Judy's eyes dropped to the note that she was leaving on her dresser, propped up against the mirror. If all went well she would be back here in a few hours, safely, before anyone else had come into the cabin and read it. But she had to admit to herself there was a pretty good chance that things were not going to go that well.
To Whom It May Concern:
Something very important to me personally has come up, and I am going to have to be away from school for a short time. It may be for only a few hours, or for a couple of days. I am leaving this note here on Tuesday evening.
I intend to call in to the school office within about 48 hours if I'm not back by then, and say that I'm all right. Please do not start any wide search for me before then, as I should be perfectly all right. If I should fail to call in within about two days, then you can search. But I don't think there'll be any problem.
Sorry, but I don't see any better way to do this. If it is felt absolutely necessary to call someone about my being gone, please call my sister, Ms. Kate Keogh, and not my parents. Her number is on file in the office.
This is nothing terrible but it's necessary.
Judy Southerland
The salutation at the start, now that Judy read it over, looked somewhat grim to her, like the opening of a suicide note or something. But she wasn't about to take the time now to do it over. The sense of urgency, of need, grew ever more pressing, and she couldn't afford to let it go untended until she had to run around and scream or something.
She thought the message looked okay otherwise. If she wasn't back before the staff started looking for her they would come into her cabin and find it, and then it would probably be read over the phone almost immediately to Kate and/or Joe. That was all right; they would be able to guess something of what was going on, and when the police were called in, Joe could . . . well, it was too bad, but right now Judy had to leave.
She had money, a couple of hundred bucks, in her pockets, and credit cards. What else did she need? It was hard to say, since she didn't really know where she was going. But money in some form was all you really needed, as a rule.
Judy slipped into her windbreaker, turned out the lights, and went out into the spring night. After a moment's internal debate she left her cabin door unlocked; somehow that seemed to make her departure less serious, more temporary.
The next step, of course, was to arrange a ride of some kind into town. Once she got there . . . well, she would just have to see then where she was called to go.
Walking toward the cabin that served Bill Bird as combination studio and living quarters, Judy saw with a mixture of guilt and relief that the lights were on inside. Bill looked first pleased and then somewhat wary when he saw who was tapping so discreetly at his door.
"Judy. What can I do for you?"
"Something's come up, Bill. I absolutely need to get into town right away, and I wonder if you could give me a lift."
A hesitation. "Oh. Did you check at the office?" There was a prescribed system of signing out, and also one of pooling rides.
"Can I come in a minute?" And once inside the one-room cabin, much like her own, Judy pulled shut the door behind her. A crude female nude, about half life-size, stood under lights. The clay looked wet, and Bill was wiping his hands on a rag. It seemed he must have been working from memory; anyway there was no model in sight. "I'm going to level with you, Bill. There are reasons why I didn't want to do that."
"Oh? Something private?"
"Yes. And the truth is I don't know when I'll be able to get back. I want to—meet someone, in town or near town."
"Oh."
She wished he would stop saying oh. "No, it isn't anything like that. Just someone who desperately needs help. And there's nothing illegal or wrong about it, but at the same time it's very private."
Bill opened his mouth, but failed to utter the anticipated word. Now Judy could almost see the wheels turning over in his head. Abortion appointment? Drug rendezvous? Or a friend of Judy's on a bad trip with some drug, or in some trouble with the law? Or simply running away from home? Bill asked: "Where are you supposed to meet this person?"
"It's not easy to explain. I'm sorry. Look, can you just give me a ride into town? If you don't want to, I'll understand and I'll figure out some other way of getting there. I appreciate that there's some chance of your getting into trouble here if you break the rules." Is this really me, Judy wondered, willing to use someone in this way? She thought that for the first time she could begin to understand how alcoholics, addicts, could be as ruthless as they sometimes were. The craving—dominated.
Bill was looking at her carefully. "It's all right, Judy. I'll give you a ride."
"Thanks, Bill. I mean it. I really do appreciate it, I can't tell you how much."
Waiting for Bill to take care of a few things and grab his coat, getting ready to go out, Judy leaned against the doorframe, groping mentally.
He, the man she sought, had been very recently in a great desert basin which contained a large city and a mass of warm air, almost hot air, fairly heavily polluted air. Names of course never came through the contact, but Judy had no trouble recognizing Phoenix. But Thorn, she perceived now, was there no longer.
. . . he was coming closer, moving almost straight toward her from the southwest. His feet were running, racing at a terrible pace . . . four feet running, and all of them were his . . . this was a mode that she had never experienced before.
"What's wrong, Jude?"
She opened her eyes and pushed away from the doorframe, making herself stand up straight and smile. "Nothing . . . maybe a little headache."
Bill looked doubtful. But he was holding the door open for Judy now, and she went on out. Her own feet trod again the springy needle carpet of the forest path. Two human feet, hers were, in shoes, not like . . . the landscape around him had been momentarily clear to Judy. It had seemed to be bright moonlight there, though from here her merely human eyes could see that tonight's moon was only a dim crescent.
Those distant, running feet were coming closer quickly, loping almost directly toward Santa Fe. It would be hours yet before Judy could meet them. How many hours she could not guess.
They were in Bill's car now, a small Buick several years old, and he was starting the engine. As he turned the key Judy at the last moment knew irrational panic that a great bomb under the hood was going to go off and turn them both to jelly. So strong was the sensation that she had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out. Nothing happened, of course, and now he was driving over the rutted gravel of the parking lot toward the gate, which as usual this early in the evening was standing open. He asked Judy casually: "Where exactly are we going?"
Her conscience would not lie down quietly. "Bill, I don't want to get you into any trouble for doing this. Maybe you'd better not."
"Oh, just driving you to town isn't all that bad. Bending the rules a little, maybe, but . . . oh, hell, look, Judy. You're already in real trouble of some kind. I'd have to be blind not to see that. I don't know if it really has to do with some friend, or if the friend in trouble is you—anyway I can see that you need help. So why don't you just tell me where you have to go? And on the way, tell me what it's all about."