“The town was a scene of wild confusion when McGee came running out of the desert a little after one. He still held Katherine. I saw him look back over his shoulder and duck to the right. A bomb crumped in the sand behind him. McGee was smart enough. He came right into the town, running right over the gun crews.
“At the last moment one of the 75’s made a direct hit on his forearm, breaking it and mangling the flesh. He stamped the crews to death and squatted in the park in the middle of town. The planes buzzed by but they couldn’t unload because they would be killing innocent people. One of them flashed down with fifties blazing, but he stood up suddenly, and smashed at it with his good fist. The plane crashed near the railroad station and McGee caught Katherine before she had a chance to get out of sight.
“Orders were given over a P.A. system for everybody to leave town, but McGee caught onto that. He flattened two cars that sped out the other side of town and they were the only two that tried. It was a stalemate.
“Late in the afternoon he began to look sort of wild and began to sing. His singing broke every window left in town, shattered dishes in cupboards and just about drove all of us mad. He reached up, yanked the tank off the top of a water tower, pulled the lid off of it and drained it. Once again he caught the fleeing Katherine before she could get away. The gal had spunk. She kept trying.
“As soon as it got dark, he stood up, staggering, and went off into the desert. The planes couldn’t find him. He stood at the edge of the mountains and threw big stones back into town. A lot of them are still there because no way has been found to get them out without tearing down a mess of buildings.
“People were buzzing around town all night and new and heavier artillery was brought in. But they didn’t need it. At dawn Katherine came staggering back to town. She was cut and bleeding. Stone deaf, too. Seems that she was too close to him during all the singing. We found him about eight miles from town. He was right on the edge of a pretty deep canyon and after they got enough mechanized equipment up there, they were able to topple him in. It took eight bulldozers working more than twelve hours to cover him with dirt. They had a funeral service for him, too.”
Bud Lide stopped talking, picked up his glass and finished it. I looked at Danny and Joe looked at me and Danny looked at Joe.
“You must be taking it in the leg, Bud,” Joe said laughing.
Bud looked at him curiously. “You guys don’t believe me? Just because the Government kept it from getting in the papers?”
Danny laughed. “Sure, Bud. We believe you. Every word of it.”
At that moment I looked up and saw a tall girl standing beside our table. She looked over at Bud Lide and said, “Here I am, darling.”
His lean face softened. “Hello, Katherine.”
She was a fine looking girl. I figured that the name thing was a coincidence and then I happened to notice the tiny rosette of the hearing aid, the white wire that went up under her dark hair. I felt suddenly cold.
Bud Lide stood up, threw some money on the table and said, “See you later, fellows. I got to run along.”
Maybe Joe had noticed the hearing aid too. He was pale and he licked his lips. He said, “Wait a minute, Bud. What did he die of? What killed off this McGee character?”
Maybe if Bud had answered him it would have been okay. Maybe if Bud had given the answer I wouldn’t be drinking so much these days.
The tall, good-looking girl named Katherine said, “Sunburn.”
