He hobbled across the open pasture and saw his daughter lying in the weeds near the fence. He tried to run and fell again. This time he couldn’t get up. In a few minutes, he felt someone lifting him by his armpits. “Good god, Sheriff,” a man said. “You look like you’ve been in a tussle with a bear.”
“Kathy,” Rhodes said. “My daughter. .”
“The girl’s fine,” the man told him. “I’ve got her in my truck. She’s breathing and everything. Just a little tired, I guess.”
“There’s a man in there,” Rhodes said, trying to point to the woods. Then everything went dark again.
The next time Rhodes woke up he was cold. He opened his eyes and saw a blob of orange, which gradually came into focus. It was Mrs. Wilkie’s hair. Then it went away. He heard Mrs. Wilkie’s voice, however. “Nurse, nurse! Come quickly! The sheriff is awake!” Then Mrs. Wilkie was back, and there was a nurse in a white uniform with her.
“It’s cold,” Rhodes said.
“He’s trying to say something,” Mrs. Wilkie said. “His lips are moving!”
“I can tell,” the nurse said.
“Cold,” Rhodes said again. “It’s cold in here.”
“Can you understand him?” Mrs. Wilkie asked. She sounded frantic. Rhodes went to sleep again.
He woke up again. It was dark this time, or at least as dark as they ever let it get in the Clearview General Hospital. There was a light on somewhere around a corner, probably in the bathroom. He was still cold. He had time to wonder why they always kept it so cold in hospitals, and why they always covered you with only a thin sheet, and why the gowns they gave you were so damned skimpy-they didn’t even have any backs in them.
There was a chair at the foot of the bed, and it looked as if there might be someone in it. He thought vaguely that it might be Mrs. Wilkie, though he hoped not. He drifted off.
The room was bright, and there was a doctor standing over him when his eyes opened. The doctor looked as if he might be eighteen years old. Rhodes had first realized that he was slipping over the line into middle age when all new doctors began looking about eighteen to him. He was used to it now. “Kathy?” he asked.
The doctor apparently had no difficulty in understanding him. “Your daughter? She’s fine, nothing but a superficial cut and a slight concussion. She’ll be in to see you in a little while, if you’re up to it.”
“I’m up to it,” Rhodes said.
“You probably are. For a man who came in here looking like he’d been run over by a Mack truck, you’re in pretty good shape. The average man on the street wouldn’t be too happy in your shoes, though.”
“Shoes?”
“Not speaking literally, of course.” The doctor ran his hands over Rhodes’s ribs, which Rhodes realized for the first time were heavily taped. “‘That hurt?”
“No,” Rhodes said.
“It will, later. Five ribs cracked, one of them pretty badly. But you’ll live. Various other contusions, abrasions, and lacerations, too, but nothing serious.”
“How long have I been here?” Rhodes asked.
“About thirty-six hours,” the doctor said. “I’m Doctor Williams. I’m going on my rounds now, but just push the button if you need the nurse. Or I’m sure that one of your female admirers would be glad to get you anything you need.” He turned briskly and left the room. The wide, heavy door sighed shut behind him.
Rhodes lay there, wondering about his female admirers.
He didn’t have to wonder long. Kathy came in and stood looking at him. The hair was shaved back from her forehead, and there was a clean white bandage taped to her head. “I didn’t realize that police work was so exciting,” she said.
“Only sometimes,” Rhodes said. “How do you make this bed work?”
Kathy helped him with the controls and got him into a sitting position. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it might be.
“How’s Johnny?” he asked after he got himself arranged.
Kathy looked at him, then away. She couldn’t seem to find her voice. Finally, she just shook her head. Rhodes could see tears in her eyes.
“I was afraid of that,” he said. “They have any trouble finding him?”
“I. . I think so,” she said. “It took them a while, and one man wandered off and got lost. Then they had to look for him.” She paused. “Johnny was dead when they got there. He’d been dead a long time.”
“I expect there’s been a lot of talk around town.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Kathy said. “I guess if Mrs. Wilkie were to get naked and walk down Main Street, it might make as big a sensation. “
Rhodes almost smiled. “What did Dr. Williams mean about my ‘female admirers’?”
A trace of a smile crept across Kathy’s face. “You do have quite a covey of fans,” she said. “Ivy Daniels has been here four or five times, and so has Mrs. Wilkie. Ivy has been just fine, but Mrs. Wilkie has been driving everyone absolutely crazy. First, she thought you were going to die. That was bad enough. Then she caught on about why Ivy was here, and that was worse. Frankly, I don’t know what they see in you.”
“Me either,” Rhodes said.
“People are really curious about what happened,” Kathy said.
“You tell me.”
“I really don’t know. Johnny came by the house and said he had to drive out to see you in the country. He asked if I wanted to go. Things hadn’t been too good between us lately, and I thought he just wanted to make up. Then you were behind us in his old pickup, and he started yelling about how you were out to railroad him for something he didn’t do and how he wasn’t going to take it. He was really mad. I’d never seen him like that. When he was forcing me across that field, he was practically foaming at the mouth. I think he really wanted to shoot you. And when I tried to stop him, he hit me.” Her hand went to the bandage on her head.
“I’m not sure that he really wanted to shoot me,” Rhodes said, “but I’m glad you stopped him just the same. His temper was his problem, all right. He admitted to me that he beat up Jeanne Clinton.”
“You mean he killed her?” Kathy’s look was incredulous.
“I thought so, yes.”
“Oh,” Kathy said. It was a small sound in the room, but she didn’t add to it.
“I’m sorry, Kathy,” Rhodes said. “I’m sorry he had to die like that.”
“It’s just. . I don’t know,” Kathy said. “He was strange, and he certainly hurt me, but I just can’t believe he’d kill Jeanne. Or anyone.”
“He only said he beat her up. Maybe he didn’t kill her. He certainly didn’t have any reason to lie. Those hogs had worked him over. He knew he wasn’t going to get out of there.”
Kathy shuddered. “He wasn’t the only one the hogs worked over.”
“Yeah. Well, I had a gun.”
“A thirty-eight! Nobody believes that yet! It’s a wonder you’re here at all! I’d think you’d have more sense than to go chasing a man into Big Woods with nothing more than a puny pistol!” Kathy looked ready to cry, so Rhodes decided not to tell her that he hadn’t even had the pistol at first. Maybe later.
“I wonder how Ralph Claymore is taking this?” Rhodes asked.
“Oh! Is all you can think about that election? When it comes out what a hero you are, you won’t have to worry.”
“I’m no hero,” Rhodes said. “In fact, I may have been too quick to accuse Johnny. If I’d thought things through, he might be alive now. I imagine Claymore will love that.”
“And you’ll tell him?”
“Somebody has to tell what happened. Reports have to be filed. The paper will love it.”
“Well, I think you’re a hero. So do some others. Which one would you like to see first?”
“What about the jail?”
“Don’t worry about that. Hack’s called four or five times. He said to tell you that he’s doing a great job and that he might run against you next time if you manage to beat Claymore.”
“That old poop,” Rhodes said, and laughed. He instantly regretted doing so. “Good lord,”‘ he said. “Never make me laugh again.”