Slowly, Harriet stood, clutching the girder, knees wobbling as she rose. She transferred her grip to the overhead crossbar, and—hand over hand—walked herself down. She could still see that old man with his humped back and his flat, bloodstained face, peering up at her through a wilderness of branches. “Who you belong to?” he’d cried up to her in a hoarse voice. He had used to live in the gray stucco house by the Baptist church, that old man, lived there alone. Now he was dead; and there was only a stump in his front yard where the pecan tree had been. How he had started to hear her emotionless cries (“Help … help …”) floating down from out of nowhere—looking up, down, around and all about, as if a ghost had tapped him on the shoulder!
The angle of the X had grown too shallow to stand in. Harriet sat again, straddling the bars, grasped the bars on the other side. The angle was difficult; there wasn’t much feeling in her hands any more and her heart flip-flopped violently as she swung herself out into open space—arms trembling with fatigue—and around to the other side.…
Safe now. Down she slid, down the lower left crossbar of the X, as if sliding down the banister in her own house. He’d died a terrible death, that old man, and Harriet could scarcely bear to think of it. Robbers had broken into his house, forced him to lie on the floor by his bed and beat him senseless with a baseball bat; by the time his neighbors got worried and came to check on him, he was lying dead in a pool of blood.
She’d come to rest against the opposite girder; the ladder was just beyond. It wasn’t such a tricky stretch, but she was tired and growing careless—and only when she found herself gripping the ladder did a jolt of terror snap through her body, for her foot had slipped, and she’d caught herself only at the last instant. Now it was over, the dangerous moment, before she’d even known it was happening.
She closed her eyes, held on tight until her breathing returned to normal. When she opened them again, it was as if she were suspended from the rope ladder of a hot air balloon. All the earth seemed to spread itself out before her in a panoramic view, like the castle view in her old storybook
But there was no time for daydreaming. The roar of a crop duster—which she took, momentarily, for a car—startled her badly; and she turned and scrambled the rest of the way up the ladder as fast as she could.
————
Danny lay quietly on his back, staring at the ceiling. The light was harsh and sour; he felt weak, as if recovering from a fever, and suddenly he realized that he’d been looking up at the same bar of sunlight for quite some time. Somewhere outside, he heard Curtis singing, some word that sounded like “gumdrop,” over and over again; as he lay there, he gradually became aware of a strange thumping noise, as of a dog scratching itself, on the floor beside his bed.
Danny struggled to his elbows—and recoiled violently at the sight of Farish, who (arms crossed, foot tapping) sat in Eugene’s vacated chair, regarding him with a gluey, deliberative eye. His knee was jittering; his beard was dripping wet around the mouth, as if he had spilled something on himself or else had been drooling and gnawing on his own lips.
A bird—a bluebird or something, sweet little
“
“Come on,” said Danny wearily, and turned his face away, “let me up.”
Farish reared back; and for an instant their dead father blazed up—arms crossed—out of Hell, and glared scornfully from behind Farish’s eyes.
“Shut your mouth,” he hissed, and shoved Danny back on the pillow, “don’t say a word, you listen to
Danny lay in confusion, very still.
“I seen interrogations,” said Farish, “and I seen people doped.
“Don’t get smart with me!” he roared, when he caught Danny looking at him.
