“How do you mean, «trapped»?”
“I passed a small tin house by the canal and I was almost made so I couldn’t come back here ever again to see you. I don’t know how to explain it to you, there’s no way, I can’t tell you, even
“We won’t then. Better wash up, boy. Suppertime.”
The boy ran.
Perhaps ten minutes later a boat floated down the serene surface of the canal, a tall lank man with black hair poling it along with leisurely drives of his arms. “Evening, Brother LaFarge,” he said, pausing at his task.
“Evening Saul, what’s the word?”
“All kinds of words tonight. You know that fellow named Nomland who lives down the canal in the tin hut?”
LaFarge stiffened. “Yes?”
“You know what sort of rascal he was?”
“Rumor had it he left Earth because he killed a man.”
Saul leaned on his wet pole, gazing at LaFarge. “Remember the name of the man he killed?”
“Gillings, wasn’t it?”
“Right. Gillings. Well, about two hours ago Mr. Nomland came running to town crying about how he had seen Gillings, alive, here on Mars, today, this afternoon! He tried to get the jail to lock him up safe. The jail wouldn’t. So Nomland went home, and twenty minutes ago, as I get the story, blew his brains out with a gun. I just came from there.”
“Well, well,” said LaFarge.
“The darnedest things happen,” said Saul. “Well, good night, LaFarge.”
“Good night.”
The boat drifted on down the serene canal waters.
“Supper’s hot,” called the old woman.
Mr. LaFarge sat down to his supper and, knife in hand, looked over at Tom. “Tom,” he said, “what did you do this afternoon?”
“Nothing,” said Tom, his mouth full. “Why?”
“Just wanted to know.” The old man tucked his napkin in.
At seven that night the old woman wanted to go to town. “Haven’t been there in months,” she said. But Tom desisted. “I’m afraid of the town,” he said. “The people. I don’t want to go there.”
“Such talk for a grown boy,” said Anna. “I won’t listen to it. You’ll come along.
“Anna, if the boy doesn’t want to…” started the old man.
But there was no arguing. She hustled them into the canalboat and they floated up the canal under the evening stars, Tom lying on his back, his eyes closed; asleep or not, there was no telling. The old man looked at him steadily, wondering. Who is this, he thought, in need of love as much as we? Who is he and what is he that, out of loneliness, he comes into the alien camp and assumes the voice and face of memory and stands among us, accepted and happy at last? From what mountain, what cave, what small last race of people remaining on this world when the rockets came from Earth? The old man shook his head. There was no way to know. This, to all purposes, was Tom.
The old man looked at the town ahead and did not like it, but then he returned to thoughts of Tom and Anna again and he thought to himself: Perhaps this is wrong to keep Tom but a little while, when nothing can come of it but trouble and sorrow, but how are we to give up the very thing we’ve wanted, no matter if it stays only a day and is gone, making the emptiness emptier, the dark nights darker, the rainy nights wetter? You might as well force the food from our mouths as take this one from us.
And he looked at the boy slumbering so peacefully at the bottom of the boat. The boy whimpered with some dream. “The people,” he murmured in his sleep. “Changing and changing. The trap.”
“There, there, boy.” LaFarge stroked the boy’s soft curls and Tom ceased.
LaFarge helped wife and son from the boat.
“Here we are!” Anna smiled at all the lights, listening to the music from the drinking houses, the pianos, the phonographs, watching people, arm in arm, striding by in the crowded streets.
“I wish I was home,” said Tom.
“You never talked that way before,” said the mother. “You always liked Saturday nights in town.”
“Stay close to me,” whispered Tom. “I don’t want to get trapped.”
Anna overheard. “Stop talking that way; come along!”
LaFarge noticed that the boy held his hand. LaFarge squeezed it. “I’ll stick with you, Tommy-boy.” He looked at the throngs coming and going and it worried him also. “We won’t stay long.”
“Nonsense, we’ll spend the evening,” said Anna.
They crossed a street, and three drunken men careened into them. There was much confusion, a separation, a wheeling about, and then LaFarge stood stunned.
Tom was gone.
“Where is he?” asked Anna irritably. “Him always running off alone any chance he gets. Tom!” she called.
Mr. LaFarge hurried through the crowd, but Tom was gone.
“He’ll come back; he’ll be at the boat when we leave,” said Anna certainly, steering her husband back toward the motion-picture theater. There was a sudden commotion in the crowd, and a man and woman rushed by LaFarge. He recognized them. Joe Spaulding and his wife. They were gone before he could speak to them.
Looking back anxiously, he purchased the tickets for the theater and allowed his wife to draw him into the unwelcome darkness.
Tom was not at the landing at eleven o’clock. Mrs. LaFarge turned very pale.
“Now, Mother,” said LaFarge, “don’t worry. I’ll find him. Wait here.”
“Hurry back.” Her voice faded into the ripple of the water.
He walked through the night streets, hands in pockets. All about, lights were going out one by one. A few people were still leaning out their windows, for the night was warm, even though the sky still held storm clouds from time to time among the stars. As he walked he recalled the boy’s constant references to being trapped, his fear of crowds and cities. There was no sense in it, thought the old man tiredly. Perhaps the boy was gone forever, perhaps he had never been. LaFarge turned in at a particular alley, watching the numbers.
“Hello there, LaFarge.”
A man sat in his doorway, smoking a pipe.
“Hello, Mike.”
“You and your woman quarrel? You out walking it off?”
“No. Just walking.”
“You look like you lost something. Speaking of lost things,” said Mike, “somebody got found this evening. You know Joe Spaulding? You remember his daughter Lavinia?”
“Yes.” LaFarge was cold. It all seemed a repeated dream, He knew which words would come next.
“Lavinia came home tonight,” said Mike, smoking. “You recall, she was lost on the dead sea bottoms about a month ago? They found what they thought was her body, badly deteriorated, and ever since the Spaulding family’s been no good. Joe went around saying she wasn’t dead, that wasn’t really her body. Guess he was right Tonight Lavinia showed up.”
“Where?” LaFarge felt his breath come swiftly, his heart pounding.
“On Main Street. The Spauldings were buying tickets for a show. And there, all of a sudden, in the crowd, was Lavinia. Must have been quite a scene. She didn’t know them first off. They followed her half down a street and spoke to her. Then she remembered.”
“Did you see her?”
“No, but I heard her singing. Remember how she used to sing «The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond»? I heard
