“Who are you?”
A man stood up and walked near.
Tom could see the gun in his hand.
Then a flashlight played on his face.
“Where you think you’re going?”
“Well, I thought I’d take a walk.
Any law against it?”
“You better walk some other way.”
Tom asked,
“Can’t I even get out of here?”
“Not tonight you can’t.
Want to walk back, or shall I whistle some help an’ take you?”
“Hell,” said Tom, “it ain’t nothin’ to me. If it’s gonna cause a mess, I don’t give a darn.
Sure, I’ll go back.”
The dark figure relaxed.
The flash went off.
“Ya see, it’s for your own good.
Them crazy pickets might get you.”
“What pickets?”
“Them goddamn reds.”
“Oh,” said Tom. “I didn’ know ’bout them.”
“You seen ’em when you come, didn’ you?”
“Well, I seen a bunch a guys, but they was so many cops I didn’ know.
Thought it was a accident.”
“Well, you better git along back.”
“That’s O.K. with me, mister.” He swung about and started back.
He walked quietly along the road a hundred yards, and then he stopped and listened.
The twittering call of a raccoon sounded near the irrigation ditch and, very far away, the angry howl of a tied dog.
Tom sat down beside the road and listened.
He heard the high soft laughter of a night hawk and the stealthy movement of a creeping animal in the stubble.
He inspected the skyline in both directions, dark frames both ways, nothing to show against. Now he stood up and walked slowly to the right of the road, off into the stubble field, and he walked bent down, nearly as low as the haycocks.
He moved slowly and stopped occasionally to listen.
At last he came to the wire fence, five strands of taut barbed wire.
Beside the fence he lay on his back, moved his head under the lowest strand, held the wire up with his hands and slid himself under, pushing against the ground with his feet.
He was about to get up when a group of men walked by on the edge of the highway.
Tom waited until they were far ahead before he stood up and followed them.
He watched the side of the road for tents.
A few automobiles went by.
A stream cut across the fields, and the highway crossed it on a small concrete bridge.
Tom looked over the side of the bridge.
In the bottom of the deep ravine he saw a tent and a lantern was burning inside.
He watched it for a moment, saw the shadows of people against the canvas walls.
Tom climbed a fence and moved down into the ravine through brush and dwarf willows; and in the bottom, beside a tiny stream, he found a trail.
A man sat on a box in front of the tent.
“Evenin’,” Tom said.
“Who are you?”
“Well—I guess, well—I’m jus’ goin’ past.”
“Know anybody here?”
“No.
I tell you I was jus’ goin’ past.”