Several heads turned as Chase nodded. He looked across at Cheryl, their eyes exchanged a coded message. She knew how much he hated being recognized, but he was stuck with it.
The man raised his voice. "I seen you on TV and read that book you wrote." He had a broad red face, in fiery contrast to his white hair cut so close that the pinkness of his scalp showed through. Next to him sat a frail hollow-cheeked woman of about fifty with lank mousy hair trailing to thin shoulders.
"Want to know something?" The man leaned forward, hairy forearms flat on the table, face thrust out like a challenge. "I'll tell you what I think, fella. I think what you wrote was a load of bullshit. Bull. Shit. You dreamed up the whole goddam thing--every last word."
"Harry, please." The woman spoke down to the table. "Leave the man alone. So it ain't true, so what?"
Her plaintive whine seemed to incense her husband. He blurted out, "All that crap about the United States planning to dump poison in the oceans and the Russkies trying to drown us all." He jabbed a blunt forefinger. "What the hell do you know, you bankrupt Limey?"
Chase said, "You're entitled to your opinion, sir. But not a word of it was invented, I assure you."
"I assure you, I assure you," the man mimicked prissily. The finger stabbed again. "Let me tell
His reasoning was crazy. Too illogical to argue reasonably and sensibly. Chase shrugged and picked up his fork and carried on eating.
"See her--see my wife?" the man suddenly yelled. The circle of quiet had spread along the trestle tables. Heads were inclined like rows of obedient marionettes. "She's forty-four years old and she's dying! Her lungs is rotted and the doctor says she can't take it no more." His face was pulsing redly and his eyes were moist. "You sure as hell started something with that goddamn trash you're peddling."
"Harry, don't," the woman pleaded. "Come on now, please, hush up."
Chase pitied the man in his impotent anger and bewilderment. But what answer could he give? Such ignorance and willful stupidity were beyond all reasoned discussion. In some twisted way the man had acquired the notion that the changes that had taken place over the last ten years were attributable to what Chase had written. By the same argument, Chase supposed, had he never written the book such changes wouldn't have occurred. The Word had been made flesh; created its own reality. Crazy.
"Gavin," Cheryl said under her breath, "let's get out before there's any trouble."
There was a kind of collective gasp and a woman's voice shrieking, "No--no--no!"
Chase ducked and the knife passed inches away from his ear and skittered across the floor. It had been flung by the red-faced man, who was now clambering over the table. Hands reached out to restrain him. He swatted them away, his eyes never leaving Chase's face. "You fuckin' son of a bitch, it was you started this--"
"No, Harry, no," the woman was wailing. "Harry, no, please!"
Chase stood up and moved backward into the aisle. He didn't unfasten his holster flap but rested his hand on it. In the sudden silence the man crouched on the table, eyes wild and bloodshot in the sweating red face. Chase waited, his stomach stiff with tension. The man put one hand across his eyes and then covered it with the other. He curled up, shoulders bowed, and began to shake soundlessly.
Chase wiped his hand on his thigh, feeling a tremor in his fingertips. Three attacks in one day. If he weren't careful he'd really begin to believe he was to blame for this miserable mess.
At his side, Cheryl said softly, "The poor man's deranged."
"The way things are going he won't be alone," Chase said.
15
The crack of the rifle rolled across the valley and was last heard as a distant reverberation among the wrinkled folds of scrub and rock that girdled Mount Grafton like a piece of old brown sackcloth.
"Did you hit it?" Steve Fazioli pushed back his gray Stetson with his thumb and leaned forward, dark hairy forearms draped over the steering wheel of the jeep.
"Naw, the bastard was too quick." Chuck Brant stretched to his full six feet three and looked toward the river. The sun visor shading his eyes held a vivid reflection of the broad sandy riverbed and the shallow, meandering muddy-colored trickle of water. Beyond were the forested slopes of Currant Summit and, farther west, Duckwater Mountain.
