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.The news was bad.A huge TNT bomb had been set to go off in a horse-drawn wagon on Wall Street.The explosion blew the horse to pieces and rocked several buildings on the Street, killing the chief clerk of the House of Morgan and sending dozens of clerks, runners, stenographers, and broker's assistants to the hospital.No one had yet taken credit for the bomb, but feeling ran high that it was a Bolshevik plot.And Amanda wasn't in her Greenwich Village studio.Geoff told himself not to panic, not to doubt, but the barbed wire that had got tangled around his heart in the mid-Atlantic seemed to draw tighter.He found a phone and called the house in Westport.He recognized the voice of the Fains' impertinent maid, only it sounded far more cautious now.No, Amanda was not there and yes, in that case she would see if Mr.or Mrs.Fain were available, but no, he shouldn't count on it.Mrs.Fain did come to the phone, near to tears."You've heard about the bombing, then," she began at once, not at all surprised that Geoff was back in the States."This is all so dreadful, more like a novel than real life, or even True Story.And so, so unfair."Geoff murmured some words of consolation and immediately she began to cry."It's not like the horse did anything wrong, or even all those poor people, but at least they can understand what was happening to them, although who can explain such a thing? Pa says I shouldn't carry on so about a dumb animal, but that's just it, you see—the animal didn't understand.Pa says if I have to carry on it should be for Perry, but.but I can't, somehow.It's too horrible.When I think of it my mind wants to turn away.It's easier to cry about the horse."The barbed wire wrapped itself more tightly around Geoff's heart; his chest seemed to be filling up with thick, heavy blood."What—happened to the boy?" he said in a voice shuddering with fear."What do you mean what happened? A bomb blew him up.""But he wasn't killed, he couldn't have been killed.I would have read—""I didn't say he was killed," she cried, horrified."But his head is all wrapped up like a mummy's, and his arm is in a cast, and his poor body is one big black-and-blue mark, and no one can see him except close kin.""How did Amanda take it?" Geoff asked quickly."Amanda?" Mrs.Fain hesitated, then said nervously, "I.don't know.""Well, where is she? How can I get in touch with her?""I don't know.""What about her father? Can he help me?""I.I don't know.""Well, for God's sake—" Immediately he reined himself in."Mrs.Fain," he said in a voice filled with gentle urgency."I think you do know where your daughter is.If she's in any trouble, I want to help her.""No, no, she's not in trouble," Mrs.Fain burst out."The police have already talked to her, but that doesn't mean anything.They talked to me, to Pa, to everyone.They said that's just routine, you know.Routine business.That isn't why she's—she's gone off.It's because her uncle won't let her see Perry.Oh, it's very cruel.Amanda was devastated.She had nothing to do with it, she told me that, but he hasn't trusted her, not since she got arrested.He thinks she's some sort of Communist, he says—whoever they are.If he was my brother—but of course he's Jim's.And now I don't know what Amanda may do.""Tell me where she is, Mrs.Fain," he repeated in a steady voice, wondering whether she could even hear him over his heart's hammering."I don't know, I said! Not—not for sure.But maybe.we have a lodge way up in the Adirondacks, for hunting.No one ever uses it.There's no telephone, no lights.Amanda was only there once, but she was very taken with it.I keep wondering—"Immediately he demanded and got directions.He finished up with something that he hoped sounded soothing."Find her, Geoff," Mrs.Fain pleaded."Her father will never let on, but he's worried sick."Before long Geoff was pressing north along the west side of the Hudson River, following the route of trappers and Indians into New York's still vast wilderness.He'd never traveled upstate before.Even in the dark, even in his tired and distracted condition, he was impressed.The rolling, wooded hills of the southern part of the state became higher and more rugged as he flogged his black Buick Six tourer up yet another incline.Mile after mile rolled out from under him, leaving him limp with frustration and anxiety.It seemed inconceivable to him that Amanda had made the trip alone; he began to feel that he was on a wild-goose chase.Sometime in the middle of the night the road signs began splitting first into two, then three images; he was becoming punchy.Barely awake, he pulled over onto the shoulder and nodded off into a series of short, hallucinatory nightmares.In the last one of the sequence, Amanda was driving her Speedster down a wooded path when suddenly it blew up, leaving nothing but a red-hot forest fire behind.In the dream Geoff tried again and again to penetrate the flames, but he was forced back, his hands painfully burned.He moaned and when he awoke from the sound of his voice he found that his arm had fallen asleep.He climbed down from the car, shook himself free from his aches and stillness, and climbed back in.There were still thirty-five numbing miles to go.When the sun finally came up the odyssey seemed suddenly more bearable.Gone were the looming giants that swayed and hissed in the night.In their place were magnificent pines, birches, hemlocks, cedars, and maples, and the only flames Geoff saw were those of fall foliage.The world through which he drove was rich, majestic, almost serene in its wildness.Here and there a farmer had tried to tame a small patch of it for himself and surrounded his irregular, rocky fields with crisscrossing stone fences.There might be a few Holsteins grazing close by a weathered barn with a tilting silo attached.But by and large this was God's country.No one else had made the effort to share it.Except, perhaps, Amanda.As Geoff made his left turn at the only landmark for miles around—a four-foot-high wooden chicken advertising a local egg farm—he became more and more convinced that Amanda was somewhere near.This kind of terrain was right up her alley: undisciplined; untamable; even a little on the frightening side [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]