But I took the calculated risk and said it, for I
thought that maybe it would jolt some sense into him.
     'Oh,' he said lightly, 'she's always hunting for me. She thinks I ain't
big enough to look out for myself.'
     As if he'd never been away. As if ten years hadn't passed. As if he'd
stepped out of his mother's house no more than an hour ago. As if time had
no meaning for him - and perhaps it hadn't.
     'Put on the clothes,' I told him. 'I'll be right back.'
     I went out into the living-room and picked up the phone. I dialled Doc
Fabian's number. The busy signal blurped at me.
     I put the receiver back and tried to think of someone else to call. I
could call Hiram Martin. Perhaps he was the one to call. But I hesitated.
Doc was the man to handle this; be knew how to handle people. All that Hiram
knew was how to push them around.
     I dialled Doc once more and still got the busy signal. I slammed down
the receiver and hurried toward the bedroom. I couldn't leave Tupper alone
too long. God knows what he might do.
     But I already had waited too long. I never should have left. The
bedroom was empty. The window was open and the screen was broken out and
there was no Tupper.
     I rushed across the room and leaned out of the window and there was no
sign of him.
     Blind panic hit me straight between the eyes. I don't know why it did.
Certainly, at that moment, Tupper's escaping from the bedroom was not all
that important. But it seemed to be important and I knew, without knowing
why, that I must run him down and bring him back, that I must not let him
out of my sight again.
     Without thinking, I stepped back from the window and took a running
jump, diving through the opening. I landed on one shoulder and rolled, then
jumped up to my feet.
     Tupper was not in sight, but now I saw where he had gone.
     His dewy tracks led across the grass, back around the house and down to
the old greenhouse. He had waded out into the patch of purple flowers that
covered the old abandoned area where once my father and, later, I myself had
tended rows of flowers and other plants. He had waded out some twenty feet
or so into the mass of flowers. His trail was clearly shown, for the plants
had been brushed over and had not had time to straighten yet, and they were
a darker hue where the dew had been knocked off them.
     The trail went twenty feet and stopped. All about it and ahead of it
the purple flowers stood straight, silvered by the tiny dewdrops.
     There was no other trail. Tupper had not backed out along the trail and
then gone another way. There was just the single trail that headed straight
into the patch of purple flowers and ended. As if the man might have taken
wing and flown away, or dropped straight into the ground.
     But no matter where he was, I thought, no matter what kind of tricks he
played, he couldn't leave the village. For the village was closed in by some
sort of barrier that ran all the way around it.
     A wailing sound exploded and filled the universe, a shrieking, terrible
sound that reverberated and beat against itself. It came so suddenly that it
made me jump and stiffen. The sound seemed to fill the world and to dog the
sky and it didn't stop, but kept on and on.
     Almost at once I knew what it was, but my body still stayed tense for
long seconds and my mind was curdled with a nameless fear. For there had
been too much happening in too short a time and this metallic yammering had
been the trigger that had slammed it all together and made the world almost
unendurable.
     Gradually I relaxed and started for the house.
     And still the sound kept on, the frantic, full-throated wailing of the
siren down at the village hall.

        8

     By the time I got up to the house there were people running in the
street - a wild-eyed, frantic running with a sense of panic in it, all of
them heading toward that screeching maelstrom of sound, as if the siren were
the monstrous tootling of a latter-day Pied Piper and they were the rats
which must not be left behind.
     There was old Pappy Andrews, hobbling along, cracking his cane on the
surface of the street with unaccustomed vigour and the wind blowing his long
chin whiskers up into his face. There was Grandma Jones, who had her
sunbonnet socked upon her head, but had forgotten to tie the strings, which
floated and bobbed across her shoulders as she stumped along with grim
determination. She was the only woman in all of Millville (perhaps in all
the world) who still owned a sunbonnet and she took a malicious pride in
wearing it, as if the very fact of appearing with it upon her head was a
somehow commendable flaunting of her fuddy-duddyness. And after her came
Pastor Silas Middleton, with a prissy look of distaste fastened on his face,
but going just the same. An old jalopy clattered past with that crazy
Johnson kid crouched behind the wheel and a bunch of his hoodlum pals
yelling, and cat-calling, glad of any kind of excitement and willing to
contribute to it. And a lot of others, including a slew of kids and dogs.
     I opened the gate and stepped into the street. But I didn't run like
all the rest of them, for I knew what it was all about and I was all weighed
down with a lot of things that no one knew as yet. Especially about Tupper
Tyler and what Tupper might have had to do with what was happening. For
insane as it might sound, I had a sneaky sort of hunch that Tupper had
somehow had a hand in it and had made a mess of things.
     I tried to think, but the things I wanted to think about were too big
to get into mind and there were no mental handholds on them for my mind to
grab a hold of. So I didn't hear the car when it came sneaking up beside me.
The first thing I heard was the click of the door as it was coming open.
     I swung around and Nancy Sherwood was there behind the wheel.
     'Come on, Brad,' she yelled, to make herself heard above the siren
noise.
     I jumped in and closed the door and the car slid up the street. It was
a big and powerful thing. The top was down and if felt funny to be riding in
a car that didn't have a top.
     The siren stopped. One moment the world had been filled to bursting
with its brazen howling and then the howling stopped and for a little moment
there was the feeble keening as the siren died. Then the silence came, and
in the weight and mass of silence a little blot of howling still stayed
within one's mind, as if the howling had not gone, but had merely moved
away.
     One felt naked in the coldness of the silence and there was the absurd
feeling that in the noise there had been purpose and direction. And that
now, with the howling gone, there was no purpose or direction.
     'This is a nice car you have,' I said, not knowing what to say, but
knowing that I should say something.
     'Father gave it to me,' she said, 'on my last birthday.'
     It moved along and you couldn't hear the motor. All you could hear was
the faint rumble of the wheels turning on the roadbed.
     'Brad,' she asked, 'what's going on? Someone told me that your car was
wrecked and there was no sign of you. What has your car to do with the siren
blowing? And there were a lot of cars down on the road...'
     I told her. 'There's a fence of some sort built around the town.'
     'Who would build a fence?'
     'It's not that kind of fence. You can't see this fence.'
     We had gotten close to Main Street and there were more people. They
were walking on the sidewalk and walking on the lawns and walking in the
road. Nancy slowed the car to crawling.
     'You said there was a fence.'
     'There is a fence. An empty car can get through it, but it will stop a
man. I have a hunch it will stop all life. It's the kind of fence you'd
expect in fairyland.'
     'Brad,' she said, 'you know there is no fairyland.'
     'An hour ago I knew,' I said. 'I don't know any more.'
     We came out on Main Street and a big crowd was standing out in front of
the village hall and more coming all the time. George Walker, the butcher at
the Red Owl store, was running down the street, with his white apron tucked
up into his belt and his white cap set askew upon his head. Norma Shepard,
the receptionist at Doc Fabian's office, was standing on a box out on the
sidewalk so that she could see what was going on, and Butch Ormsby, the
owner of the service station just across the street from the hall, was
standing at the kerb, wiping and wiping at his greasy hands with a ball of
waste, as if he knew he would never get them clean, but was bound to keep on
trying.
     Nancy pulled the car up into the approach to the filling station and
shut off the motor.
     A man came across the concrete apron and stopped beside the car. He
leaned down and rested his folded arms on the top part of the door.
     'How are things going, pal?' he asked.
     I looked at him for a moment, not remembering him at first, then
suddenly remembering. He must have seen that I remembered him.
     'Yeah,' he said, 'the guy who smacked your car.' He straightened and
reached out his hand. 'Name is Gabriel Thomas,' he said. 'You just call me
Gabe. We never got around to trading names down there.'
     I shook his hand and told him who I was, then introduced Nancy.
     'Mr Thomas,' Nancy said, 'I heard about the accident. Brad won't talk
about it.'
     'Well,' said Gabe, 'it was a strange thing, miss. There was nothing
there and you ran into it and it stopped you as if it had been a wall of
stone. And even when it was stopping you, you could see right through it.'
     'Did you phone your company?' I asked.
     'Yeah. Sure I phoned them. But no one will believe me. They think I'm
drunk. They think I am so drunk I wouldn't dare to drive and I'm holing up
somewhere. They think I dreamed up this crazy story as a cover-up.'
     'Did they say so, Mr Thomas?'
     'No, miss,' he said, 'but I know how them jokers think. And the thing
that hurts me is that they ever should have thought it. I ain't a drinking
man. And I got a good record. Why, I won driving awards, three years in a
row.'
     He said to me, 'I don't know what to do. I can't get out of here.
There's no way to get out. That barrier is all around the town. I live five
hundred miles from here and my wife is all alone. Six kids and the youngest
one a baby. I don't know what she'll do. She's used to it, of course, with
me off on the road. But never for longer than three or four days, the time
it takes for me to make a run. What if I can't get back for two or three
weeks, maybe two or three months? What will she do then? There won't be any
money coming in and there are the house payments to be made and them six
kids to feed.'
     'Maybe you won't be here for long,' I said, doing my best to make him
feel a little better. 'Maybe someone can get it figured out and do something
about it. Maybe it will simply go away. And even if it doesn't, I imagine
that your company will keep your salary going. After all, it's not your...'
     He made an insulting, disgusted noise. 'Not that bunch,' he said. 'Not
that gang of chisellers.'
     'It's too soon to start worrying,' I told him. 'We don't know what has
happened and until we do...'
     'I guess you're right,' he said. 'Of course, I'm not the only one. I
been talking to a lot of people and I'm not the only one.
     I was talking to a guy down in front of the barber shop just a while
ago and his wife is in the hospital over at - what's the name of that town?'
     'Elmore,' Nancy said.
     'Yes, that was it. She's in the hospital at Elmore and he is out of his
mind, afraid he can't go to visit her. Kept saying over and over that maybe
it would be all right in a little while, that he could get out of town.
Sounds like she may be pretty bad off and he goes over every day. She'll be
expecting him, he says, and maybe she won't understand why he doesn't come.
Talked as if a good part of the time she's not in her right mind. And there
was this other fellow. His family is off on a vacation, out to Yellowstone,
and he was expecting them to get home today. Says they'll be all tired out
from travelling and now they can't reach their home after they have
travelled all those miles to get back into it again. Was expecting them home
early in the afternoon. He's planning to go out on the road and wait for
them at the edge of the barrier. Not that it will do any good, meeting them
out there, but he said it was the only thing he could do. And then there are
a lot of people who work out of town and now they can't get to their jobs,
and there was someone telling me about a girl here in town who was going to
marry a fellow from a place called Coon Valley and they were going to get
married tomorrow and now, of course, they can't.'
     'You must have talked to a lot of people,' I said. 'Hush,' said Nancy.
     Across the street Mayor Higgy Morris was standing on the top step of
the flight of stairs that led up to the village hall and he was waving his
arms to get the people quiet.
     'Fellow citizens,' yelled Higgy in that phony political voice that
makes you sick at heart. 'Fellow citizens, if you'll just be quiet.'
     Someone yelled, 'You tell 'em Higgy!' There was a wave of laughter, but
it was a nervous laugh.
     'Friends,' said Higgy, 'we may be in a lot of trouble. You probably
have heard about it. I don't know what you heard, for there are a lot of
stories. I don't know, myself, everything that's happened.'
     'I'm sorry for having to use the siren to call you all together, but it
seemed the quickest way.'
     'Ah, hell,' yelled someone. 'Get on with it, Higgy.'
     No one laughed this time.
     'Well, all right,' said Higgy. 'I'll get on with it. I don't know quite
how to say this, but we've been cut off. There is some sort of fence around
us that won't let anybody in or anybody out. Don't ask me what it is or how
it got there. I have no idea. I don't think, right now, that anybody knows.
There may be nothing for us to get disturbed about. It may be only
temporary; it may go away.'
     'What I do want to say is that we should stay calm. We're all in this
together and we got to work together to get out of it. Right now we haven't
got anything to be afraid of. We are only cut off in the sense that we can't
go anywhere. But we are still in touch with the outside world. Our
telephones are working and so are the gas and electric lines. We have plenty
of food to last for ten days, maybe more than that. And if we should run
short, we can get more food. Trucks loaded with it, or with anything we
need, can be brought up to the barrier and the driver can get out, then the
truck can be pulled or pushed through the barrier. It doesn't stop things
that are not alive.'
     'Just a minute, mayor,' someone shouted.
     'Yes,' the mayor said, looking around to see who had dared to interrupt
him.
     'Was that you, Len?' he asked.
     'Yes, it was,' said the man.
     I could see now that it was Len Streeter, our high school science
teacher.
     'What did you want?' asked Higgy.
     'I suppose you're basing that last statement of yours - about only
non-living matter getting through the barrier - on the car that was parked
on the Coon Valley road.'
     'Why, yes,' said Higgy, condescendingly, 'that is exactly what I was
basing the statement on. What do you know about it?'
     'Nothing,' Len Streeter told him. 'Nothing about the car itself. But I
presume, you do intend to go about the investigation of this phenomenon
within well restricted bounds of logic.'
     'That's right,' said Higgy, sanctimoniously. 'That's exactly what we
intend to do.'
     And you could tell by the way he said it he had no idea of what
Streeter had said or what he was driving at.
     'In that case,' said Streeter. 'I might caution you against accepting
facts at their first face value. Such as presuming that because there was no
human in the car, there was nothing living in it.'
     'Well, there wasn't,' Higgy argued. 'The man who had been driving it
had left and gone away somewhere.'
     'Humans,' said Streeter, patiently, 'aren't the only forms of life. We
can't be certain there was no life in that car. In fact, we can be pretty
sure there was life of some sort in it. There probably was a fly or two shut
up inside of it. There might have been a grasshopper sitting on the hood. It
was absolutely certain that the car had in it and about it and upon it many
different kinds of micro-organisms. And a micro-organism is a form of life,
just the same as we are.'
     Higgy stood up on the steps and he was somewhat flustered. He didn't
know whether Streeter was making a fool of him or not. Probably never in his
life had he heard of such a thing as a micro-organism.
     'You know, Higgy,' said a voice I recognized as DocFabian's, 'our young
friend is right. Of course there would be microorganisms. Some of the rest
of us should have thought of it at once.'
     'Well,' all right, then,' said Higgy. 'If you say so, Doc. Let's say
that Len is right. It don't make any difference, does it?'
     'At the moment, no,' said Doc.
     'The only point I wanted to make,' said Streeter, 'is that life can't
be the entire answer. If we are going to study the situation, we should get
a right start at it. We shouldn't begin with a lot of misconceptions.'
     'I got a question, mayor,' said someone else. I tried to see who it
was, but couldn't.
     'Go ahead,' said Higgy, cordially, happy that someone was about to
break up this Streeter business.
     'Well, it's like this,' said the man. 'I've been working on the highway
job south of town. And now I can't get to it and maybe they'll hold the job
for me for a day or two, but it isn't reasonable to expect the contractor to
hold it very long. He's got a contract he has to meet - a time limit, you
know, and he pays a penalty for every day he's late. So he's got to have men
to do the job. He can't hold no job open for more than a day or two.'
     'I know all that,' said Higgy.
     'I ain't the only one,' said the man, 'There are a lot of other fellows
who work out of town. I don't know about the rest of them, but I got to have
my pay. I ain't got any backlog I can fall back on. What's going to happen
to us if we can't get to our jobs and there isn't any pay cheque and no
money in the bank?'
     'I was coming to that,' said Higgy. 'I know exactly what your situation
is. And the situations of a lot of other men. There isn't enough work in a
little town like this for everyone who lives here, so a great many of our
residents have work outside of town. And I know a lot of you haven't too
much money and that you need your pay cheques. We hope this thing clears up
soon enough that you can go back and your jobs will still be there.'
     'But let me tell you this. Let me make a promise. If it doesn't clear
up, there aren't any of you going to go hungry. There aren't any of you who
are going to be turned out of your homes because you can't make your
payments or can't manage to scrape the rent together. There won't nothing
happen to you. A lot of people are going to be without jobs because of what
has happened, but you'll be taken care of, every one of you. I am going to
name a committee that will talk with the merchants and the bank and we'll
arrange for a line of credit that will see you through. Anyone who needs a
loan or credit can be sure of getting it.'
     Higgy looked down at Daniel Willoughby, who was standing a step or two
below him.
     'Ain't that right, Dan?' he demanded.
     'Yes,' said the banker. 'Yes. Sure, it's quite all right. We'll do
everything we can.'
     But he didn't like it. You could see he didn't. It hurt him to say it
was all right. Daniel liked security, good security, for each dollar he put
out.
     'It's too early yet,' said Higgy, 'to know what has happened to us. By
tonight maybe we'll know a whole lot more about it. The main thing is to
keep calm and not start going off half- cocked.
     'I can't pretend to know what is going to happen. If this barrier stays
in place, there'll be some difficulties. But as it stands right now, it's
not entirely bad. Up until an hour or so ago, we were just a little village
that wasn't too well known. There wasn't, I suppose, much reason that we
should have been well known. But now we're getting publicity over the entire
world. We're in the newspapers and on the radio and TV. I'd like Joe Evans
to come up here and tell you all about it.'
     He looked around and spotted Joe in the crowd.
     'You folks,' he said, 'make way, won't you, so Joe can come up here.'
     The editor climbed the steps and turned around to face the crowd.
     'There isn't much to tell so far,' he said. 'I've had calls from most
of the wire services and from several newspapers. They all wanted to know
what was going on. I told them what I could, but it wasn't much. One of the
TV stations over in Elmore is sending a mobile camera unit. The phone was
still ringing when I left the house and I suppose there are calls coming
into the office, too.
     'I think we can expect that the news media will pay a lot of attention
to the situation here and there's no question in my mind that the state and
federal governments will take a hand in it, and if I understand it rightly,
more than likely the scientific community will have a considerable interest,
as well.'
     The man who had the highway job spoke up again. 'Joe, you think them
science fellows can get it figured out?'
     'I don't know,' said Joe.
     Hiram Martin had pushed his way through the crowd and was crossing the
street. He had a purposeful look about hint and I wondered what he could be
up to. Someone else was asking a question, but the sight of Hiram had
distracted me and I lost the gist of it.
     'Brad,' said someone at my elbow.
     I looked around.
     Hiram was standing there. The trucker, I saw, had left.
     'Yes,' I said. 'What is it?'
     'If you got the time,' said Hiram. 'I'd like to talk with you.'
     'Go ahead,' I said. 'I have the time.'
     He jerked his head toward the village hall.
     'All right,' I said.
     I opened the door and got out.
     'I'll wait for you,' said Nancy.
     Hiram moved off around the crowd, flanking it, heading for the side
door of the hail. I followed close behind him.
     But I didn't like it.

        9

     Hiram's office was a little cubbyhole just off the stall where the fire
engine and ladder rig were housed. There was barely room in it for two
chairs and a desk. On the wall above the desk hung a large and garish
calendar with a naked woman on it.
     And on the desk stood one of the dialless telephones.
     Hiram gestured at it. 'What is that?' he asked.
     'It's a telephone,' I said. 'Since when did you get so important that
you have two phones?'
     'Take another look,' he said.
     'It's still a telephone,' I said.
     'A closer look,' he told me.
     'It's a crazy looking thing. It' hasn't any dial.'
     'Anything else?'
     'No, I guess not. It just doesn't have a dial.'
     'And,' said Hiram, 'it has no connection cord.'
     'I hadn't noticed that.'
     'That's funny,' Hiram said.
     'Why funny?' I demanded. 'What the hell is going on? You didn't get me
in here just to show me a phone.'
     'It's funny,' Hiram said, 'because it was in your office.'
     'It couldn't be. Ed Adler came in yesterday and took out my phone. For
non-payment of my bill.'
     'Sit down, Brad,' he said.
     I sat down and he sat down facing me. His face was still pleasant
enough, but there was that odd glitter in his eyes - the glitter that in the
olden days I'd seen too often in his eyes when he'd cornered me and knew he
had me cornered and was about to force me to fight him, in the course of
which endeavour he would beat the living Jesus out of me.
     'You never saw this phone?' he asked.
     I shook my head. 'When I left the office yesterday I had no telephone.
Not this one or any other.'
     'That's strange,' he said.
     'As strange to me as to you,' I told him. 'I don't know what you're
getting at. Suppose you try to tell me.'
     I knew the lying in the long run would not get me anywhere, but for the
moment it was buying me some time. I was pretty sure that right now he
couldn't tie me to the telephone.
     'All right,' he said, 'I'll tell you. Tom Preston was the man who saw
it. He'd sent Ed to take out your phone, and later in the afternoon he was
walking past your office and he happened to look in and saw the phone
standing on your desk. It made him pretty sore. You can see how it might
have made him sore.'
     'Yes,' I said. 'Knowing Tom, I presume he would be sore.'
     'He'd sent Ed out to get that phone and the first thing he thought of
was that you'd talked Ed out of taking it. Or maybe Ed had just sort of
failed to drop around and get it. He knew you and Ed were friends.'
     'I suppose, he was so sore that he broke in and took it.'
     'No,' said Hiram, 'he never did break in. He went down to the bank and
talked Daniel Willoughby into giving him the key.'
     'Without considering,' I said, 'that I was renting the office.'
     'But you hadn't paid your rent for three solid months. If you ask me,
I'd figure Daniel had the right.'
     'In my book,' I told him, 'Tom and Daniel broke into my place and
robbed me.'
     'I told you. They didn't do any breaking. And Daniel had no part in it.
Except giving Tom the extra key. Tom went back alone. Besides, you say you'd
never seen this phone, that you never owned it.'
     'That's beside the point. No matter what was in my office, he had no
right to take it. Whether it was mine or not. How do I know he didn't walk
away with some other stuff?'
     'You know damn well he didn't,' Hiram told me. 'You said you wanted to
hear about this.'
     'So go ahead and tell me.'
     'Well, Tom got the key and got into your office and he saw right away
that it was a different kind of phone. It didn't have a dial and it wasn't
connected. So he turned around and started to walk out and before he reached
the door, the phone rang.'
     'It what?'
     'It rang.'
     'But it wasn't connected.'
     'I know, but anyhow, it rang.'
     'So he answered it,' I said, 'and there was Santa Claus.'
     'He answered it,' said Hiram, 'and there was Tupper Tyler.'
     'Tupper! But Tupper...'
     'Yeah, I know,' said Hiram. 'Tupper disappeared. Ten years ago or so.
But Tom said it was Tupper's voice. He said he couldn't be mistaken.'
     'And what did Tupper tell him?'
     'Tom said hello and Tupper asked him who he was and Tom told him who he
was. Then Tupper said get off this phone, you're not authorized to use it.
Then the phone went dead.'
     'Look, Hiram, Tom was kidding you.'
     'No, he wasn't. He thought someone was kidding him. He thought you and
Ed had cooked it up. He thought it was a joke. He thought you were trying to
get even with him.'
     'But that's crazy,' I protested. 'Even if Ed and I had fixed up a gag
like that, how could we have known that Tom would come busting in?'
     'I know,' said Hiram.
     'You mean you believe all this?'
     'You bet I believe it. There's something wrong, something awfully
wrong.'
     But his tone of voice was defensive. I had him on the run. He had
hauled me in to pin me to the wall and it hadn't worked that way and now he
was just a little sheepish about the entire matter. But in a little while
he'd start getting sore.
     He was that kind of jerk.
     'When did Tom tell you all of this?'
     'This morning.'
     'Why not last night? If he thought it was so important...'
     "But I told you. He didn't think it was important. He thought it was a
joke. He thought it was you getting back at him. He d