across the driveway leading to the entrance. A hand-lettered sign hanging from the chain read: CLOSED FOR THE SEASON.
That was it, except for a paint-peeling frame building that was combination post office/grocery store/gas station /tavern. Out in front were parked a grimy Ford pick-up and an equally grimy Plymouth some twenty years old.
Holly pulled to a stop at the old-fashioned gas pumps. When no one appeared after a minute, she got out and went into the building. Three men, none of them younger that seventy, sat around — not a pot-bellied stove — but an electric heater. The temperature inside was a stifling 80. Behind a scarred wooden counter a grossly overweight woman with a moustache sat on a stool reading a paperback novel called Love's Raging Heart.
The three men looked up when Holly entered. The woman continued to read. No one spoke.
'Hi,' Holly said finally. 'This is Bear Paw, I hope?'
'Sure is, honey,' said the woman. She marked her spot in the book with a forefinger and looked up. 'What can we do you for?'
'I was wondering if you knew of a clinic around here. Owned by Dr Wayne Pastory.'
One of the men around the heater worked his lips noisily over toothless gums. 'You a friend of his?'
'Not exactly. We sometimes work together. The clinic is around here somewhere?'
Another of the men spoke up. His hands were gnarled and knobbed with arthritis. He kept them lying awkwardly in his lap as though they did not really belong to him. 'What you want to go up there for, anyhow?'
Holly was about to tell the man it was none of his damn business, but brought herself under control. 'I have to see Dr Pastory about something,' she said, as courteously as she could manage.
'You sick?' said the woman.
'I'm a doctor.'
'You don't look like a doctor,' said the third man. He had one eye that appeared to be glass. Cheap glass.
'Well, I am.' Holly began to feel more than a little irritated with these unpleasant rustics.
'If you're sick, you'd do a lot better to go to Doc Simms down in Clarion,' said the man with arthritis. 'Good man, Doc Simms. Been around long enough to know what he's doing. Your Doc, what's his name, Pastorini… '
'Pastory.'
'Whatever. He don't look like he's dry behind the ears yet. Name sounds like a foreigner, besides.'
'Look,' Holly said, putting some authority into her voice, 'I'm in something of a hurry. Could you please tell me where the clinic is?'
'No need to get snippy about it,' said the toothless man. 'You want to go to the doggone clinic, that's your business. We sure ain't stoppin' you.'
'Where is it?' Holly was surprised at the whip-crack in her own voice. The four people stared as though really seeing her for the first time.
The woman finally spoke. 'Go on up the way you're headed about a mile and a half. There's a logging trail turns off to your right. It ain't easy to see if you're not watchin'. Drive up that two, maybe three miles. And there you are.'
They stared at her for another long moment, but no one spoke again.
'Thank you very much,' Holly said. She hurried out of the store, into the car, and headed up the road.
At approximately the time Holly was pulling out of Pinyon on her way to find his clinic, Dr Wayne Pastory was leading Malcolm from his room to a part of the clinic where he had not been before. It was a high-ceilinged room that was bare of decoration. The furniture consisted of two plain wooden chairs. There was one door, and a high-up window that showed nothing but the dark trees outside.
Inside the room was a cage of heavy-gauge steel wire mesh that was backed against one wall. The cage measured about seven feet square, and contained a stretched-canvas cot and a bucket for waste.
Pastory unlocked the door to the cage and guided Malcolm inside. 'I'm sorry to have to lock you up like this, Malcolm, but I have to drive into Clarion for supplies. I shouldn't be gone more than three hours, and I trust you won't be too uncomfortable in that time.'
'Why do I have to be locked in here?' Malcolm said. His mind was still fuzzy from the sleeping drug he'd been given the night before.
'Security, my boy, security,' said Pastory, giving him a little pat on the shoulder. 'It's as much for your own safety as anything else.'
The doctor backed out of the cage, closed the steel-framed door, and snapped a heavy padlock through the hasp. 'If there is anything you absolutely need before I get back, Kruger will be here.' He turned and called toward the open door of the room. 'Kruger!'
The big man entered so quickly that he must have been standing outside listening.
'I want you to stay here with our young friend,' Pastory told him. 'Get him anything he wants within reason. That is, anything that will fit through the mesh. I do not want you to unlock the door except in the gravest emergency. Is that understood?'
'Don't worry, Doctor. I'll watch him good. And I won't let him out.' Kruger's thick lips twitched. His tongue slid out over them.
Pastory stood for a moment looking from one of them to the other, then nodded to himself and left the room, closing the single door behind him. A minute later the sound of an automobile engine could be heard starting outside. Tyres crunched on the dried pine needles that carpeted the roadway. The sound faded as Pastory rolled down the overgrown logging trail toward the county road.
Kruger hitched one of the chairs close to the front of the wire cage and sat down facing Malcolm. He smiled. The fatty tissues around his eyes squeezed them into slits.
'It's just you and me now, freak-boy. All alone. How do you like that?'
Malcolm sat on the cot and did not answer.
'You don't care if I call you freak-boy, do you? 'Cause that's what you are, you know. A freak. A goddamn freak.'
When Malcolm still did not respond, the big man's smile faded. He wiped a calloused hand across his lips. 'The doctor treats you like some kind of a prince, but all you are's a goddamn freak. Oh, I seen what you do when the doctor has you out there on the table. Your face gets all funny and long, kinda. Your fingernails grow. Like a woman's or something. And you get hair on you where hair don't belong. What do you say about that, freak- boy?'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Oh, you don't, don't you? I know how to make you do it, too. I watched the doctor. You want me to make you do it, freak-boy? Want me to turn you into a goddamn freak?'
'Just leave me alone.'
'Just leeeave me alone,' Kruger whined in a mocking falsetto. 'You know, I was Number One around here until you showed up, freak-boy. The doctor used to treat me real nice before you came. He took me out of the bad place and he said I'd never have to worry about anything again. He'd take care of me. And he did, too. But then he found you, and we had to bring you here, and now he don't have time for me any more except to tell me to go fetch this or go empty that. You're the hotshot now, freak-boy. But you know something? It ain't gonna last. One way or another I'm gonna see that it don't last.'
Malcolm felt the anger start way down deep somewhere. 'Why don't you shut your ugly mouth.'
Kruger hitched his chair closer, pleased that he had gotten a reaction. 'Oh-oh, is he going to get mad? Is freak-boy going to get mad? Go ahead, let's see you do those things with your face. Then we'll see who's ugly, freak-boy.'
Malcolm felt the heat rising within him. His hands began to twitch. He forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He closed his eyes and thought of the words Holly Lang had used when they put him into hypnosis. So relaxed. So comfortable. Drifting, drifting. Farther and farther away. Gradually the fire within him cooled. His hands lay quiet in his lap. He felt the waves of relaxation wash over him. Mind and body were once again under control.
'Almost had you goin' there, didn't I freak-boy?' Kruger said. 'Oh, yes, I did all right.'
Malcolm opened his eyes. He looked through and beyond the thick, ugly man. He smiled softly to himself.
