Panic!

There, among the pinnacles of rock, the element-polished stone like slick glass beneath his feet, stumbling, falling now and then, the palms of his hands cut by razor-edged chunks of ancient granite. There, looking over his shoulder, eyes afraid, face coated with dry alkali dust through which flowing sweat has created meandering streams. There, emerging from a profusion of rocks momentarily to cross a shallow wash, churning legs digging up small geysers from the sand, half-blind with the sweat and the constant yellow-white glare of the sun. There, among rocks again, knee lancing painfully off a projection of sandstone, elbow scraping another projection, looking over his shoulder again, tripping again, falling again, getting up again, single thought, single purpose.

The labored gasping of his breath, the raging beat of his heart, the hammering pulse of his blood fill the tiny vacuum in which he moves with nightmarish sound, even though he is surrounded by stillness. His body is a mass of twisted nerve ends and small aches, and his eyes are painful under heat-inflamed lids. How much longer can he keep moving? How much further can the blind panic carry him?

Not long, not far. Less than five minutes has elapsed when he falls again, and this time he cannot seem to regain his feet. He kneels on the rough ground, resting forward on his hands, his head hanging down and his mouth open to drink of the burning air. As he crouches there, animal-like, the urgency begins to suddenly die in him—as it had finally died that night he struck Phyllis; exhaustion has dulled the sharp, bright edge of the panic, and the urge to flight is no longer indomitable within his brain.

He mewls for breath until the pace of his heart decelerates, until the blood ceases throbbing in his temples, his ears. Then he turns his body and looks behind him and sees nothing; there is nothing but the rocks and the heat and the desert vegetation. He allows his weight to fall wearily onto his right hip, but the lambent rays of the sun burn his face, burn his neck, and the stones there in the direct shine are like bits of molten metal. He drags himself a few feet distant, to where an arched and delicately fanned sandstone ledge, like a giant ostrich plume, offers shade; it is cooler there, and the intense glare of light diminishes.

Lennox wipes sweat from his aching eyes, and again looks back the way he has come. Emptiness. He does not know how far he has run, or where he is in relation to the oasis, or how long he has been running. His thoughts are sluggish from the grip of terror, from the heat, and he tries to shape them into coherency.

The first thing he thinks of is his overnight bag.

A fresh tremor of fear spirals through him. He knows exactly what is in that bag, he knows the photograph is there, the photograph of Phyllis and him and what is written across the back—Jesus, why hadn’t he gotten rid of it a long time ago, what was he trying to do to himself keeping it as he had? If the two men, the killers, searched the storeroom they had found the bag, they had found it and—what? They hadn’t seen him running away, had they? They didn’t know anybody was there, or they wouldn’t have killed Perrins as they had—why had they? They hadn’t known he was there, maybe they’d think the bag belonged to some customer, forgotten there, articles were always being left at cafés, weren’t they? Yes, that is what they would think if they searched the storeroom, if they found the bag. He shouldn’t have panicked like that, he shouldn’t have run ...

Well, he’s all right now, he’s in control now, and he doesn’t have anything to—oh Christ, oh sweet Christ, the police, the cops, they’ll come eventually and if the killers didn’t find the bag the cops will, the bag and the photograph and his name and maybe he had left his fingerprints there, they would check and they would find out he was wanted, a fugitive, his bag there and Perrins lying behind the lunch counter, murdered, shot, maybe they would think he had killed him! Maybe they would put that up against him, too, and what if they caught him and he couldn’t make them believe he was innocent ...?

No, no, they won’t catch him, he’ll get away, he’ll get out of this desert, steal a car if he has to, he knows enough about them to be able to hot-wire an ignition. Yes, that’s the answer, that’s the only answer, because he can’t go back, the two killers might still be there, they might have seen him after all and they might be looking for him right now, and even if they were gone the cops might have come, a motorist might have stopped, he can’t go back, he has to keep running, he has to get out.

Think, Lennox, plan your moves, figure out what to do next.