Covenant lost his balance in the confusion. He tripped, caught something like a thumb or the corner of a chair in his eye, and sprawled under a table.
People yelled and milled around. The sheriff roared orders through the din. Then with one heave of his arm, he knocked away the table over Covenant.
Covenant looked gauntly up from the floor. His bruised eye watered thickly, distorting everything over him. With the back of his hand, he pushed away the tears. Blinking and concentrating fiercely, he made out two men standing above him-the sheriff and his former tablemate.
Swaying slightly on locked knees, the solemn man looked dispassionately down at Covenant. In a smudged and expended voice, he delivered his verdict. “My wife is the finest woman in the world.”
The sheriff pushed the man away, then bent over Covenant, brandishing a face full of teeth. 'That's enough. I'm just looking for something to charge you with, so don't give me any trouble. You hear me? Get up.
Covenant felt too weak to move, and he could not see clearly. But he did not want the kind of help the sheriff might give him. He rolled over and pushed himself up from the floor.
He reached his feet, listing badly to one side; but the sheriff made no move to support him. He braced himself on the back of a chair, and looked defiantly around the hushed spectators. At last, the gin seemed to be affecting him. He pulled himself erect, adjusted his tie with a show of dignity.
“Get going,” the sheriff commanded from his superior height.
But for one more moment Covenant did not move. Though he could not be sure of anything he saw, he stood where he was and gave himself a VSE.
“Get going,” Lytton repeated evenly.
“Don't touch me.” When his VSE was done, Covenant turned and stalked greyly out of the nightclub.
Out in the cool April night, he breathed deeply, steadying himself. The sheriff and his deputy herded him toward a squad car. Its red warning lights flashed balefully. When he was locked into the back seat behind the protective steel grating, the two officers climbed into the front. While the deputy drove away in the direction of Haven Farm, the sheriff spoke through the grating.
'Took us too long to find you, Covenant. The
Millers reported you were trying to hitch a ride, and we figured you were going to try your tricks somewhere. Just couldn't tell where. But it's still my county, and you're walking trouble. There's no law against you-I can't arrest you for what you've done. But it sure was mean. Listen, you. Taking care of this county is my business, and don't you forget it. I don't want to hunt around like this for you. You pull this stunt again, and I'll throw you in the can for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and everything else I can think of. You got that?'
Shame and rage struggled in Covenant, but he could find no way to let them out. He wanted to yell through the grate, It isn't catching! It's not my fault! But his throat was too constricted; he could not release the wail. At last, he could only mumble, “Let me out. I'll walk.”
Sheriff Lytton regarded him closely, then said to the deputy, “All right. We'll let him walk. Maybe he'll have an accident.” Already they were well out of town.
The deputy drove to a halt on the beret, and the sheriff let Covenant out. For a moment, they stood together in the night. The sheriff glared at him as if trying to measure his capacity to do harm. Then Lytton said, “Go home. Stay home.” He got back into the car. It made a loud squealing turn and fled back toward town. An instant later, Covenant sprang into the road and cried after the taillights, “Leper outcast unclean!” They looked as red as blood in the darkness.
His shout did not seem to dent the silence. Before long, he turned back toward Haven Farm, feeling as small as if the few stars in the dense black sky were deriding him. He had ten miles to walk.
The road was deserted. He moved in empty stillness like a hiatus in his surroundings; though he was retreating into open countryside, he could hear no sounds, no night talk of birds or insects. The silence made him feel deaf and alone, vulnerable to the hurrying vultures at his back.
It was a delusion! He raised his protest like a defiance; but even to his ears, it had the hollow ring of despair, composed equally of defeat and stubbornness. Through it, he could hear the girl shouting
Then the road went through a stand of trees which cut out the dim light of the stars. He could not feel the pavement with his feet; he was in danger of missing his way, of falling into a ditch or injuring himself against a tree. He tried to keep up his pace, but the risk was too great, and finally he was reduced to waving his arms before him and testing his footing like a blind man. Until he reached the end of the woods, he moved as if he were wandering lost in a dream, damp with sweat, and cold.
After that, he set a hard pace for himself. He was spurred on by the cries that rushed after him,
In the sanctuary of his house, he turned on all the lights and locked the doors. The organized chastity of his living space surrounded him with its unconsoling dogma. A glance at the kitchen clock told him that the time was just past midnight. A new day, Sunday — a day when other people worshiped. He started some coffee, threw off his jacket, tie, and dress shirt, then carried his steaming cup into the living room. There he took a position on the sofa, adjusted Joan's picture on the coffee table so that it looked straight at him, and braced himself to weather the crisis.
He needed an answer. His resources were spent, and he could not go on the way he was.
The girl's shout, and the raw applause of her audience, and the trucker's outrage, reverberated in him like muffled earth tremors. Suicide loomed in all directions. He was trapped between mad delusion and the oppressive weight of his fellow human beings.
Leper outcast unclean!
He gripped his shoulders and hugged himself to try to still the gasping of his heart.
I can't stand it! Somebody help me!
Suddenly, the phone rang-cut through him as stridently as a curse. Disjointedly, like a loose collection of broken bones, he jumped to his feet. But then he did not move. He lacked the courage to face more hostility, indemnification.
The phone shrilled again.
His breath shuddered in his lungs. Joan seemed to reproach him from behind the glass of the picture frame.
Another ring, as insistent as a fist.
He lurched toward the phone. Snatching up the receiver, he pressed it to his ear to hold it steady.
“Tom?” a faint, sad voice sighed. “Tom-it's Joan. Tom? I hope I didn't wake you. I know it's late, but I had to call. Tom?”
Covenant stood straight and stiff, at attention, with his knees locked to keep him from falling. His jaw worked, but he made no sound. His throat felt swollen shut, clogged with emotions, and his lungs began to hurt for air.
“Tom? Are you there? Hello? Tom? Please say something. I need to talk to you. I've been so lonely. I–I miss you.” He could hear the effort in her voice.
His chest heaved fiercely, as if he were choking. Abruptly he broke through the block in his throat, and took a deep breath that sounded as if he were between sobs. But still he could not force up words.
“Tom! Please! What's happening to you?”
His voice seemed to be caught in a death grip. Desperate to shatter the hold, to answer Joan, cling to her voice, keep her on the line, he picked up the phone and started back toward the sofa-hoping that movement would ease the spasm that clenched him, help him regain control of his muscles.
But be turned the wrong way, wrapping the phone cord around his ankle. As he jerked forward, he tripped and pitched headlong toward the coffee table. His forehead struck the edge of the table squarely. When he hit the floor, he seemed to feel himself bounce.
Instantly, his sight went blank. But he still had the receiver clutched to his ear. During a moment of white stillness, he heard Joan's voice clearly. She was becoming upset, angry.
“Tom, I'm serious. Don't make this any harder for me than it already is. Don't you understand? I want to talk to you. I need you. Say something. Tom. Tom! Damn you, say something!”
