A girl stood in the doorway: a girl with thick, short hair like burnished copper, whose big,
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startled eyes were as blue as the sky on a hot summer’s day.
It was Ginny!
I stood there, transfixed, staring at her. The sight of her ripped away the blanket of fog that
had hung over my mind. It was like a blind man suddenly being able to see.
“Oh, Johnny,” she cried. “You’ve come back!”
Then everything seemed to happen at once. Terror jumped into her eyes. Her mouth opened
to scream. I heard the swish of a descending cosh, and then a dazzling white light exploded
inside my head. I groped wildly for her as I began to fall, but she was no longer there. I went
on falling, down and down, out of the present into the past.
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PART THREE
FLASH-BACK
I
A WOMAN screamed, but it wasn’t Ginny.
I lifted a hand that felt as heavy as lead and groped into space, but found nothing. I tried to
sit up, but the effort was too much for me.
The woman suddenly stopped screaming. The only sound I now heard was my own
breathing. Each breath came very lightly as if it were going to be the last.
“Johnny!”
I knew that voice: a voice out of the past; Della’s voice.
My mind groped to remember. I felt again the crushing punch the Kid had given me. I saw
Della again, her black eyes twin explosions as she screamed: “Get up and fight, you quitter!”
Somehow I got my eyes open. The darkness bothered me. There should have been blazing
lights coming down on me from the stadium batteries. I found myself thinking the Kid must
have hit me with a hammer; that maybe he had blinded me. I struggled up in a sitting
position.
“Johnny! Say something! Are you badly hurt?”
Della was bending over me. Beyond her I could see the outlines of trees against the night
sky. Then I remembered the car coming at us like a bat out of hell, heard again the grinding,
crunching noise as it side-swiped us, and felt again the sensation of flying through space.
“I’m all right,” I said. “Let me alone.” I put my hand to my face. It felt wet and sticky.
“What happened?”
“You must get up and help me,” she said, her voice urgent. “I think he’s dead.”
“Dead? Who?”
“Paul! Come on, Johnny, don’t just sit there. Help me!”
“Okay, okay; give me a minute.”
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My head began to pound and ache as I struggled to my knees. I waited a moment or so,
then got to my feet. If she hadn’t steadied me I would have fallen flat on my face.
“Pull yourself together!” she exclaimed, and the hard, impatient note in her voice startled
me. “He’s lying over there. He doesn’t seem to be breathing.”
I staggered over the sandy ground. Each step I took sent a stab of pain through my head,
but I kept on until I reached him. He was lying on his side by the smashed Bentley, his head
resting on his arm, one leg drawn up almost to his chin.
I knelt by his side. It was too dark to see much of him, but when I turned him and he
flopped over on his back, his head remained on his arm. That told me his neck was broken. I
touched his hand, felt his pulse, but it was a waste of time.
