The Names

I was not a happy runner. I did it to stay interested in my body, to stay informed, and to set up clear lines of endeavor, a standard to meet, a limit to stay within. I was just enough of a puritan to think there must be some virtue in rigorous things, although I was careful not to overdo it.I never wore the clothes. The shorts, tank top, high socks. Just running shoes and a lightweight shirt and jeans. I ran disguised as an ordinary person, a walker in the woods.The ground cover was starting to pale in the dryness and heat. I listened to myself breathe, finding a narrative cadence in the sound, a commentary on my progress. I had to break stride crossing gulleys and then push and surge to make it up the inclines. These changes in rhythm were part of my unhappiness. I had to duck under the branches of smaller trees.It was 7:00 a.m. I was on one of the higher trails, near the paved road that curves up to the outdoor theater. Two shots sounded down below. I slowed down but kept moving, my arms still crooked at my waist. I thought I would go to the end of the path, ease into a turn, jog back the other way on the same path, walk down to the street and go home for toast and coffee. A third shot sounded. I dropped my hands to my sides, walking along the path now, looking down through the well-spaced pines. Light fell with particular softness, an amber haze in the trees.I saw dust rising at the end of a long draw down near the path that runs above the street. I was waiting for some mechanism to take control, to tell me what to do. A man came out of the scattered dust, scrambling uphill, trying to run right up the middle of the shallow draw, slipping on the rocks and debris washed down into it or dumped there, newspapers, garbage. I backed away, keeping my eyes on him, backed slowly toward a set of steps that led up to a scenic lookout just off the road. I didn't want to take my eyes off him. The moment I turned he would see me, I thought.He had a pistol in his right hand, gripping it not at the stock but around the trigger-guard and barrel, like something he might throw. I crouched at the base of the steps. He came up over the rise, breathing hard, a medium-sized man, barely twenty, in rolled-up jeans and sandals. When he saw me I stood straight up, I shot up, and then went motionless, fists clenched. He looked at me as though he wanted to ask directions. He leaned away from me, distracted, holding the gun out from his hip, arm bent. Then he ran to the right, hurrying through the brush at the edge of the paved road. I could hear the scratching sound his pants made in contact with the spiny foliage. Then I heard him breathing, running downhill, following the road as it dips around to the north and reaches street level.I went to the edge of the slope. There was a clear line of sight between the lowest branches and the floor of the woods. I saw someone move, a figure close to the ground. I felt a ringing pain at my elbow. I must have banged it on something.I went down the slope, moving from tree to tree, using the trees for whatever cover they provided and to check my rate of descent. I wanted to be conscientious. I felt an unspecified sense of duty. There was a right and wrong to all this and it involved the details of actions and perceptions. The tree bark was rough and furrowed, scaly to the touch.It was David Keller. He tried to raise himself to a sitting position. His back was covered with dust, the shirt, the neck and head. Pine needles clung to the shirt. He was breathing heavily. The sound of men breathing, the human noise, men running in the streets.I spoke his name and moved slowly into his field of vision, edging around, careful not to startle him. He was sitting several yards from the path, among a half dozen fairly large stones, and he was using one of them as a hand grip, arranging himself less painfully. A rust fungus spotted the stones. At first I thought it was blood. The blood was spreading over his left shoulder, dripping down on his wrist and thigh."Two of them," he said."I saw one.”"Where were you?”"Running. Up there.”"Are you all right?”"He ran out the other way.”"Did you get a look at him?”"He wore sandals," I said."They waited too long. They wanted me point-blank. They were trying to be disciplined, I think. They held off, they waited. But I saw him, I saw the gun and I fucking ran right at him. I went right at him. Surprised the hell out of both of us. I went as fast as I could. I just went, I was angry, I was in a rage. I just saw the gun and charged. I think he fired once. That was the one that hit me. I was just about on top of him by the time he squeezed it off. Then the other one steps out and fires. I'm all over the first one, his gun is trapped somewhere under us. The other one was up there about fifteen feet, right by those trees. He fires one more. The first one wriggles out and takes off running. He leaped the ditch and went right off that wall. Lost his gun. It's in the ditch, I think.”Telling it made him breathe harder. He kept licking his lips and then took sweat from the back of his hand, putting the hand to his mouth. Blood dripped on the shiny red trunks."How bad is it?”"Stiff, stiff. Hurts like hell. Is someone coming?" I saw several men standing against the wall of the building across the street, looking up at us. Above them, all up and down the street, there were people on the balconies, in robes and pajamas, watching quietly."I've been expecting this," he said. "The only question was which country, how they'd go about it. It could have been worse, boy. Better believe it.”