telephone. I’ll take the shotgun and leave you the pistol. Maybe I’ll make it; maybe we’re overestimating the danger and overestimating the range at which the enemy can operate. Anyway, if I do make it I’ll see that you’re rescued. There’ll be state police, several carloads of them with shotguns and tommy guns… If I don’t get through—”
“No,” Miss Talley said firmly. “If you go, we both go, and I do the driving. Or afoot, if you think there’s any advantage to that. But why would there be?”
“It should keep me awake, for one thing. And for another, I can watch upward. As I said before, a heavy bird diving from a sufficient height would probably go right through the roof of a car as light as that, and kill whichever one of us it landed on. But your going with me wasn’t the alternative to my first suggestion. I don’t know whether the alternative is more dangerous, or less.
“It’s simply that I go to sleep, here in this room on the sofa, but that we take the precaution of having you tie me up first. There’s fifty feet of clothesline in the kitchen, so you can do a thorough job of it. First, our idea of what may happen to me if I sleep is only a deduction; we can be wrong. Second, if the enemy does take me over, I’ll be tied up so he’ll be helpless to make me do anything, such as injure you, and also unable to make me kill myself so he’ll be free to take another host. And that would mean it would be safe for you to drive into town and bring help.”
“But—what kind of help, if you’re—”
“We can’t figure that till we see what happens. But if you’re the one who gets to town, there’ll be no hurry. Get your story—and take my statements with you to supplement it—before the highest authority you can reach. It’ll be out of our hands and somebody will have to take over from there. Preferably the F. B. I.~ Phone them first and try to get either Roger Price or Bill Kellerman on the line; they’re both friends of mine and will be more likely to take you seriously. You can remember the names, or do you want me to write them down?”
“Roger Price or Bill Kellerman. I’ll remember. But—how would I know it would be safe for me to drive to town? Unless—well, unless once you go to sleep you wake up and act crazy, try to get out of the ropes or—or something like that?”
“If I do that, you’ll know, of course. If I don’t, you’ll have to take the risk of doing what I did a little while ago. Step out on the porch with the shotgun and—well, see if anything attacks you. If nothing does, you’ll have to take the chance that nothing will. Or—wait, you don’t even have to take the chance. Once I’m tied up, and whether or not I’m still—myself, you can just wait it out until the sheriff shows up sometime tomorrow. That’s safer for you; I should have thought of it first. I’m so sleepy that I’m not thinking clearly any more.”
“All right,” Miss Talley said. “I like that better than letting you try to make it to town alone. Or, for that matter, even both of us trying together.”
“I’ll get the rope then.”
She went out into the kitchen with him and while he got the length of rope, she got a knife to cut it with.
Back in the living room Doc took the pistol from his pocket and put it and the ammunition for it and the shotgun on the mantel. He leaned the shotgun against the wall beside the front door. “Keep all those things out of my reach,” he told her. “The knife too, once you’ve finished using it on the rope. Tie my hands first, behind me, then I’ll lie down for you to tie my ankles.” He turned his back to her and held his hands behind him for her to work on. “Listen, if I do go crazy and try to get out of the ropes, don’t take any chances on what I might do. Hit me on the head with the pistol butt and knock me out. But try not to kill me; if the enemy is in control of me—and he will be if I try to escape—killing me would free him to take other hosts again and you’d be back where you were before. He might even take you over if you shouldn’t be able to stay awake until the sheriff gets here tomorrow.”
Miss Talley was working on the knot. “Are you sure that this isn’t even more dangerous than—than trying to get to town?”
“Of course I’m not sure, but I think so. I’m almost sure that it’s safer for you, and not any more dangerous for me.”
“If you think so, all right. Is that tight enough?”
“Perfect. And you’ve got the knot where I can’t reach it with my fingers. All right, I’ll lie down now. And I can still force myself to stay awake long enough for you to tie my ankles.”
He did, barely. The moment he approved the job she did on his ankles he sighed and closed his eyes. Instantly he was sound asleep.
Miss Talley stood watching him for a few minutes. And then, because she wanted to know, if possible, whether or not the enemy was in Dr. Staunton’s mind but was still letting him sleep or pretend to sleep, she picked up the shotgun and opened the door, looked upward. Something, big and black was coming down, diving at her, but she saw that she had time and that stepping back into the house would be safer than raising the gun and taking a shot that could miss, or fail to deflect even if it killed. She stepped back and closed the door just as something heavy thudded to the porch outside the door.
The thing that thudded had been a buzzard, one of several that had gorged themselves on the dead deer and flapped away to sleep in nearby trees. It was the third of these that the mind thing had used.
The mind thing had been annoyed by the unexpected arrival of the schoolteacher, Miss Talley. He had been aloft at the time he saw the coming Volkswagen, but had quickly crash-landed and killed his host and taken over the nearest bull. He’d charged it through the fence just after the Volkswagen went by, and followed. His first thought had been to charge and wreck the car, but when Staunton had fired the first barrel of the shotgun at him and he realized that the man had aimed low with intent to cripple rather than to kill, he had changed direction and charged so that Staunton had to shoot to kill in order to save his own life.
Then, back in his own body, the tortoise-like shell hidden under the back steps of the house, he had watched and listened to the conversation between the man and the woman; long enough to realize that they knew the futility of their trying to get back to town, or even to a phone, either afoot or in the small car. That, of course, made it unnecessary for him to destroy the car.
He relaxed then and studied them and listened to their conversation, surprised that they had been able to deduce so many things about him, but understanding, after hearing their explanations, how they had been able to do so. It didn’t worry him; there was nothing that they could do about it. He didn’t have to maintain a host in the air; he knew, of course, whenever one of them planned to attempt leaving, and was able to have a bird aloft, usually by the time the door opened.
But then he learned from their conversation that Miss Talley had asked the sheriff to come out. True, she said the sheriff had promised to come tomorrow, but the sheriff could change his mind and come sooner, or send a deputy sooner. And if another car should approach he wanted advance warning so he could deal with the situation. Perhaps it would be better to wreck the car, and kill the occupant if and when he left it, than to let him reach the house alive and reinforce the opposition.
After that, as Staunton or Miss Talley made periodic circuits of the windows of the house, so the mind thing periodically took a flying host aloft to circle high into the sky to scan the road from town and still keep the house under observation, as when out of his own body he could not use his perceptive sense to check on what was going on inside the house. After each flight he had killed the bird by crashing it, and had been instantly back in his shell.
He had been just starting such a flight when Staunton had said he could not possibly stay awake much longer; he knew then it would probably be the last such reconnaisance flight he’d have to make. But because it might be his last, he had circled high to check the road as far as possible. And thus he had not been aware of the final conversation between Staunton and the schoolteacher, or the tying up of Staunton.
So he was surprised, when he was just about ready to crash his buzzard host, to see
But then he was back in his own shell, as Miss Talley was back in the house, and was even more surprised to discover that his potential host, Staunton, was asleep and tied up in rope. That he was asleep was no surprise, but that he was tied up!
It was devilishly clever, and thwarting. Neither of them had thought of, or at least neither of them had mentioned, that idea in any part of their conversation that he had overheard. One of them must have thought of it
