The Night Travellers

2. Jeff

Jeff He was in what was supposed to be a line of advance, though the line had gotten ragged crossing a river, sluggish with mud, the bottom slippery, the fallen logs and vines impeding, clutchingas if with hands. Then it gained firm ground again and straightened, moved a few yards forward, fended around trees. Flashes, sound of firing, cries. Hitting the earth, feeling to see if any at first nonfeelingwas spreading numb and chill, telegraphing that the tear of flesh or splintering of bone had come at last. Not yet. Hard earth had spattered against cheek, neck, and forehead. He raked it off. There was some guy down the line going, "Yiiiii! Jesus fucking got it! Quick, yiii. . . ." Just the mines now. Line forming again, a few more yards of jungle, vines that bit, bugs that drank sweat, but thank God no snakes yet. Two more of the mines touched off, one missing everybody, one more and a foot just gone, medics panting back toward the stream. "You telling me this is sneaking up on them? They'd have to be deaf as Aunt Mamie. . . ." The vines tearing, the screen of desperately deep green. Then it broke, broke off, ended in open space, silence. Before them was a wide glade. Glade? Where did that word come from? He had never used the word, just seen it in books. But there it was before him: a glade. Wide, green, smooth, mellow, a glade in an old land, land lying the way land wanted to be. Peaceful as Sunday afternoon. Quiet. He saw back then, telescoping back in time, the explosions that tore things up, the scarred finger ends, the truncheon smashing sideways into cheek and ear, blotting out the flaring sounds of Chicago streets in '68, back to that one quiet scene once more, like forever 353 2 354 THE N I G H T T R A V E L L E R S returning spring. He was walking again through those people Ethan Marbell had wanted to know more about, the ones starting an experimental colony. "Just go down there and look it over, get to know them, they'll probably be glad to talk to you." And there across the fence the unexpected girl was standing, quiet and curious, natural, like something grown up out of the woods back of her, looking, expecting nothing. He was moving toward her. The line was straightening. At the end on his far right, Lieutenant Bagley signalled them forward. Before them, on the other side of the glade, stood a wall of trees, opaque, as loaded with menace as the mind could make it. They were walking steadily forward. Mary, Jeff thought. Be there. Lieutenant Bagley, in an explosion, turned into a scarlet cloud of blood and fire, marrow and shredded flesh streaking through. Please be there. ...