Let's Go Play at the Adams'

"Yeah. Rabbits." Nonetheless Bobby got up with John, and then the girls. They started

slowly up the path to the house, yelling for him.

Early in the afternoon they bad lowered Barbara from the joist from which-by then-she was

nearly hanging, semiconscious, bead and hair pointed at the floor, knees nearly failing,

heels flat even though that caused her more pain. She came down as if dead, knees

touching the cement first, as in an attitude of prayer, then temple, shoulder, and hips. Her

hands were quite bloodless and discolored. Except for averting her face from the concrete,

she made little movement and certainly gave them no trouble. At John's insistence, they

bound her-faceup--to a dusty picnic bench, and here, still later, Paul found her when it was

his turn to guard.

If-this morning excepted-he had waited nearly a full day for his turn with Barbara, Paul was

disap- 167

pointed. The day had taken too much out of her, and she did not revive; actually she lay as

if asleep or in a coma. She did little in response to his probings and torments-some of them

were quite exotic for a small boy-and what reaction she did give was little more than a

short toss of her bead and a frown. It was as if - he did not exist, and it infuriated him.

Wildly he thought of all the things that might be done to snap her back in his power. His

eyes roved hungrily over the assortment of tools and instruments in the basement, until

his legs became weak and he perspired behind the knees. He was still half blindly in this

world of imagination when they came downstairs and relieved him. Blinking, twitching,

trembling, he followed John and Bobby back upstairs, felt the .22 being put into his hands

and felt the cold handful of shells dropped in his pocket.

Outside it bad begun to get darker in the west, not from any imminence of evening, but

from the sky's daily effort to make rain. The sun, still high enough, began to dim behind a

brown-copper haze of airborne dust and moisture, and silhouetted by the lesser light, huge

thunderheads slowly boiled up for thousands of -, feet. As the boys went up the private

road through the woods, it began to grow noticeably cooler.

More quickly, now that they knew the way, Freedom Five approached the campsite. This

time, however, they marched in loudly and full of bluff, hoping any Picker would take flight

before them rather than confront their (useless) guns. Whether or not they were

successful, the campsite and pine-needle bed were as deserted as before. This was

satisfactory, and it was not satisfactory.

"Well ... I guess that's it." "Yeah," Bobby said.

"Well, we've got to go home."

"I know." Troubled, Bobby turned and led the way back toward the road:

Only Paul did not contribute. Bringing up the rear of the file, he walked blindly as if still in

his basement trance.

168

7

Again, there was lightning and thunder, and again rain didn't fall. It wanted to, John knew.

In the darkness the air was heavy with waiting moisture and beat, but it just could not rise.

Instead the thunder remained muffled and confused--everywhere at once-and the lightning

was soft and diffused, not sharp and snapping as it should be.

Standing barefoot in his rowboat some distance up Oak Creek from his house, John held

onto overhanging branches and tugged himself forward only in the rumbles. The lightning,

such as it was, he used to search the water ahead.

A fish jumped, and he froze.

Behind him-he silently gave the signal by hand-the men in the other sampan stopped, too.

It was eerie out in the Delta alone. A splash like that could be a fish, a rock thrown to draw

fire and make him give away their position, or a swimming VC. For a long moment, he

remained motionless: his job was to find, make hard contact with and then hold Charlie

down. In the morning he would call in air, and afterward there would be a sweep of the

area. He savored the thought; maybe they'd use napalm. He looked back during the next

dull fl.are of lightning, and thought he saw the rest of his patrol, faceless, scared

nonentities in uniform (he definitely saw war from the management position). He felt

contempt for them; they wanted to Jive, not kill. Well, if they wanted to do the one, they'd

169

have to do the other. He motioned them to follow him. Lightning-pause-move on.

He reached up, trapped a mosquito against his sweaty neck, and smeared it.

Somewhere up in the woods in the darkness was a sentry. If John could get by him, he

could get to the house. They had the girl there, torturing her. He had to get close enough

to get her out or make sure the information died with her (another great plot). Part of the

job. Well, on with it; not far now.

And indeed, this last was somewhat so.

By John's reckoning, he was nearly to the place where the creek was closest to the Picker's

little camp. His musings and daydreams, idle if interesting, had brought him this far but