First Blood

He walked past them down the right side of the road, thumb out for a ride. His clothes were filmed yellow with dust, his long hair and beard were matted dirty, and all the people driving by took a look at him, and nobody stopped. So why don't you clean up your act? he thought. Shave and get a haircut. Fix up your clothes. You'll get your rides that way. Because. A razor's just one more thing to slow you down, and haircuts waste money you can spend on food, and where would you shave anyhow; you can't sleep in the woods and come out looking like some kind of prince. Then why walk around like this, sleeping in the woods? And with that, his mind moved in a circle and he was back to the war. Think about something else, he told himself. Why not turn around and go? Why come back to this town? It's nothing special. Because, I have a right to decide for myself whether I'll stay in it or not. I won't have somebody decide that for me.

But this cop is friendlier than the rest were. More reasonable. Why bug him? Do what he says.

Just because somebody smiles when he hands me a bag of shit, that doesn't mean I have to take it. I don't give a damn how friendly he is. It's what he does that matters.

But you do look a little rough, as if you might cause trouble. He has a point.

So do I. In fifteen goddamn towns this has happened to me. This is the last. I won't be fucking shoved anymore.

Why not explain that to him, clean yourself up a bit? Or do you want this trouble that's coming? You're hungry for some action, is that it? So you can show him your stuff?

I don't have to explain myself to him or anybody else. After what I've been through, I have a right without explanation.

At least tell him about your medal, what it cost you.

Too late to stop his mind from completing the circle. Once again he returned to the war.

4

Teasle was waiting for him. As soon as he drove past the kid, he had glanced up at his rearview mirror, and there the kid had been, reflected small and clear. But the kid was not moving. He was just standing there at the side of the road where he had last been, watching the cruiser, just standing there, getting smaller, watching the cruiser.

Well, what's the holdup, kid? Teasle had thought. Go on, clear out.

But the kid had not. He had just kept standing there, getting smaller in the mirror, looking toward the cruiser. And then the road into town had sloped sharply down between the cliffs, and Teasle could not see him reflected anymore.

My God, you're planning to come back again, he had suddenly realized, shaking his head and laughing once. You're honestly planning to come back.

He turned right onto a side street and drove a quarterway up a row of gray clapboard houses. He swung into a gravel driveway and backed out and parked so the cruiser was aimed toward the main road he had just left. Then he slumped behind the steering wheel, lighting a cigarette.

The look on the kid's face. He was honest-to-God planning to come back. Teasle could not get over it.

From where he was parked, he could see everything that passed on the main road. The traffic wasn't much, it never was on Monday afternoons: the kid couldn't walk along the far sidewalk and be hidden by the passing cars.

So Teasle watched. The street he was on met the main road in a T. There were cars and trucks going both ways on the main road, a sidewalk on the far side, beyond that the stream which ran along the road and beyond that the old Madison Dance Palace. It had been condemned last month. Teasle remembered when he was in high school how he had worked there Friday and Saturday nights parking cars. Hoagy Carmichael had almost played there once, but the owners hadn't been able to promise him enough money.

Where's the kid?

Maybe he isn't coming. Maybe he really left.

I saw that look on his face. He's coming all right.

Teasle took a deep drag on his cigarette and glanced up at the green-brown mountains lumped close on the horizon. There was a sudden cool wind that smelled of crisp leaves and then it was gone.

'Teasle to station,' he said into the microphone of his car radio. 'Has the mail come in yet?'

As always, Shingleton, the day radioman, was quick to answer, his voice crackling from static. 'Sure has, Chief. I already checked it for you. Nothing from your wife, I'm afraid.'

'What about from a lawyer? Or maybe something from California that she didn't put her name on the outside.'

'I already checked that too, Chief. Sorry. Nothing.'

'Anything important I ought to know about?'

'Just a set of traffic lights that shorted out, but I got the works department over there fixing it.'

'If that's all then, I'll be a few minutes yet coming back.'

This kid was a nuisance, waiting for him. He wanted to get back to the station and phone her. She was gone three weeks now and she had promised to write at the most by today and here she had not. He did not care anymore about keeping his own promise to her not to call, he was going to phone anyway. Maybe she had thought it over and changed her mind.