As he made his way down the trail, still searching for Manfred, he saw a ‘copter flying low overhead and circling. Maybe they saw where the boy went, he said to himself. Both of them, Jack and Doreen, must have been watching all this time. Halting, he waved his arms at the ‘copter, indicating that he wanted it to land.
The ‘copter dropped cautiously until it rested up the trail from him, in the wide place before the entrance to Dirty Knobby. The door slid aside, and a man stepped out.
“I’m looking for that kid,” Arnie began. And then he saw that it was not Jack Bohlen. It was a man he had never seen before. Good-looking, dark-haired, with wild, emotional eyes, a man who came toward him on a dead run, at the same time waving something that glinted in the sunlight.
“You’re Arnie Kott,” the man called to him in a shrill voice.
“Yeah, so what?” Arnie said.
“You destroyed my field,” the man shrieked at him, and, raising the gun, fired.
The first bullet missed Arnie. Who are you and why are you shooting at me? Arnie Kott wondered, as he groped in his coat for his own gun. He found it, brought it out, fired back at the running man. Then it came to him who this was; this was the feeble little black-market operator who had been trying to horn in. The one we gave that lesson to, Arnie said to himself.
The running man dodged, fell, rolled over, and fired from where he lay. Arnie’s shot had missed him, too. The shot whistled so close to Arnie this time that for a moment he thought he was hit; he put his hand instinctively to his chest. No, he realized, you didn’t get me, you bastard. Raising his pistol, Arnie aimed and prepared to fire once more at the figure.
The world blew up around him. The sun fell from the sky; it dropped into darkness, and with it went Arnie Kott.
After a long time the prone figure stirred. The wild-eyed man crept to his feet cautiously, stood studying Arnie, and then started toward him. As he walked he held his pistol with both hands and aimed it.
A buzzing from above made him peer up. A shadow had swept over him and now a second ‘copter bumped to a landing between him and Arnie. The ‘copter cut the two men off from one another and Arnie Kott could no longer see the miserable little black-market operator. Out of the ‘copter leaped Jack Bohlen. He ran over to Arnie and bent down.
“Get that guy,” Arnie whispered.
“Can’t,” Jack said, and pointed. The black-market operator had taken off; his ‘copter rose above Dirty Knobby, floundered, then lurched forward, cleared the peak, and was gone. “Forget about him. You’re badly shot–think about yourself.”
Arnie whispered, “Don’t worry about it, Jack. Listen to me.” He caught hold of Jack’s shirt and dragged him down so that Jack’s ear was close by. “I’ll tell you a secret,” Arnie said. “Something I’ve discovered. This is another of those schizophrenic worlds. All this goddamn schizophrenic hate and lust and death, it already happened to me once and it couldn’t kill me. First time, it was one of those poisoned arrows in the chest; now this. I’m not worried.” He shut his eyes, struggling to keep himself conscious. “Just dig up that kid, he’s around somewhere. Ask him and he’ll tell you.”
“You’re wrong, Arnie,” Jack said, bending down beside him.
“Wrong how?” He could barely see Bohlen, now; the scene had sunk into twilight, and Jack’s shape was dim and wraith-like.
You can’t fool me, Arnie thought. I know I’m still in Manfred’s mind; pretty soon I’ll wake up and I won’t be shot, I’ll be O.K. again, and I’ll find my way back to my own world where things like this don’t happen. Isn’t that right? He tried to speak but was unable to.
Appearing beside Jack, Doreen Anderton said, “He’s going to die, isn’t he?”
Jack said nothing. He was trying to get Arnie Kott over his shoulder so that he could lug him to the ‘copter.
Just another of those gubble-gubble worlds, Arnie said to himself as he felt Jack lift him. It sure taught me a lesson, too. I won’t do a nutty thing like this again. He tried to explain that, as Jack carried him to the ‘copter. You just did this, he wanted to say. Took me to the hospital at Lewistown to get the arrow out. Don’t you remember?
“There’s no chance,” Jack said to Doreen as he set Arnie inside the ‘copter, “of saving him.” He panted for breath as he seated himself at the controls.
Sure there is, Arnie thought with indignation. What’s the matter with you, aren’t you trying? Better try, goddamn you. He made an attempt to speak, to tell Jack that, but he could not; he could say nothing.
The ‘copter began to rise from the ground, laboring under the weight of the three people.
During the flight back to Lewistown, Arnie Kott died.
Jack Bohlen had Doreen take the controls, and he sat beside the dead man, thinking to himself that Arnie had died still believing he was lost in the dark currents of the Steiner boy’s mind. Maybe it’s for the best, Jack thought. Maybe it made it easier for him, at the last.
The realization that Arnie Kott was dead filled him, to his incredulity, with grief. It doesn’t seem right, he said to himself as he sat by the dead man. It’s too harsh; Arnie didn’t deserve it, for what he did–the things he did were bad but not that bad.
“What was it he was saying to you?” Doreen asked. She seemed to be quite calm, to have taken Arnie’s death in her stride; she piloted the ‘copter with matter-of-fact skill.
Jack said, “He imagined this wasn’t real. That he was blundering about in a schizophrenic fantasy.”
“Poor Arnie,” she said.
“Do you know who that man was who shot him?”
“Some enemy he must have made along the way somewhere.”
They were both silent for a while.
“We should look for Manfred,” Doreen said.
“Yes,” Jack said. But I know where the boy is right now, he said to himself. He’s found some wild Bleekmen there in the mountains, and he’s with them; it’s obvious and certain, and it would have happened sooner or later in any case. He was not worried–he did not care–about Manfred. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, the boy was in a situation to which he might make an adjustment; he might, with the wild Bleekmen, discern a style of living which was genuinely his and not a pallid, tormented reflection of the lives of those around him, beings who were innately different from him and whom he could never resemble, no matter how hard he tried.
Doreen said, “Could Arnie have been right?”
For a moment he did not understand her. And then, when he had made out her meaning, he shook his head. “No.”
“Why was he so sure of it, then?”
Jack said, “I don’t know.” But it had to do with Manfred; Arnie had said so, just before he died.
“In many ways,” Doreen said, “Arnie was shrewd. If he thought that, there must have been some very good reason.”
“He was shrewd,” Jack pointed out, “but he always believed what he wanted to believe.” And, he realized, did whatever he wanted to. And so, at last, had brought about his own death; engineered it somewhere along the pathway of his life.
“What’s going to become of us now?” Doreen said. “Without him? It’s hard for me to imagine it without Arnie . . . do you know what I mean? I think you do. I wish, when we first saw that ‘copter land, we had understood what was going to happen; if only we had gotten down there a few minutes earlier–” She broke off. “No use saying that now.”
“No use at all,” Jack said briefly.
“You know what I think is going to happen to us now?” Doreen said. “We’re going to drift away from each other, you and I. Maybe not right away, maybe not for months or possibly even years. But sooner or later we will, without him.”
He said nothing; he did not try to argue. Perhaps it was so. He was tired of struggling to see ahead to what lay before them all.
“Do you love me still?” Doreen asked. “After what’s happened to us?” She turned toward him to see his face as he answered.
“Yes, naturally I do,” he said.
“So do I,” she said in a low, wan voice. “But I don’t think it’s enough. You have your wife and your son–that’s so much, in the long run. Anyhow, it was worth it; to me, at least. I’ll never be sorry. We’re not responsible for Arnie’s death; we mustn’t feel guilty. He brought it on himself, by what he was up to, there at the end. And we’ll never know exactly what that was. But I know it was something to hurt us.”