Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

Fighting the nausea, Roback rose to his hands and knees. His head pounded... a sweat that had nothing to do with the oppressive heat poured from him even though he felt cold... there was something very badly wrong with him. And getting worse... beyond any willpower to overcome. Couldn’t carry her, couldn’t drive. He knew that now. If he didn’t get help, they’d both die there under the brutal sun.

And then from deep inside his injured brain, something whispered phone, and he remembered the cellular unit he’d installed in the pickup so he could keep in touch with Shelley even on the road.

With the slow, hesitant, rocking instability of an infant, he crawled to the truck, pulled himself erect, fumbled the phone into his hand, pushed the button and fingered out a number. Blackness as deep as death descending again, all he could do was whisper, “Roback,” over and over until he passed out.

On the hillside from where he’d seen it all begin, wearing a white bandage like a headband, he sat and rested before resuming his unfinished spraying. No work for a week, they’d said, when they’d sent him home after opening his skull. A subdural hemorrhage is nothing to fool around with.

Neither were the aphids and fungi that were celebrating a ten day hiatus from his sprayer.

Chambers had stood beside his bed holding his broad-brimmed hat in both hands, a wisp of a man with ruddy skin pulled tight over a bony face, body lithe under the tailored tan uniform, gray hair cut to a half inch. In twenty years, no one had ever run against him for sheriff.

“The man who took the call didn’t know what the hell was going on,” he said. “To him it sounded like someone saying, ‘Go back, go back,’ which made no sense at all, but he also said, ‘Breaking up like one of them cellular phones.’ Bulb lighted in my head. I remembered us talking about how that cell phone would keep you in touch with Shelley wherever you were, so I put one and two together and slammed out of there.

“When I found you, I couldn’t tell what in the hell had happened. You were out cold. So was Shelley. The big guy was dead in the kitchen. Then I heard the one in the toolshed moaning. When I pulled him out, I figured he couldn’t last very long without help. In the few seconds she’d had at him, the dog turned him into some pretty raw meat, and he was losing blood fast. I’d already called for an ambulance so the guys slapped a couple of pressure bandages on him, but hell, you and Shelley were our first priority. I let him bleed until the second unit came. For my money, the techs did too good a job because he survived, but maybe that was a good thing because then he could tell us all about it.”

Chambers settled his rear end on the windowsill.

“I don’t have to tell you what would have happened to you both if it hadn’t been for that dog. Fred would have left no witnesses. He thought he’d killed you already when he sapped you with that blackjack. Haven’t seen one of those in a long time. Used it on Shelley, too, the son of a bitch. Real warped character, that man. He was using the big guy Con—”

“He looked familiar,” said Roback.

“You probably saw him on TV. What he was an actor in a cop show that bombed after a couple of episodes a few years back. Played a vice squad detective, they tell me. But you know some of these show biz personalities. Push clean living on the screen and go home and snort coke, like the rules don’t apply to them. He should have paid more attention to the part he was playing. Stoked himself up pretty good one night with some controlled substance and thought he was Superman. Tried to fly from a second floor balcony but naturally hit the courtyard below faster than a speeding bullet. Must have thought he was rescuing Lois Lane because he took an actress named Joanie with him. Anyone as lucky as her should have run out and bought a fistful of lottery tickets. She landed on his six three and two hundred pounds of padding. Then Fred came along, figured that he could use someone that size as an intimidator, so they roamed the lonely places of the country leaving blood and tears behind. Car broke down and could we use the phone, ma’am, was only one of their techniques. At last count, they’re wanted in three states for questioning, but those are only the early returns.”

Chambers leaned forward and picked up the water glass. “You’re going to drink this? No?” He drained the glass and refilled it for Roback from the pitcher. “Too bad Shelley didn’t shoot him instead of Con, but there are a lot of people out there who are going to applaud what the dog did to him, maybe even prefer it that way since the dog left him with a lot more scars than our justice system ever will. Anyway, thanks to the dog, modem communications, and medical science, you and Shelley’ll be fine. But if the dog had picked up and run, neither of you would have lived long enough to benefit from the modem communications and medical science. Message of some kind there, I think.”