above her head. Just as she thought she must die here, utterly alone, she saw two figures a few yards from her, appearing and disappearing in the blinding veils of dust the wind was stirring up. She couldn’t see their faces, so she called to them.
“Who are you?”
Next door, Sadie heard Virginia talking in her sleep. What was the woman dreaming about? she wondered. She fought the temptation to go next door and whisper in the dreamer’s ear, however.
Behind Virginia’s eyelids the dream raged on. Though she called to the strangers in the storm they seemed not to hear her. Rather than be left alone, she forsook the comfort of the tree-which was instantly uprooted and whirled away-and battled through the biting dust to where the strangers stood. As she approached, a sudden lull in the wind revealed them to her. One was male, the other female; both were armed. As she called to them to make herself known they attacked each other, opening fatal wounds in neck and torso.
“Murder!” she shouted as the wind spattered her face with the antagonists’ blood. “For God’s sake, somebody stop them! Murder!”
And suddenly she was awake, her heart beating fit to burst. The dream still flitted behind her eyes. She shook her head to rid herself of the horrid images, then moved groggily to the edge of the bed and stood up. Her head felt so light it might float off like a balloon. She needed some fresh air. Seldom in her life had she felt so strange. It was as though she was losing her slender grip 6n what was real; as though the solid world were slipping through her fingers. She crossed to the outside door. In the bathroom she could hear John speaking aloud-addressing the mirror, no doubt, to refine every detail of his delivery. She stepped out onto the walkway. There was some refreshment to be had out here, but precious little. In one of the rooms at the end of the block a child was crying. As she listened a sharp voice silenced it. For maybe ten seconds the voice was hushed. Then it began again in a higher key. Go on, she told the child, you cry; there’s plenty of reason. She trusted unhappiness in people. More and more it was all she trusted. Sadness was so much more honest than the artificial bonhomie that was all the style these days: that facade of empty-headed optimism that was plastered over the despair that everyone felt in their heart of hearts. The child was expressing that wise panic now, as it cried in the night. She silently applauded its honesty.
IN the bathroom, John Gyer tired of the sight of his own face in the mirror and gave some time over to thought. He put down the toilet lid and sat in silence for several minutes. He could smell his own stale sweat. He needed a shower, and then a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow: Pampa. Meetings, speeches; thousands of hands to be shaken and blessings to be bestowed. Sometimes he felt so tired, and then he’d get to wondering if the Lord couldn’t lighten his burden a little. But that was the Devil talking in his ear, wasn’t it? He knew better than to pay that scurrilous voice much attention. If you listened once, the doubts would get a hold, the way they had of Virginia. Somewhere along the road, while his back had been turned about the Lord’s business, she’d lost her way, and the Old One had found her wandering. He, John Gyer, would have to bring her back to the path of the righteous; make her see the danger her soul was in. There would be tears and complaints; maybe she would be bruised a little. But bruises healed.
He put down his Bible and went down on his knees in the narrow space between the bath and the towel rack and began to pray. He tried to find some benign words, a gentle prayer to ask for the strength to finish his task, and to bring Virginia back to her senses. But mildness had deserted him. It was the vocabulary of Revelations that came back to his lips, unbidden. He Jet the words spill out, even though the fever in him burned brighter with every syllable he spoke.