It was almost noon, and he was standing at the front window, wishing, but not daring, at least to lean his forehead against the pane, when he heard the sound of an approaching car.
He picked up the shotgun and opened the front door, but stood just inside, ready to cover the sheriff, or whoever it was, against attack from whatever direction.
Then the car turned into the yard. A tiny car, a Volkswagen—and Miss Talley was in it, alone.
He made frantic motions waving her away, hoping that if she turned and left quickly.
But she drove on in, not looking toward him because her attention was distracted by the sight of his station wagon and the dead deer—from which buzzards rose lazily and flapped away as the car came near them. She’d shut off her engine before she looked toward the door and saw him.
“Miss Talley!” he called to her. “Turn around and get back to town, fast. Get the state police and—”
It wasn’t any use. He heard hoofbeats—a bull was charging down the road, only a hundred feet away. The Volkswagen was only a dozen feet from Doc, and suddenly he saw a chance, if a dangerous one, to win. If he could wound the bull without killing it, put it out of action with, say, a broken leg so it couldn’t kill itself and free the enemy to take another host.
Calling to Miss Talley to stay in the car, he ran out alongside it and raised the shotgun; if he could judge the distance just right and shoot low, hoping to hit the front legs.
His aim was good, but excitement made him shoot a little too soon. The charge hurt the bull, but didn’t stop it. It bellowed in rage and changed direction, coming straight for him instead of for the Volkswagen. By the time he shot the second barrel it was too close, only ten feet away; the shot had to be fatal, and it was. Because of its momentum it kept coming and he had to step aside; it fell dead just beyond him.
He opened the door of the Volkswagen. “Hurry into the house, Miss Talley. We’ve got a minute’s grace before it can try again, but don’t waste any time.”
He hurried with her. The shotgun was empty, and the extra shells were inside. At the door he turned and looked back and upward. A big bird of some kind, not a buzzard, was circling—but if it was about to attack it was too late. He stepped inside and closed the door.
Quickly, while he was reloading the shotgun, he told her what had happened yesterday and thus far today.
“Oh, Doctor,” she said, “if I’d only insisted that the sheriff—I called him yesterday afternoon and he didn’t seem to believe you were in trouble but he said he’d come out. I couldn’t reach him again until this morning, and then he told me several things had come up, that he hadn’t been able to make it yesterday and wouldn’t be able to until tomorrow. I guess he thought it was just my imagination that anything could be wrong, and he isn’t in any hurry.”
“Tomorrow…” Doc shook his head gloomily. “I’ll never make it—stay awake that long, I mean. And if I’m right that as soon as I go to sleep—I wish you hadn’t come yourself, Miss Talley; now you’re in trouble too.”
“Don’t you think there’s even a chance of our making it into town in my car? With me driving so you can use the gun?”
“A chance in a hundred, Miss Talley. Aside from the fact that there must be cows wherever that bull came from, not to mention more deer in the woods, I’ll bet a really big bird could dive-bomb right through the roof of a light car like that. How soon will you be missed? Will neighbors notice that you don’t get home tonight, if you don’t?”
“Oh, dear, I’m afraid not. Every once in a while I go in to Green Bay to see a show and I have a sister-in-law there who goes with me and I usually stay with her afterwards. So no one will think anything of my not getting home tonight, because my neighbors know that, and won’t worry. Oh, if I’d only thought of calling the state police instead of coming myself—I never thought of them at all.”
Doc Staunton gestured wearily. “Don’t blame yourself for anything, Miss Talley. I made the first mistake—the first two mistakes. I should never have stayed here night before last, after the gray cat killed itself; that made this house, or at least this area, a focus. And yesterday morning, after I learned about Jim Kramer’s death, I should never have come back here just to pack up my possessions. That was the big mistake, the one that caught me.” He sighed.
“Let’s have some coffee. I’ve been drinking it cold, but now that I have someone to talk to, I think I’ll risk a cup of it hot. I’ll even risk sitting down and letting you make it—if you’ll keep talking to me, or vice versa. Maybe we can come up with something. We’ve got to come up with something.”
In the kitchen he compromised by leaning against the wall while she started water boiling for fresh coffee. He did most of the talking, since he had more to tell.
“The alien,” Miss Talley said firmly, the first time he mentioned the enemy. “Doctor, why not admit we’re fighting —or at any rate defending ourselves against—an extraterrestrial intelligence? What else could it be?”
“A mutant human being, one who was born with or has acquired what Charles Fort called a wild talent.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No,” Doc said. “Nor the only other possibility I’ve been able to think of—a demon or devil. But I won’t narrow it down. Until I know for sure, or until I lose, I’m going to call him the enemy. Let’s not worry about nomenclature. Miss Talley. There’s too much else to worry about. First and foremost, what chance have we got, if any? Of course I can hope I’m wrong in thinking the enemy is keeping me—us, rather—boxed in here until I have to go to sleep.”
“Have you had any ideas at all?”
He told her his thought that wounding an animal controlled by the enemy might give them time for a getaway. “But,” he added, “it’s hard to wound a large animal with a shotgun in such a way that it couldn’t attack, or manage to kill itself. You’d have to break a leg to immobilize it.”
“You don’t have a rifle?”
“Only a twenty-two; it’s still in the station wagon, and not worth the risk of trying to get it. It would be if I had long rifle cartridges for it, but I have only shorts; I intended to use it only for target practice. I have a pistol, but I’m not accurate enough with it to take the risk of trying to wound a charging animal without killing it.”
He shook his head wearily. “I think it recognizes the risk of being wounded and that’s why it prefers to use birds. Even if I could shoot one high enough in the air only to wound it with a few pellets, it would already be diving and the fall would kill it… Lord, but I’m sleepy.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Just keep talking, or listening. By the way, I’m on a hunger strike to keep awake, but don’t let that stop you from getting yourself something any time you want. The refrigerator’s been off since yesterday evening, so don’t take a chance on anything in it. But there’s plenty of canned goods.”
The coffee was finished and she poured two cups and brought them to the table. “Thanks, I’m not hungry yet. But perhaps I should make two or three extra pots of coffee.”
“If you wish. But why?”
“Since he managed to shut off your electricity, he just might figure a way to shut off the gas too. And you don’t want to be without coffee, even if both of us will have to drink it cold.”