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Chapter 5 6 страница
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'Julian doesn't know anything about what happened, does he? ' I asked Henry when next I saw him alone.
'What? Oh, yes, ' said Henry, glancing up from his book. 'Of course. '
'He knows you killed that guy? '
'Really, you needn't be so loud, ' said Henry sharply, turning in his chair. Then, in a quieter voice: 'He knew what we were trying to do. And approved. The day after it happened, we drove out to his house in the country. Told him what happened. He was delighted. '
'You told him everything? '
'Well, I saw no point in worrying him, if that's what you mean, ' said Henry, adjusting his glasses and going back to his book.
Julian, of course, had made the lunch himself, and we ate at the big round table in his office. After weeks of bad nerves, bad conversation, and bad food in the dining hall, the prospect of a meal with him was immensely cheering; he was a charming companion and his dinners, though deceptively simple, had a sort of Augustan wholesomeness and luxuriance which never failed to soothe.
There was roasted lamb, new potatoes, peas with leeks and fennel; a rich and almost maddeningly delicious bottle of Chateau Latour. I was eating with better appetite than I had had in ages when I noticed that a fourth course had appeared, with unobtrusive magic, at my elbow: mushrooms. They were pale and slender-stemmed, of a type I had seen before, steaming in a red wine sauce that smelled of coriander and rue.
'Where did you get these? 'I said. Hfj 'Ah. You're quite observant, ' he said, pleased. 'Aren t they marvelous? Quite rare. Henry brought them to me. '
I took a quick swallow of my wine to hide my consternation.
'He tells me – may I? ' he said, nodding at the bowl.
I passed it to him, and he spooned some of them onto his plate. 'Thank you, ' he said. 'What was I saying? Oh, yes. Henry tells me that this particular sort of mushroom was a great favorite of the emperor Claudius. Interesting, because you remember how Claudius died. '
I did remember. Agrippina had slipped a poisoned one into his dish one night.
'They're quite good, ' said Julian, taking a bite. 'Have you gone with Henry on any of his collecting expeditions? '
'Not yet. He hasn't asked me to. '
'I must say, I never thought I cared very much for mushrooms, but everything he's brought me has been heavenly. '
Suddenly I understood. This was a clever piece of groundwork on Henry's part. 'He's brought them to you before? ' I said.
'Yes. Of course I wouldn't trust just anyone with this sort of thing, but Henry seems to know an amazing lot about it. '
'I believe he probably does, ' I said, thinking of the boxer dogs.
'It's remarkable how good he is at anything he tries. He can grow flowers, repair clocks like a jeweler, add tremendous sums in his head. Even if it's something as simple as bandaging a cut finger he manages to do a better job of it. ' He poured himself another glass of wine. 'I gather that his parents are disappointed that he's decided to concentrate so exclusively on the classics. I disagree, of course, but in a certain sense it is rather a pity. He would have made a great doctor, or soldier, or scientist. '
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I laughed. 'Or a great spy, ' I said.
Julian laughed too. 'All you boys would be excellent spies, ' he said. 'Slipping about in casinos, eavesdropping on heads of state.
Really, won't you try some of these mushrooms? They're glorious. '
I drank the rest of my wine. 'Why not, ' I said, and reached for the bowl.
After lunch, when the dishes had been cleared away and we were talking about nothing in particular, Julian asked, out of the blue, if I'd noticed anything peculiar about Bunny recently.
'Well, no, not really, ' I said, and took a careful sip of tea.
He raised an eyebrow. 'No? I think he's behaving very strangely. Henry and I were talking only yesterday about how brusque and contrary he's become. '
" I think he's been in kind of a bad mood. '
He shook his head. 'I don't know. Edmund is such a simple soul. 1 never thought I'd be surprised at anything he did or said, but he and I had a very odd conversation the other day. '
'Odd? ' I said cautiously.
'Perhaps he'd only read something that disturbed him. I don't know. I am worried about him. '
'Why? '
'Frankly, I'm afraid he might be on the verge of some disastrous religious conversion. '
I was jarred. 'Really? ' I said.
'I've seen it happen before. And I can think of no other reason for this sudden interest in ethics. Not that Edmund is profligate, but really, he's one of the least morally concerned boys I've ever known. I was very startled when he began to question me – in all earnestness – about such hazy concerns as Sin and Forgiveness.
He's thinking of going into the Church, I just know it. Perhaps that girl has something to do with it, do you suppose? '
He meant Marion. He had a habit of attributing all of Bunny's faults indirectly to her – his laziness, his bad humors, his lapses of taste. 'Maybe, ' I said.
'Is she a Catholic? '
'I think she's Presbyterian, ' I said. Julian had a polite but implacable contempt for Judeo-Christian tradition in virtually all its forms. He would deny this if confronted, citing evasively his affection for Dante and Giotto, but anything overtly religious filled him with a pagan alarm; and I believe that like Pliny, whom he resembled in so many respects, he secretly thought it to be a degenerate cult carried to extravagant lengths.
'A Presbyterian? Really? ' he said, dismayed.
'I believe so. '
'Well, whatever one thinks of the Roman Church, it is a worthy and powerful foe. I could accept that sort of conversion with grace. But I shall be very disappointed indeed if we lose him to the Presbyterians. '
In the first week of April the weather turned suddenly, unseasonably, insistently lovely. The sky was blue, the air warm and windless, and the sun beamed on the muddy ground with all the sweet impatience of June. Toward the fringe of the wood, the young trees were yellow with the first tinge of new leaves; woodpeckers laughed and drummed in the copses and, lying in bed with my window open, I could hear the rush and gurgle of the melted snow running in the gutters all night long.
In the second week of April everyone waited anxiously to see if the weather would hold. It did, with serene assurance. Hyacinth and daffodil bloomed in the flower beds, violet and periwinkle in the meadows; damp, bedraggled white butterflies fluttered drunkenly in the hedgerows. I put away my winter coat and overshoes and walked around, nearly light-headed with joy, in my shirtsleeves.
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'This won't last, ' said Henry.
In the third week of April, when the lawns were green as Heaven and the apple blossoms had recklessly blown, I was reading in my room on a Friday night, with the windows open and a cool, damp wind stirring the papers on my desk. There was a party across the lawn, and laughter and music floated through the night air. It was long after midnight. I was nodding, half-asleep over my book, when someone bellowed my name outside my window.
I shook myself and sat up, just in time to see one of Bunny's shoes flying through my open window. It hit the floor with a thud. I jumped up and leaned over the sill. Far below, I saw his staggering, shaggy-headed figure, attempting to steady itself by clutching at the trunk of a small tree.
'What the hell's wrong with you? '
He didn't reply, only raised his free hand in a gesture half wave, half salute, and reeled out of the light. The back door slammed, and a few moments later he was banging on the door of my room.
When I opened it he came limping in, one shoe off and one shoe on, leaving a muddy trail of macabre, unmatched footprints behind him. His spectacles were askew and he stank of whiskey.
'Dickie boy, ' he mumbled.
The outburst beneath my window seemed to have exhausted him and left him strangely uncommunicative. He tugged off his muddy sock and tossed it clumsily away from him. It landed on my bed.
By degrees, I managed to extricate from him the evening's events. The twins had taken him to dinner, afterwards to a bar in town for more drinks; he'd then gone alone to the party across the lawn, where a Dutchman had tried to make him smoke pot and a freshman girl had given him tequila from a thermos.
('Pretty little gal. Sort of a Deadhead, though. She was wearing clogs, you know those things? And a tie-dyed T-shirt. I can't stand them. " Honey, " I said, " you're such a cutie, how come you want to get yourself up in that nasty stuff? " ') Then, abruptly, he broke off this narrative and lurched away – leaving the door of my room open behind him – and I heard the sound of noisy, athletic vomiting.
He was gone a long time. When he returned he smelled sour, and his face was damp and very pale; but he seemed composed. _, 'Whew. ' he said, collapsing in my chair and mopping his forehead with a red bandanna. 'Musta been something I ate, ' j| 'Did you make it to the bathroom? ' I asked uncertainly. The I vomiting had sounded ominously near my own door. | 'Naw, ' he said, breathing heavily. 'Ran in the broom closet. I Get me a glass of water, wouldja. '
In the hall, the door to the service closet hung partly open, J providing a coy glimpse of the reeking horror within. I hurried past it to the kitchen.
Bunny looked at me glassily when I came back in. His expression had changed entirely, and something about it made me. J. uneasy. I gave him the water and he took a large, greedy gulp. '- 'Not too quick, ' I said, alarmed.
He paid no attention and drank the rest in a swallow, then set the glass on the desk with a trembling hand. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
'Oh, my God, ' he said. 'Sweet Jesus. '
Uneasily, 1 crossed to my bed and sat down, trying to think of some neutral subject, but before I could say anything he spoke again.
'Can't stomach it any longer, ' he mumbled. 'Just can't. Sweet Italian Jesus. '
I didn't say anything.
Shakily, he passed a hand over his forehead. 'You don't even know what the devil I'm talking about, do you? ' he said, with an oddly nasty tone in his voice.
Agitated, I recrossed my legs. I'd seen this coming, seen it coming for months and dreaded it. I had an impulse to rush from the room, just leave him sitting there, but then he buried his face in his hands.
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'All true, ' he mumbled. 'All true. Swear to God. Nobody knows but me. '
Absurdly, I found myself hoping it was a false alarm. Maybe he and Marion had broken up. Maybe his father had died of a heart attack. I sat there, paralyzed.
He dragged his palms down over his face, as if he were wiping water from it, and looked up at me. 'You don't have a clue, ' he said. His eyes were bloodshot, uncomfortably bright. 'Boy. You don't have a fucking clue. '
I stood up, unable to bear it any longer, and looked around my room distractedly. 'Uh, ' I said, 'do you want an aspirin? I meant to ask you earlier. If you take a couple now you won't feel so bad in the '
'You think I'm crazy, don't you? ' Bunny said abruptly.
Somehow I'd always known it was going to happen this way, the two of us alone, Bunny drunk, late at night… 'Why no, ' I said. 'All you need is a little '
'You think I'm a lunatic. Bats in the belfry. Nobody listens to me, ' he said, his voice rising.
I was alarmed. 'Calm down, ' I said. 'I'm listening to you. '
'Well, listen to this, ' he said.
It was three in the morning when he stopped talking. The story he told was drunken and garbled, out of sequence and full of vituperative, self-righteous digressions; but I had no problem understanding it. It was a story I'd already heard. For a while we sat there, mute. My desk light was shining in my eyes. The party across the way was still going strong and a faint but boisterous rap song throbbed obtrusively in the distance.
Bunny's breathing had become loud and asthmatic. His head fell on his chest, and he woke with a start. 'What? ' he said, confused, as if someone had come up behind him and shouted in his ear. 'Oh. Yes. '
I didn't say anything.
'What do you think about that, eh? '
I was unable to answer. I'd hoped, faintly, that he might have blacked it all out.
'Damndest thing. Fact truer than fiction, boy. Wait, that's not right. How's it go? '
'Fact stranger than fiction, ' I said mechanically. It was fortunate, I suppose, that I didn't have to make an effort to look shaken up or stunned. I was so upset I was nearly sick.
'Just goes to show, ' said Bunny drunkenly. 'Could be the guy next door. Could be anybody. Never can tell. '
I put my face in my hands.
'Tell anybody you want, ' Bunny said. 'Tell the goddamn mayor. I don't care. Lock 'em right up in that combination post office and jail they got down by the courthouse. Thinks he's so smart, ' he muttered. 'Well, if this wasn't Vermont he wouldn't be sleeping so well at night, let me tell you. Why, my dad's best friends with the police commissioner in Hartford. He ever finds out about this – geez. He and Dad were at school together. Used to date his daughter in the tenth grade…" His head was drooping and he shook himself again. 'Jesus, ' he said, nearly falling out of his chair.
I stared at him.
'Give me that shoe, would you? '
I handed it to him, and his sock too. He looked at them for a moment, then stuffed them in the outside pocket of his blazer.
'Don't let the bedbugs bite, ' he said, and then he was gone, leaving the door of my room open behind him. I could hear his peculiar limping progress all the way down the stairs.
The objects in the room seemed to swell and recede with each thump of my heart. In a horrible daze, I sat on my bed, one elbow on the windowsill, and tried to pull myself together.
Diabolical rap music floated from the opposite building, where a couple of shadowy figures were crouched on the roof, throwing empty beer cans at a disconsolate band of hippies huddled around a bonfire in a trash can, trying to smoke a joint. A beer can sailed from the roof, then another, which hit one of them on the head with a tinny sound. Laughter, aggrieved cries.
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I was gazing at the sparks flying from the garbage can when suddenly I was struck by a harrowing thought. Why had Bunny decided to come to my room instead of Cloke's, or Marion's? As I looked out the window the answer was so obvious it gave me a chill. It was because my room was by far the closest. Marion lived in Roxburgh, on the other end of campus, and Cloke's was on the far side of Durbinstall. Neither place was readily apparent to a drunk stumbling out into the night. But Monmouth was scarcely thirty feet away, and my own room, with its conspicuously lighted window, must have loomed in his path like a beacon.
I suppose it would be interesting to say that at this point I felt torn in some way, grappled with the moral implications of each of the courses available to me. But 1 don't recall experiencing anything of the sort. I put on a pair of loafers and went downstairs to call Henry.
The pay phone in Monmouth was on a wall by the back door, too exposed for my taste, so I walked over to the Science Building, my shoes squelching on the dewy grass, and found a particularly isolated booth on the third floor near the chemistry labs.
The phone must've rung a hundred times. No answer. Finally, in exasperation, I pressed down the receiver and dialed the twins.
Eight rings, nine; then, to my relief, Charles's sleepy hello.
'Hi, it's me, ' I said quickly. 'Something happened. '
'What? ' he said, suddenly alert. I could hear him sitting up in bed.
'He told me. Just now. '
There was a long silence.
'Hello? ' I said.
'Call Henry, ' said Charles abruptly. 'Hang up the phone and call him right now. '
'I already did. He's not answering the phone. '
Charles swore under his breath. 'Let me think, ' he said. 'Oh, hell. Can you come over? '
'Sure. Now? '
'I'll run down to Henry's and see if I can get him to the door.
We should be back by the time you get here. Okay? '
'Okay, ' I said, but he'd already hung up.
When I got there, about twenty minutes later, I met Charles coming from the direction of Henry's, alone.
'No luck? '
'No, ' he said, breathing hard. His hair was rumpled and he had a raincoat on over his pajamas.
'What'll we do? '
'I don't know. Come upstairs. We'll think of something. '
We had just got our coats off when the light in Camilla's room came on and she appeared in the doorway, blinking, cheeks aflame. 'Charles? What are you doing here? ' she said when she saw me.
Rather incoherently, Charles explained what had happened.
With a drowsy forearm she shielded her eyes from the light and listened. She was wearing a man's nightshirt, much too big for her, and I found myself staring at her bare legs – tawny calves, slender ankles, lovely, dusty-soled boy-feet.
'Is he there? ' she said.
'I know he is. '
'You sure? '
'Where else would he be at three in the morning? '
'Wait a second, ' she said, and went to the telephone. 'I just want to try something. ' She dialed, listened for a moment, hung up, dialed again.
'What are you doing? '
'It's a code, ' she said, the receiver cradled between shoulder and ear. 'Ring twice, hang up, ring again. '
'Code? '
'Yes. He told me once – Oh, hello, Henry, ' she said suddenly, and sat down.
Charles looked at me.
'Well, I'll be damned, ' he said quietly. 'He must have been awake the whole time. '
'Yes, ' Camilla was saying; she stared at the floor, bobbing the foot of her crossed leg idly up and down. 'That's fine. I'll tell him. '
She hung up. 'He says to come over, Richard, ' she said. 'You should leave now. He's waiting for you. Why are you looking at me like that? ' she said crossly to Charles.
'Code, eh? '
'What about it? '
'You never told me about it. '
'It's stupid. I never thought to. '
'What do you and Henry need a secret code for? '
'It's not a secret. '
'Then why didn't you tell me? '
'Charles, don't be such a baby. '
Henry – wide awake, no explanations – met me at the door in his bathrobe. I followed him into the kitchen, and he poured me a cup of coffee and sat me down. 'Now, ' he said, 'tell me what happened. '
I did. He sat across the table, smoking cigarette after cigarette with his dark blue eyes fastened on mine. He interrupted with questions only once or twice. Certain parts he asked me to repeat.
I was so tired that I rambled a bit, but he was patient with my digressions.
By the time I finished, the sun was up and the birds were singing. Spots were swimming in front of my eyes. A damp, cool breeze shifted in the curtains. Henry switched off the lamp and went to the stove and began, rather mechanically, to make some bacon and eggs. I watched him move around the dim, dawn-lit kitchen in his bare feet.
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While we ate, I looked at him curiously. He was pale, and his eyes were tired and preoccupied, but there was nothing in his expression that gave me any indication what he might be thinking.
'Henry, ' I said.
He started. It was the first time either of us had said a word for half an hour or more.
'What are you thinking about? '
'Nothing. '
'If you've still got the idea of poisoning him '
He glanced up with a quick flash of anger that surprised me.
'Don't be absurd, ' he snapped. 'I wish you'd shut up a minute and let me think. '
I stared at him. Abruptly he stood up and went to pour himself some more coffee. For a moment he stood with his back to me, hands braced on the counter. Then he turned around.
'I'm sorry, ' he said wearily. 'It's just not very pleasant to look back on something that one has put so much effort and thought into, only to realize it's completely ridiculous. Poisoned mushrooms.
The whole idea is like something from Sir Walter Scott. '
I was taken aback. 'But I thought it was kind of a good idea, '
I said.
He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. 'Too good, ' he said. 'I suppose that when anyone accustomed to working with the mind is faced with a straightforward action, there's a tendency to embellish, to make it overly clever. On paper there's a certain symmetry. Now that I'm faced with the prospect of executing it I realize how hideously complicated it is. '
'What's wrong? '
He adjusted his glasses. 'The poison is too slow. '
'I thought that's what you wanted. '
'There are half a dozen problems with it. Some of them you pointed out. Control of the dose is risky, but time, I think, is the real concern. From my standpoint the longer the better, but still… A person can do an awful lot of talking in twelve hours. ' He was quiet for a moment. 'It's not as if I haven't seen this all along.
The idea of killing him is so repellent that I haven't been able to think of it as anything but a chess-problem. A game. You have no idea how much thought I've put into this. Even to the strain of poison. It's said to make the throat swell, do you know that? Victims are said to be struck dumb, unable to name their poisoner. ' He sighed. 'Too easy to beguile myself with the Medicis, the Borgias, all those poisoned rings and roses… It's possible to do that, did you know? To poison a rose, then present it as a gift? The lady pricks her ringer, then falls dead. I know how to make a candle that will kill if burned in a closed room.
Or how to poison a pillow, or a prayer book I said: 'What about sleeping pills? '
He glanced at me, annoyed.
Tm serious. People die from them all the time. '
'Where are we going to get sleeping pills? '
'This is Hampden College. If we want sleeping pills, we can get them. '
We looked at each other.
'How would we give them? ' he said.
'Tell him they're Tylenol. '
'And how do we get him to swallow nine or ten Tylenol? '
'We could break them open in a glass of whiskey. '
'You think Bunny is likely to drink a glass of whiskey with a lot of white powder at the bottom? '
'I think he's just as apt to do that as eat a dish of toadstools. '
There was a long silence, during which a bird trilled noisily outside the window. Henry closed his eyes for a long moment and rubbed his temple with his fingertips.
'What are you going to do? ' I said.
'I think I'm going to go out and run a few errands, ' he said. 'I want you to go home and go to sleep. '
'Do you have any ideas? '
'No. But there's something I want to look into. I'd drive you back to school, but I don't think it's a good idea for us to be seen together just now. ' He began to fish in the pocket of his bathrobe, pulling out matches, pen nibs, his blue enamel pillbox. Finally he found a couple of quarters and laid them on the table. 'Here, ' he said. 'Stop at the newsstand and buy a paper on your way home. '
'Why? '
'In case anyone should wonder why you're wandering around at this hour. I may have to talk to you tonight. If I don't find you in, I'll leave a message that a Doctor Springfield called. Don't try to get in touch with me before then, unless of course you have to. '
'Sure. '
'I'll see you later, then, ' he said, starting out of the kitchen.
Then he turned in the door and looked at me. Till never forget this, you know, ' he said matter-offactly.
'It's nothing. '
'It's everything and you know it. '
'You've done me a favor or two yourself, ' I said, but he had already started out and didn't hear me. At any rate, he didn't answer.
I bought a newspaper at the little store down the street and walked back to school through the dank, verdant woods, off the main path, stepping over the boulders and rotting logs that occasionally blocked my way.
It was still early when I got to campus. I went in the back door of Monmouth and, pausing at the top of the stairs, I was startled to see the house chairperson and a flock of girls in housecoats, huddled around the broom closet and conversing in varying tones of shrill outrage. When I tried to brush past them, Judy Poovey, clad in a black kimono, grabbed my arm. 'Hey, ' she said.
'Somebody puked in this broom closet. '
'It was one of those goddamned freshmen, ' said a girl at my elbow. 'They get stinking drunk and come to the upper-class suites to barf. '
'Well, 1 don't know who did it, ' the house chairperson said, 'but whoever it was, they had spaghetti for dinner. '
'Hmnn. '
'That means they're not on the meal ticket, then. '
I pushed through them to my room, locking the door behind me, and went, almost immediately, to sleep.
I slept all day, face down in the pillow, a comfortable dead-man's float only remotely disturbed by a chill undertow of reality talk, footsteps, slamming doors – which threaded fitfully through the dark, blood-warm waters of dream. Day ran into night, and still I slept, until finally the rush and rumble of a flushing toilet rolled me on my back and up from sleep.
The Saturday night party had already started, in Putnam House next door. That meant dinner was over, the snack bar was closed, and I'd slept at least fourteen hours. My house was deserted. I got up and shaved and took a hot bath. Then I put on my robe and, eating an apple I'd found in the house kitchen, walked downstairs in my bare feet to see if any messages had been left for me by the phone.
There were three. Bunny Corcoran, at a quarter to six. My mother, from California, at eight-forty-five. And a Dr H. Springfield, D. D. S., who suggested I visit at my earliest convenience.
I was famished. When I got to Henry's, I was glad to see that Charles and Francis were still picking at a cold chicken and some salad.
Henry looked as if he hadn't slept since I'd seen him last. He was wearing an old tweed jacket with sprung elbows, and there were grass stains on the knees of his trousers; khaki gaiters were laced over his mud-caked shoes. 'The plates are in the sideboard, if you're hungry, ' he said, pulling out his chair and sitting down heavily, like some old farmer just home from the field.
'Where have you been? '
'We'll talk about it after dinner. '
'Where's Camilla? '
Charles began to laugh.
Francis put down his chicken leg. 'She's got a date, ' he said.
'You're kidding. With who? '
'Cloke Rayburn. '
They're at the party, ' Charles said. 'He took her out for drinks before and everything. '
'Marion and Bunny are with them, ' Francis said. 'It was Henry's idea. Tonight she's keeping an eye on you-know-who. '
'You-know-who left a message for me on the telephone this afternoon, ' I said.
'You-know-who has been on the warpath all day long, ' said Charles, cutting himself a slice of bread.
'Not now, please, ' said Henry in a tired voice.
After the dishes were cleared Henry put his elbows on the table and lit a cigarette. He needed a shave and there were dark circles under his eyes.
'So what's the plan? ' said Francis.
Henry tossed the match into the ashtray. 'This weekend, ' he said. Tomorrow, '
I paused with my coffee cup halfway to my lips.
'Oh my God, ' said Charles, disconcerted. 'So soon? '
'It can't wait any longer. '
'How? What can we do on such short notice? '
'I don't like it either, but if we wait we won't have another chance until next weekend. If it comes to that, we may not have another chance at all. '
There was a brief silence.
This is for real? ' said Charles uncertainly. This is, like, a definite thing? '
'Nothing is definite, ' said Henry. The circumstances won't be entirely under our control. But I want us to be ready should the opportunity present itself. '
'This sounds sort of indeterminate, ' said Francis.
It is. It can't be any other way, unfortunately, as Bunny will be doing most of the work. '
'How's that? ' said Charles, leaning back in his chair.
'An accident. A hiking accident, to be precise. ' Henry paused.
'Tomorrow's Sunday. '
'Yes. '
'So tomorrow, if the weather's nice, Bunny will more likely than not go for a walk. '
'He doesn't always go, ' said Charles.
'Say he does. And we have a fairly good idea of his route. '
'It varies, ' I said. I had accompanied Bunny on a good many of those walks the term before. He was apt to cross streams, climb fences, make any number of unexpected detours.
'Yes, of course, but by and large we know it, ' said Henry. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and spread it on the table.
Leaning over, I saw it was a map. 'He goes out the back door of his house, circles behind the tennis courts, and when he reaches the woods, heads not towards North Hampden but east, towards Mount Cataract. Heavily wooded, not much hiking out that way.
He keeps on till he hits that deer path – you know the one I mean, Richard, the trail marked with the white boulder – and bears hard southeast. That runs for three-quarters of a mile and then forks '
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