glow of happiness, looking at the message. It would be good to have a Hazer once again. It had been a month or more since one had passed through the station. He could remember back to that first day he had ever met a Hazer, when the five of them had come. It must have been, he thought, back in 1914 or maybe 1915. World War I, which everyone then was calling the Great War, was under way, he knew. The Hazer would be arriving at about the same time as Ulysses and the three of them could spend a pleasant evening. It was not too often that two good friends ever visited here at once. He stood a bit aghast at thinking of the Hazer as a friend, for more than likely the being itself was one he had never met. But that made little difference, for a Hazer, any Hazer, would turn out to be a friend. He got the cabinet in position beneath a materializer unit and double-checked to be sure that everything was exactly as it should be, then went back to the message machine and sent off the confirmation. And all the time his memory kept on nagging at him. Had it been 1914, or perhaps a little later? At the catalogue cabinet, he pulled out a drawer and found Vega XXI and the first date listed was July 12, 1915. He found the record book on the shelf and pulled it out and brought it to the desk. He leafed through it rapidly until he found the date. 14 July 12, 1915-Arrived this afternoon (3:20 P.M.) five beings from Vega XXI, the first of their kind to pass through this station. They are biped and humanoid, and one gains the impression that they are not made of flesh-that flesh would be too gross for the kind of things they are-but, of course, they are made of flesh the same as anyone. They glow, not with a visible light, but there is about them an aura that goes with them wherever they may be. They were, I gathered, a sexual unit, the five of them, although I am not so certain I understand, for it is most confusing. They were happy and friendly and they carried with them an air of faint amusement, not at anything in particular, but at the universe itself, as if they might have enjoyed some sort of cosmic and very private joke that was known to no one else. They were on a holiday and were en route to a festival (although that may not be the precise word for it) on another planet, where other life forms were gathering for a week of carnival. Just how they had been invited or why they had been invited I was unable to determine. It must surely have been a great honor for them to be going there, but so far as I could see they did not seem to think so, but took it as their right. They were very happy and without a care and extremely self-assured and poised, but thinking back on it, I would suppose that they are always that way. I found myself just a little envious at not being able to be as carefree and gay as they were, and trying to imagine how fresh life and the universe must seem to them, and a little resentful that they could be, so unthinkingly, as happy as they were. I had, according to instructions, hung hammocks so that they could rest, but they did not use them. They brought with them hampers that were filled with food and drink and sat down at my table and began to talk and feast. They asked me to sit with them and they chose two dishes and a bottle, which they assured me would be safe for me to eat and drink, the rest of their fare being somewhat doubtful for a metabolism such as mine. The food was delicious and of a kind I had never tasted-one dish being rather like the rarest and most delicate of old cheeses, and the other of a sweetness that was heavenly. The drink was somewhat like the finest of brandies, yellow in color and no heavier than water. They asked me about myself and about my planet and they were courteous and seemed genuinely interested and they were quick of understanding in the things I told them. They told me they were headed for a planet the name of which I had not heard before, and they talked among themselves, gaily and happily, but in such a way that I did not seem to be left out. From their talk I gained the fact that some form of art was being presented at the festival on this planet. The art form was not alone of music or painting, but was composed of sound and color and emotion and form and other qualities for which there seem to be no words in the language of the Earth, and which I do not entirely recognize, only gaining the very faintest inkling of what they were talking of in this particular regard. I gained the impression of a three-dimensional symphony, although this is not entirely the right expression, which had been composed, not by a single being, but by a team of beings. They talked of the art form enthusiastically and I seemed to understand that it would last for not only several hours, but for days, and that it was an experience rather than a listening or seeing and that the spectators or audience did not merely sit and listen, but could, if they wished, and must, to get the most out of it, be participants. But I could not understand how they participated and felt I should not ask. They talked of the people they would meet and when they had met them last and gossiped considerably about them, although in kindly fashion, leaving the impression that they and many other people went from planet to planet for some happy purpose. But whether there was any purpose other than enjoyment in their going, I could not determine. I gathered that there might be. They spoke of other festivals and not all of them were concerned with the one art form, but with other more specialized aspects of the arts, of which I could gain no adequate idea. They seemed to find a great and exuberant happiness in the festivals and it seemed to me that some certain significances aside from the art itself contributed to that happiness. I did not join in this part of their conversation, for, frankly, there was no opportunity. I would have liked to ask some questions, but I had no chance. I suppose that if I had, my questions must have sounded stupid to them, but given the chance, that would not have bothered me too much. And yet in spite of this, they managed somehow to make me feel I was included in their conversation. There was no obvious attempt to do this, and yet they made me feel I was one with them and not simply a station keeper they would spend a short time with. At times they spoke briefly in the language of their planet, which is one of the most beautiful I have ever heard, but for the most part they conversed in the vernacular used by a number of the humanoid races, a sort of pidgin language made up for convenience, and I suspect that this was done out of courtesy to me, and a great courtesy it was. I believe that they were truly the most civilized people I have ever met. I have said they glowed and I think by that I mean they glowed in spirit. It seemed that they were accompanied, somehow, by a sparkling golden haze that made happy everything it touched-almost as if they moved in some special world that no one else had found. Sitting at the table with them, I seemed to be included in this golden haze and I felt strange, quiet, deep currents of happiness flowing in my veins. I wondered by what route they and their world had arrived at this golden state and if my world could, in some distant time, attain it. But back of this happiness was a great vitality, the bubbling effervescent spirit with an inner core of strength and a love of living that seemed to fill every pore of them and every instant of their time. They had only two hours' time and it passed so swiftly that I had to finally warn them it was time to go. Before they left, they placed two packages on the table and said they were for me and thanked me for my table (what a strange way for them to put it) then they said good bye and stepped into the cabinet (extra-large one) and I sent them on their way. Even after they were gone, the golden haze seemed to linger in the room and it was hours before all of it was gone. I wished that I might have gone with them to that other planet and its festival. One of the packages they left contained a dozen bottles of the brandy-like liquor and the bottles themselves were each a piece of art, no two of them alike, being formed of what I am convinced is diamond, but whether fabricated diamond or carved from some great stones, I have no idea. At any rate, I would estimate that each of them is priceless, and each carved in a disturbing variety of symbolisms, each of which, however, has a special beauty of its own. And in the other box was a-well, I suppose that, for lack of other name, you might call it a music box. The box itself is ivory, old yellow ivory that is as smooth as satin, and covered by a mass of diagrammatic carving which must have some significance which I do not understand. On the top of it is a circle set inside a graduated scale and when I turned the circle to the first graduation there was music and through all the room an interplay of many-colored light, as if the entire room was filled with different kinds of color, and through it all a far-off suggestion of that golden haze. And from the box came, too, perfumes that filled the room, and feeling, emotion-whatever one may call it-but something that took hold of one and made one sad or happy or whatever might go with the music and the color and perfume. Out of that box came a world in which one lived out the composition or whatever it might be-living it with all that one had in him, all the emotion and belief and intellect of which one is capable. And here, I am quite certain, was a recording of that art form of which they had been talking. And not one composition alone, but 206 of them, for that is the number of the graduation marks and for each mark there is a separate composition. In the days to come I shall play them all and make notes upon each of them and assign them names, perhaps, according to their characteristics, and from them, perhaps, can gain some knowledge as well as entertainment. 15 The twelve diamond bottles, empty long ago, stood in a sparkling row upon the fireplace mantel. The music box, as one of his choicest possessions, was stored inside one of the cabinets, where no harm could come to it. And Enoch thought rather ruefully, in all these years, despite regular use of it, he had not as yet played through the entire list of compositions. There were so many of the early ones that begged for a replaying that he was not a great deal more than halfway through the graduated markings. The Hazers had come back, the five of them, time and time again, for it seemed that they found in this station, perhaps even in the man who operated it, some quality that pleased them. They had helped him learn the Vegan language and had brought him scrolls of Vegan literature and many other things, and had been, without any doubt, the best friends among the aliens (other than Ulysses) that he had ever had. Then one day they came no more and he wondered why, asking after them when other Hazers showed up at the station. But he had never learned what had happened to them. He knew far more now about the Hazers and their art forms, their traditions and their customs and their history, than he'd known that first day he'd written of them, back in 1915. But he still was far from grasping many of the concepts that were commonplace with them. There had been many of them since that day in 1915 and there was one he remembered in particular-the old, wise one, the philosopher, who had died on the floor beside the sofa. They had been sitting on the sofa, talking, and he even could remember the subject of their talk. The old one had been telling of the perverse code of ethics, at once irrational and comic, which had been built up by that curious race of social vegetables he had encountered on one of his visits to an off-track planet on the other side of the galactic rim. The old Hazer had a drink or two beneath his belt and he was in splendid form, relating incident after incident with enthusiastic gusto. Supenly, in mid-sentence, he had stopped his talking, and had slumped quietly forward. Enoch, startled, reached for him, but before he could lay a hand upon him, the old alien had slid slowly to the floor. The golden haze had faded from his body and slowly flickered out and the body lay there, angular and bony and obscene, a terribly alien thing there upon the floor, a thing that was at once pitiful and monstrous. More monstrous, it seemed to Enoch, than anything in alien form he had ever seen before. In life it had been a wondrous creature, but now, in death, it was an old bag of hideous bones with a scaly parchment stretched to hold the bones together. It was the golden haze, Enoch told himself, gulping, in something near to horror, that had made the Hazer seem so wondrous and so beautiful, so vital, so alive and quick, so filled with dignity. The golden haze was the life of them and when the haze was gone, they became mere repulsive horrors that one gagged to look upon. Could it be, he wondered, that the goldenness was the Hazers' life force and that they wore it like a cloak, as a sort of over-all disguise? Did they wear that life force on the outside of them while all other creatures wore it on the inside? A piteous little wind was lamenting in the gingerbread high up in the gables and through the windows he could see battalions of tattered clouds fleeing in ragged retreat across the moon, which had climbed halfway up the eastern sky. There was a coldness and a loneliness in the station-a far-reaching loneliness that stretched out and out, farther than mere Earth loneliness could go. Enoch turned from the body and walked stiffly across the room to the message machine. He put in a call for a connection direct with Galactic Central, then stood waiting, gripping the sides of the machine with both his hands. GO AHEAD, said Galactic Central. Briefly, as objectively as he was able, Enoch reported what had happened. There was no hesitation and there were no questions from the other end. Just the simple directions (as if this was something that happened all the time) of how the situation should be handled. The Vegan must remain upon the planet of its death, its body to be disposed of according to the local customs obtaining on that planet. For that was the Vegan law, and, likewise, a point of honor. A Vegan, when he fell, must stay where he fell, and that place became, forever, a part of Vega XXI. There were such places, said Galactic Central, all through the galaxy. THE CUSTOM HERE [typed Enoch] IS TO INTER THE DEAD. THEN INTER THE VEGAN. WE READ A VERSE OR TWO FROM OUR HOLY BOOK. READ ONE FOR THE VEGAN, THEN. YOU CAN DO ALL THIS? YES. BUT WE USUALLY HAVE IT DONE BY A PRACTITIONER OF RELIGION. UNDER THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES, HOWEVER, THAT MIGHT BE UNWISE. AGREED [said Galactic Central] YOU CAN DO AS WELL YOURSELF? I CAN. IT IS BEST, THEN, THAT YOU DO. WILL THERE BE RELATIVES OR FRIENDS ARRIVING FOR THE RITES? NO. YOU WILL NOTIFY THEM? FORMALLY, OF COURSE. BUT THEY ALREADY KNOW. HE ONLY DIED A MOMENT OR TWO AGO. NEVERTHELESS, THEY KNOW. WHAT ABOUT A DEATH CERTIFICATE? NONE IS NEEDED. THEY KNOW OF WHAT HE DIED. HIS LUGGAGE? THERE IS A TRUNK. KEEP IT. IT IS YOURS. IT IS A TOKEN FOR THE SERVICES YOU PERFORM FOR THE HONORED DEAD. THAT ALSO IS THE LAW. BUT THERE MAY BE IMPORTANT MATTERS IN IT. YOU WILL KEEP THE TRUNK. TO REFUSE WOULD INSULT THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. ANYTHING ELSE? [asked Enoch] THAT IS ALL? THAT IS ALL. PROCEED AS IF THE VEGAN WERE ONE OF YOUR OWN. Enoch cleared the machine and went back across the room. He stood above the Hazer, getting up his nerve to bend and lift the body to place it on the sofa. He shrank from touching it. It was so unclean and terrible, such a travesty on the shining creature that had sat there talking with him. Since he met the Hazers he had loved them and admired them, had looked forward to each visit by them-by any one of them. And now he stood, a shivering coward who could not touch one dead. It was not the horror only, for in his years as keeper of the station, he had seen much of pure visual horror as portrayed in alien bodies. And yet he had learned to submerge that sense of horror, to disregard the outward appearance of it, to regard all life as brother life, to meet all things as people. It was something else, he knew, some other unknown factor quite apart from horror, that he felt. And yet this thing, he reminded himself, was a friend of his. And as a dead friend, it demanded honor from him, it demanded love and care. Blindly he drove himself to the task. He stooped and lifted it. It had almost no weight at all, as ii in death it had lost a dimension of itself, had somehow become a smaller thing and less significant. Could it be, he wondered, that the golden haze might have a weight all of its own? He laid the body on the sofa and straightened it as best he could. Then he went outside and, lighting the lantern in the shed, went down to the barn. It had been years since he had been there, but nothing much had changed. Protected by a tight roof from the weather, it had stayed snug and dry. There were cobwebs hanging from the beams and dust was everywhere. Straggling clumps of ancient hay, stored in the mow above, hung down through the cracks in the boards that floored the mow. The place had a dry, sweet, dusty smell about it, all the odors of animals and manure long gone. Enoch hung the lantern on the peg behind the row of stanchions and climbed the laper to the mow. Working in the dark, for he dared not bring the lantern into this dust heap of dried-out hay, he found the pile of oaken boards far beneath the eaves. Here, he remembered, underneath these slanting eaves, had been a pretended cave in which, as a boy, he had spent many happy rainy days when he could not be outdoors. He had been Robinson Crusoe in his desert island cave, or some now nameless outlaw hiding from a posse, or a man holed up against the threat of scalp-hunting Indians. He had had a gun, a wooden gun that he had sawed out of a board, working it down later with draw-shave and knife and a piece of glass to scrape it smooth. It had been something he had cherished through all his boyhood days-until that day, when he had been twelve, that his father, returning home from a trip to town, had handed him a rifle for his very own. He explored the stack of boards in the dark, determining by the feel the ones that he would need. These he carried to the laper and carefully slid down to the floor below. Climbing down the laper, he went up the short flight of stairs to the granary, where the tools were stored. He opened the lid of the great tool chest and found that it was filled with long deserted mice nests. Pulling out handfulls of the straw and hay and grass that the rodents had used to set up their one-time housekeeping, he uncovered the tools. The shine had gone from them, their surface grayed by the soft patina that came from long disuse, but there was no rust upon them and the cutting edges still retained their sharpness. Selecting the tools he needed, he went back to the lower part of the barn and fell to work. A century ago, he thought, he had done as he was doing now, working by lantern light to construct a coffin. And that time it had been his father lying in the house. The oaken boards were dry and hard, but the tools still were in shape to handle them. He sawed and planed and hammered and there was the smell of sawdust. The barn was snug and silent, the depth of hay standing in the mow drowning out the noise of the complaining wind outside. He finished the coffin and it was heavier than he had figured, so he found the old wheelbarrow, leaning against the wall back of the stalls that once had been used for horses, and loaded the coffin on it. Laboriously, stopping often to rest, he wheeled it down to the little cemetery inside the apple orchard. And here, beside his father's grave, he dug another grave, having brought a shovel and a pickax with him. He did not dig it as deep as he would have liked to dig, not the full six feet that was decreed by custom, for he knew that if he dug it that deep he never would be able to get the coffin in. So he dug it slightly less than four, laboring in the light of the lantern, set atop the mound of dirt to cast its feeble glow. An owl came up from the woods and sat for a while, unseen, somewhere in the orchard, muttering and gurgling in between its hoots. The moon sank toward the west and the ragged clouds thinned out to let the stars shine through. Finally it was finished, with the grave completed and the casket in the grave and the lantern flickering, the kerosene almost gone, and the chimney blacked from the angle at which the lantern had been canted. Back at the station, Enoch hunted up a sheet in which to wrap the body. He put a Bible in his pocket and picked up the shrouded Vegan and, in the first faint light that preceded dawn, marched down to the apple orchard. He put the Vegan in the coffin and nailed shut the lid, then climbed from the grave. Standing on the edge of it, he took the Bible from his pocket and found the place he wanted. He read aloud, scarcely needing to strain his eyes in the dim light to follow the text, for it was from a chapter that he had read many times: In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you... Thinking, as he read it, how appropriate it was; how there must need be many mansions in which to house all the souls in the galaxy-and of all the other galaxies that stretched, perhaps interminably, through space. Although if there were understanding, one might be enough. He finished reading and recited the burial service, from memory, as best he could, not being absolutely sure of all the words. But sure enough, he told himself, to make sense out of it. Then he shoveled in the dirt. The stars and moon were gone and the wind had died. In the quietness of the morning, the eastern sky was pearly pink. Enoch stood beside the grave, with the shovel in his hand. "Good bye, my friend," he said. Then he turned and, in the first flush of the morning, went back to the station. 16 Enoch got up from his desk and carried the record book back to the shelf and slid it into place. He turned around and stood hesitantly. There were things that he should do. He should read his papers. He should be writing up his journal. There were a couple of papers in the latest issues of the Journal of Geophysical Research that he should be looking at. But he didn't feel like doing any of them. There was too much to think about, too much to worry over, too much to mourn. The watchers still were out there. He had lost his shadow people. And the world was edging in toward war. Although, perhaps, he should not be worrying about what happened to the world. He could renounce the world, could resign from the human race any time he wished. If he never went outside, if he never opened up the door, then it would make no difference to him what the world might do or what might happen to it. For he had a world. He had a greater world than anyone outside this station had ever dreamed about. He did not need the Earth. But even as be thought it, he knew he could not make it stick. For, in a very strange and funny way, he still did need the Earth. He walked over to the door and spoke the phrase and the door came open. He walked into the shed and it closed behind him. He went around the corner of the house and sat down on the steps that led up to the porch. This, he thought, was where it all had started. He had been sitting here that summer day of long ago when the stars had reached out across vast gulfs of space and put the finger on him. The sun was far down the sky toward the west and soon it would be evening. Already the heat of the day was falling off, with a faint, cool breeze creeping up out of the hollow that ran down to the river valley. Down across the field, at the edge of the woods, crows were wheeling in the sky and cawing. It would be hard to shut the door, he knew, and keep it shut. Hard never to feel the sun or wind again, to never know the smell of the changing seasons as they came across the Earth. Man, he told himself, was not ready for that. He had not as yet become so totally a creature of his own created environment that he could divorce entirely the physical characteristics of his native planet. He needed sun and soil and wind to remain a man. He should do this oftener, Enoch thought, come out here and sit, doing nothing, just looking, seeing the trees and the river to the west and the blue of the Iowa hills across the Mississippi, watching the crows wheeling in the skies and the pigeons strutting on the ridgepole of the barn. It would be worth while each day to do it, for what was another hour of aging? He did not need to save his hours-not now he didn't. There might come a time when he'd become very jealous of them and when that day came, he could hoard the hours and minutes, even the seconds, in as miserly a fashion as he could manage. He heard the sound of the running feet as they came around the farther corner of the house, a stumbling, exhausted running, as if the one who ran might have come a far way. He leapt to his feet and strode out into the yard to see who it might be and the runner came stumbling toward him, with her arms outstretched. He put out an arm and caught her as she came close to him, holding her close against him so she would not fall. "Lucy!" he cried. "Lucy! What has happened, child?" His hands against her back were warm and sticky and he took one of them away to see that it was smeared with blood. The back of her dress, he saw, was soaked and dark. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her away from him so he could see her face. It was wet with crying and there was terror in the face-and pleading with the terror. She pulled away from him and turned around. Her hands came up and slipped her dress off her shoulders and let it slide halfway down her back. The flesh of the shoulders were ribboned by long slashes that still were oozing blood. She pulled the dress up again and turned to face him. She made a pleading gesture and pointed backward down the hill, in the direction of the field that ran down to the woods. There was motion down there, someone coming through the woods, almost at the edge of the old deserted field. She must have seen it, too, for she came close against him, shivering, seeking his protection. He bent and lifted her in his arms and ran for the shed. He spoke the phrase and the door came open and he stepped into the station. Behind him he heard the door go sliding shut. Once inside, he stood there, with Lucy Fisher cradled in his arms, and knew that what he'd done had been a great mistake-that it was something that, in a sober moment, he never would have done, that if he'd given it a second thought, he would not have done it. But he had acted on an impulse, with no thought at all. The girl had asked protection and here she had protection, here nothing in the world ever could get at her. But she was a human being and no human being, other than himself, should have ever crossed the threshold. But it was done and there was no way to change it. Once across the threshold, there was no way to change it. He carried her across the room and put her on the sofa, then stepped back. She sat there, looking up at him, smiling very faintly, as if she did not know if she were allowed to smile in a place like this. She lifted a hand and tried to brush away the tears that were upon her cheeks. She looked quickly around the room and her mouth made an O of wonder. He squatted down and patted the sofa and shook a finger at her, hoping that she might understand that he meant she should stay there, that she must go nowhere else. He swept an arm in a motion to take in all the remainder of the station and shook his head as sternly as he could. She watched him, fascinated, then she smiled and noped, as if she might have understood. He reached out and took one of her hands in his own, and holding it, patted it as gently as he could, trying to reassure her, to make her understand that everything was all right if she only stayed exactly where she was. She was smiling now, not wondering, apparently, if there were any reason that she should not smile. She reached out her free hand and made a little fluttering gesture toward the coffee table, with its load of alien gadgets. He noped and she picked up one of them, turning it admiringly in her hand. He got to his feet and went to the wall to take down the rifle. Then he went outside to face whatever had been pursuing her. 17 Two men were coming up the field toward the house and Enoch saw that one of them was Hank Fisher, Lucy's father. He had met the man, rather briefly, several years ago, on one of his walks. Hank had explained, rather sheepishly and when no explanation had been necessary, that he was hunting for a cow which had strayed away. But from his furtive manner, Enoch had deduced that his errand, rather than the hunting of a cow, had been somewhat on the shady side, although he could not imagine what it might have been. The other man was younger. No more, perhaps, than sixteen or seventeen. More than likely, Enoch told himself, he was one of Lucy's brothers. Enoch stood by the porch and waited. Hank, he saw, was carrying a coiled whip in his hand, and looking at it, Enoch understood those wounds on Lucy's shoulders. He felt a swift flash of anger, but tried to fight it down. He could deal better with Hank Fisher if he kept his temper. The two men stopped three paces or so away. "Good afternoon," said Enoch. "You seen my gal?" asked Hank. "And if I have?" asked Enoch. "I'll take the hide off of her," yelled Hank, flourishing the whip. "In such a case," said Enoch, "I don't believe I'll tell you anything." "You got her hid," charged Hank. "You can look around," said Enoch. Hank took a quick step forward, then thought better of it. "She got what she had coming to her," he yelled. "And I ain't finished with her yet. There ain't no one, not even my own flesh and blood, can put a hex on me." Enoch said nothing. Hank stood, undecided. "She mepled," he said. "She had no call to meple. It was none of her damn business." The young man said, "I was just trying to train Butcher. Butcher," he explained to Enoch, "is a coon hound pup." "That is right," said Hank. "He wasn't doing nothing wrong. The boys caught a young coon the other night. Took a lot of doing. Roy, here, had staked out the coon-tied it to a tree. And he had Butcher on a leash. He was letting Butcher fight the coon. Not hurting anything. He'd pull Butcher off before any damage could be done and let them rest a while. Then he'd let Butcher at the coon again." "It's the best way in the world," said Roy, "to get a coon dog trained." "That is right," said Hank. "That is why they caught the coon." "We needed it," said Roy, "to train this Butcher pup." "This all is fine," said Enoch, "and I am glad to hear it. But what has it got to do with Lucy?" "She interfered," said Hank. "She tried to stop the training. She tried to grab Butcher away from Roy, here." "For a dummy," Roy said, "she is a mite too uppity." "You hush your mouth," his father told him sternly, swinging around on him. Roy mumbled to himself, falling back a step. Hank turned back to Enoch. "Roy knocked her down," he said. "He shouldn't have done that. He should have been more careful." "I didn't mean to," Roy said. "I just swung my arm out to keep her away from Butcher." "That is right," said Hank. "He swung a bit too hard. But there wasn't any call for her doing what she did. She tied Butcher up in knots so he couldn't fight that coon. Without laying a finger on him, mind you, she tied him up in knots. He couldn't move a muscle. That made Roy mad." He appealed to Enoch, earnestly, "Wouldn't that have made you mad?" "I don't think it would," said Enoch. "But then, I'mm not a coon-dog man." Hank stared in wonder at this lack of understanding. But he went on with his story. "Roy got real mad at her. He'd raised that Butcher. He thought a lot of him. He wasn't going to let no one, not even his own sister, tie that dog in knots. So he went after her and she tied him up in knots, just like she did to Butcher. I never seen a thing like it in all my born days. Roy just stiffened up and then he fell down to the ground and his legs pulled up against his belly and he wrapped his arms around himself and he laid there on the ground, pulled into a ball. Him and Butcher, both. But she never touched that coon. She never tied him in no knots. Her own folks is all she touched." "It didn't hurt," said Roy. "It didn't hurt at all." "I was sitting there," said Hank, "braiding this here bull whip. Its end had frayed and I fixed a new one on it. And I seen it all, but I didn't do a thing until I saw Roy there, tied up on the ground. And I figured then it had gone far enough. I am a broad-minded man; I don't mind a little wart-charming and other pipling things like that. There have been a lot of people who have been able to do that. It ain't no disgrace at all. But this thing of tying dogs and people into knots ..." "So you hit her with the whip," said Enoch. "I did my duty," Hank told him solemnly. "I ain't about to have no witch in any family of mine. I hit her a couple of licks and her making that dumb show of hers to try to get me stopped. But I had my duty and I kept on hitting. If I did enough of it, I figured, I'd knock it out of her. That was when she put the hex on me. Just like she did on Roy and Butcher, but in a different way. She turned me blind-she blinded her own father! I couldn't see a thing. I just stumbled around the yard, yelling and clawing at my eyes. And then they got all right again, but she was gone. I saw her running through the woods and up the hill. So Roy and me, we took out after her..." "And you think I have her here?" "I know you have," said Hank. "OK ," said Enoch "Have a look around" "You can bet I will," Hank told him grimly. "Roy, take the barn. She might be hiding there." Roy headed for the barn. Hank went into the shed, came out almost immediately, strode down to the sagging chicken house. Enoch stood and waited, the rifle cradled on his arm. He had trouble here, he knew-more trouble than he'd ever had before. There was no such thing as reasoning with a man of Hank Fisher's stripe. There was no approach, right now, that he would understand. All that he could do, he knew, was to wait until Hank's temper had cooled off. Then there might be an outside chance of talking sense to him. The two of them came back. "She ain't nowhere around," said Hank. "She is in the house." Enoch shook his head. "There can't anyone get into that house." "Roy," said Hank, "climb them there steps and open up that door." Roy looked fearfully at Enoch. "Go ahead," said Enoch. Roy moved forward slowly and went up the steps. He crossed the porch and put his hand upon the front door knob and turned. He tried again. He turned around. "Pa," he said, "I can't turn it. I can't get it open." Hell," said Hank, disgusted, "you can't do anything." Hank took the steps in two jumps, paced wrathfully across the porch. His hand reached out and grasped the knob and wrenched at it powerfully. He tried again and yet again. He turned angrily to face Enoch. "What is going on here?" he yelled. "I told you," Enoch said, "that you can't get in." "The hell I can't!" roared Hank. He tossed the whip to Roy and came down off the porch, striding over to the woodpile that stood beside the shed. He wrenched the heavy, double-bitted ax out of the chopping block. "Careful with that ax," warned Enoch. "I've had it for a long time and I set a store by it." Hank did not answer. He went up on the porch and squared off before the door. "Stand off," he said to Roy. "Give me elbow room." Roy backed away. "Wait a minute," Enoch said. "You mean to chop down that door?" "You're damned right I do." Enoch noped gravely. "Well?" asked Hank. "It's all right with me if you want to try." Hank took his stance, gripping the handle of the ax. The steel flashed swiftly, up over his shoulder, then down in a driven blow. The edge of the steel struck the surface of the door and turned, deflected by the surface, changed its course, bouncing from the door. The blade came slicing down and back. It missed Hank's sprapled leg by no more than an inch and the momentum of it spun him half around. He stood there, foolishly, arms outstretched, hands still gripping the handle of the ax. He stared at Enoch. "Try again," invited Enoch. Rage flowed over Hank. His face was flushed with anger. "By God, I will!" he yelled. He squared off again and this time he swung the ax, not at the door, but at the window set beside the door. The blade struck and there was a high singing sound as pieces of sun-bright steel went flying through the air. Ducking away, Hank dropped the ax. It fell to the floor of the porch and bounced. One blade was broken, the metal sheared away in jagged breaks. The window was intact. There was not a scratch upon it. Hank stood there for a moment, staring at the broken ax, as if he could not quite believe it. Silently he stretched out his hand and Roy put the bull whip in it. The two of them came down the stairs. They stopped at the bottom of them and looked at Enoch. Hank's hand twitched on the whip. "If I were you," said Enoch, "I wouldn't try it, Hank. I can move awfully fast." He patted the gun butt. "I'd have the hand off you before you could swing that whip." Hank breathed heavily. "There's the devil in you, Wallace," he said. "And there's the devil in her, too. You're working together, the two of you. Sneaking around in the woods, meeting one another." Enoch waited, watching the both of them. "God help me," cried Hank. "My own daughter is a witch!" "I think," said Enoch, "you should go back home. If I happen to find Lucy, I will bring her there." Neither of them made a move. "You haven't heard the last of this," yelled Hank. "You have my daughter somewhere and I'll get you for it." "Any time you want," said Enoch, "but not now." He made an imperative gesture with the rifle barrel. "Get moving," he said. "And don't come back. Either one of you." They hesitated for a moment, looking at him, trying to gauge him, trying to guess what he might do next. Slowly they turned and, walking side by side, moved off down the hill. 18 He should have killed the two of them, he thought. They were not fit to live. He glanced down at the rifle and saw that his hands had su