eating, and Mary started a conversation about the coming season. There were three or four actors from last year they should get in touch with again, people they particularly wanted back. Grofield kept up his part of the conversation and did his best to keep his voice normal and not to glare all the time at the opposite wall. He thought he'd been doing pretty well, when Mary suddenly said, in a matter-of-fact way, 'I don't suppose there's any point to my asking you not to go after him.'
Grofield looked at her in surprise. 'I don't know what to do,' he said. 'I don't want to leave you here alone.'
'I'll go to New York,' she said. 'Remember, June said we could always stay with her if we came to the city. I'll go there and talk to some of the people we want this year.'
'We still don't have the money,' Grofield said.
'You'll get it.' She said it offhand, as though there were no question.
'You don't mind going to New York?'
'Of course not… Alan?'
He couldn't read her face. 'What?'
'Please don't leave tonight,' she said. 'Please don't leave till tomorrow.'
Surprised, he suddenly realized he'd been turning over in his mind various ways to tell her he had to leave right away. As though there were any hurry now. 'There's no hurry,' he said. Abruptly his face changed; he stopped glaring, and uncovered a natural smile. Reaching out to hold her hand, he said, 'I won't leave till you're ready.'
3
Grofield put his left foot into the stirrup and stepped up into the saddle. Holding the reins loosely in his left hand, he looked down at the stableman who'd brought this roan mare out to him, and said, 'You'll tell Mr. Recklow when he comes back from lunch.'
The stableman, a rangy gray-bearded old man who thought he was Gabby Hayes, nodded with a show of exasperation. 'I said I would.'
'What will you tell him?'
'You're here. Your name is Grofield. You're a friend of Arnie Barrow's.'
'That's right.' Grofield looked out at the wooded hills extending away beyond the barns. 'Where should I wait for him?'
'See that lightning-struck elm down there, end of the meadow?'
'I think so.'
'Keep to the left of it, and head up-country. You'll find a waterfall up there.'
'Fine,' Grofield said. He lifted the reins.
The stableman nodded at the mare's head. 'Her name's Gwendolyn.'
'Gwendolyn,' Grofield said.
'You treat her right,' the stableman said, 'she'll treat you right.'
'I'll remember that.' Grofield lifted the reins again, heeled the mare lightly, and she stepped daintily around the sign in front of the barn that read RECKLOW's RIDING ACADEMY –
Gwendolyn turned out to be more spirited than her name, and carried Grofield across the meadow at a fast trot, moving with the eagerness of a puppy let off a leash. Grofield enjoyed her so much he didn't head directly for the waterfall but took her off at an easy lope down a wooded valley spaced with open, sunny fields lush with spring grass. Twice he saw, at a distance, other riders; both times they were moving their mounts at a much more cautious pace than he. East of the Mississippi, horsemanship was becoming a lost art – like cave painting. No wonder Recklow had to supplement the riding academy's income.
When they came to the stream, shallow and rapid over a bed of stones, Gwendolyn expressed a desire to drink. Grofield dismounted and had some of the water himself; it was so cold it made his teeth ache. He grimaced, and remounted. 'That can't be good for you, Gwendolyn. Come along.'
The stream crossed his route from left to right. He turned left, therefore, and followed it uphill, allowing Gwendolyn to travel now at a walk, after her exertions.
The waterfall, when he reached it, was narrow but surprisingly high. He had to leave the stream entirely and make a wide half-circle to get up the slope to the top. When he did, he found an open area of shale on both banks, and no one in sight. He dismounted again, and let the reins trail on the ground, knowing that a well- mannered horse will be trained to stay put with the reins like that. He stood on tan flat rock in sunlight and looked down at the valley below, a green tangle dotted with those open meadows. Now and again he saw riders down there.
It was almost possible here to believe the twentieth century had never existed. Here in western Pennsylvania, less than fifty miles from Harrisburg, he could stand on this bit of high ground and look northward and see exactly what an Indian at this spot would have seen four hundred years ago. No cars, no smoke, no cities.
It was good that he hadn't left last night. Spending the one night with Mary had calmed him, had taken the edge off his rage. He was still as determined as before, but not with the same obsessiveness. A good thing to be rid of, that; it could have made him careless out of haste and impatience.
The waterfall was loud and unceasing. He never heard Recklow coming. He turned his head, and Recklow was just dismounting from a big mottled gray beside which Gwendolyn looked like a donkey.
Recklow was a man in his sixties now, but he was tall and thin and straight, and from a distance he could have been taken for a man of thirty. It was only his face that gave him away, as deeply lined and seamed as a
