just room there on the other side of the hole to spread it out. The ground was lumpy but it made no difference. I fell asleep instantly and did not wake up until the sunlight reached my eyes this morning.
I got up, washed, ate (the rest of last night’s beans), took my bedding back to the cave, and set out for the house. I went the long way round, of course, by the pond and the store so that I could approach along the road as I had left. I did not want him to have any idea as to which direction I was really coming from.
Approaching the house I saw no sign of life or motion. The tent stood in the garden, and the wagon beside it sealed in its green cover. Where was Faro? I thought he would be tied outside but he was not. When I came up to the front garden I stopped, staying in the road, and waited. I planned to go no closer than that.
I did not have long to wait. In only a minute the door opened and Mr Loomis stepped out on to the porch. He had seen me from inside. He came down the steps, limping, holding the rail, and stopped at the bottom.
“I thought you would come back,” he said. Then he added, “I hoped you would.”
For a moment I was stunned, and could not think what to say. He was sorry and wanted to be friends again. Yet I could not forget the horror of that night, and I knew that I would never trust him again.
“No,” I said, “I am not coming back. Not any more. But I thought we should talk.”
“Not come back?” he said. “But why not? Where will you stay?”
It was as before, the time he had held my hand and I had struck him. He acted as if nothing had happened, or as if he had forgotten it. For a moment I thought, maybe, somehow, he does forget the things he has done. But I knew it was not true; he had not forgotten. He was, rather, pretending, like a child who has done something terrible, that it had not happened. Yet there was nothing childlike about him.
I said; “I will find somewhere to stay.”
“But where? This is your house.”
“I would rather not discuss it.”
He shrugged, very unconcerned. “All right. Then why did you come?”
“Because although I can’t stay here any more, I need to stay alive, and so do you.”
“True,” he said. “I intend to stay alive.” He was looking at me curiously, thinking as he talked and not necessarily saying what he was thinking.
“If we are to stay alive,” I said, “there is work that has to be done. There are the crops and the seeds, the garden, the animals.”
He said: “Of course, that’s why I thought you would come back.”
“I’m willing to do those things if I am left alone. I will also bring food and water as you need them. You will have to cook for yourself. There is a cookbook on the kitchen shelf.”
“And you will go away at night. Where?”
“To another part of the valley.”
He was thinking all the time. He glanced down the road in the direction I had come from. Finally he said:
“I have no choice. I can only hope you will change your mind.” He paused. “And act more like an adult and less like a schoolgirl.”
“I will not change my mind.”
He said no more, but turned and went back into the house, closing the door behind him. I went to the barn, trying as I went to guess what he was thinking. He would be making plans, and from our conversation he had learned some things he had not known and needed to know. That I was not going to move back to the house. That I was going to do the work. That I was going to bring him food and water. So he would plan on that basis. But plan what? It is possible that he will just accept what I have offered, stay in the house and leave me alone. Eventually go ahead and build the generator.
But I do not believe that. He was very curious about where I was staying. He asked that repeatedly, though unobtrusively. And he has tied up Faro.
Where had Faro been when we talked? There had been no sight nor sound of him. He must have had him tied up inside the house. Did he think, then, that I might try to untie him—to steal him? (As Edward had stolen the suit.) I remember I did, in fact, think of doing that. Then I had a really sickening thought.
It was that whatever Mr Loomis was planning, at the end of the plan was a picture, and it was of me, tied up like Faro in the house.
I put it out of my mind and milked the cow. She was going dry; there was no doubting that. The calf was almost fully weaned, and I had missed several milkings in a row, which had helped to speed the process up. Though I was careful to get the last drop she gave only about half a gallon. There were assorted milk pails hanging on the barn wall; I poured the milk into two of these, dividing it evenly, and put one of them on the back porch for Mr Loomis. I fed the chickens, gathered the eggs, and divided them, too, four apiece. From the garden I got peas, lettuce, and spinach, and took half and set the rest on the porch. Finally I had to get a burlap feed sack from the barn to put my stuff in, though it barely filled one corner.
In short, I did my morning outdoor work about as usual, and he left me alone, not even coming out on to the back porch. I did have a feeling he was watching me through the kitchen window, though I caught no glimpse of his face.
About noon I went to the store and got him a load of groceries. I ate there, from a tin on the shelf, opening it with one of the tin-openers Mr Klein sold for forty-nine cents. When I carried the groceries back and left them on the porch, there was smoke coming out from the chimney and the milk, and the eggs and vegetables were gone. He was cooking lunch. I made a mental note of two things: if I was going to continue to bring groceries he would have to let me know what he needed; if I was going to bring water he would have to set one of the water cans out when it got empty.
At four o’clock, having run the cultivator between the rows of corn and beans, I stopped work and walked back to the store, on my way to the cave, thinking as I went that for one day, at least, the system had worked. It was unnatural and uneasy, but if it worked again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, perhaps I would become less afraid, the tension would ease, and we could work out a way of sharing the valley, if not amicably, at least bearably. So my hopes were lifted a little. I also thought that if I could get the wall finished I could build a fire after dark and cook a hot meal. I was quite happy.
I stopped at the store to replenish my food supply. Since I had my burlap feed sack already with me I used it as a container, removing the four eggs first. I gathered a dozen tins of assorted meat, vegetables and soup and a bag of flour. I put the eggs in a brown paper bag and added them on top. With the garden stuff I already had that was about all I could carry, since I had to keep one hand free for the milk can. I decided to take a few more items each day, gradually building up my supply.
I deposited these at the cave and hurried on, while it was still light, to finish my fire-wall. The more I looked at the site I had chosen, the better I liked it. For one thing there was plenty of bushes and quite a few trees between it and the house; in fact, I could not see the house at all from there, so I was quite sure that with a little care I could keep the fire quite invisible. I added more rocks, chinking them with dirt and moss. In about half an hour I had a respectable looking small fireplace, its back on the downhill side, about eighteen inches high. Adding the depth of the hole I had dug, that meant that if the flames were smaller than two feet they would not show. I gathered some dry sticks for firewood.
While I waited for darkness I looked down on the house. Mr Loomis had come out again with Faro on the leash and was walking with him, this time not down the road as before but out behind the house. At first I did not understand just what his object was but as I watched it slowly became clear.
When they had walked before on the road, Faro obviously tracking, Mr Loomis had guessed he was following me. Now he was making sure.
I got out the binoculars to see better. As soon as they got behind the house, Faro put his nose to the ground and led the way to the garden—where I had been. Then to the barn—where I had also been. Faro, in other words, has caught on to the game, and Mr Loomis, having watched from the window all day, knows that he has.
Finally Faro led him to the last place I had been before leaving, the barn door where I had put the tractor away after cultivating. Here Mr Loomis stopped. He opened the door, looked in, and then, seemingly as an afterthought, looped Faro’s leash around the door handle. He disappeared into the barn.
He was out of my sight, but it quickly became apparent what he was doing. After perhaps five minutes, I heard the churning metallic sound of the starter, and the sputtering of the engine, muffled because it was inside the barn. A minute later it grew louder, and the rear wheels of the tractor appeared, moving cautiously as he backed it
