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He had begun to drift off to sleep again when a series of screams sounded faintly from the north; even from a distance Duffycould hear the stark fear in them. Good Lord, he thought, that must be Yount's group. The flying things are over there. He sat up - then shrugged helplessly and lay back down against the branches. What can I do? he thought. It's the middle of the night, the moon is down, and I'm on the other side of the lake. Even if I was still with them I don't think I could do anything against whatever those things are.
In a few minutes the screaming had stopped. The Irishman had another pull at the brandy - and another -and then closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
The next morning Duffy climbed down from his bending, creaking tree while a furious wind from the west flapped his cloak and blew his long hair into his face. When he dropped to the ground, bits of twigs and leaves were whipping through the air like debris dashed before a flood, and the gray clouds twisted in agonized tangles of muscular forms and ragged veils across the sky. Good Jesus, Duffy thought, holding his hat onto his head, I could believe this is the end of the world.
He walked down the road to the lake, leaning into the wind with every step and clutching the collar of his cloak to keep it from whirling away like a furry bat. I wonder, he thought, if I can possibly manipulate the ferry in this weather. I can give it a try, he decided - wondering, at the same time, why he was in such a hurry to get to Vienna. Am I that anxious to see Epiphany? He had for the moment nearly forgotten Yount.
The lake looked like a vast pane of glass across which an invisible army was marching in nailed boots; the wind tossed it into hundreds of individual currents and flecked
it with whitecaps. He glanced down the beach at the ferry platform, dreading the task of hauling the barge back across the lake, and was surprised to see the ferry moored on this side already. I know it wasn't here last night, he thought. Who hauled it back?
He plodded across the littered shore toward the platform, and suddenly noticed the old man standing in the ferry's bow. Although his fluttering hair and beard were as white as bones, he was fully six feet tall, broad shouldered and muscled like a wrestler. In spite of the chilly wind he wore only a loincloth and sandals.
'Two coins to cross,' the old man said, his deep voice effortlessly undercutting the screech of the wind.
Duffy clumped along the platform and stepped carefully into the ferry. 'What kind of coins?' he gasped, fumbling under his cloak. Thank God he's willing to risk a crossing, he thought; I damned well wouldn't, if it were my ferry.
'What do I care?' the ferryman growled. 'Two coins.'
Bless these unworldly backwoods men, Duffy thought, and dropped two sequins into the old man's leathery palm before sitting down on a section of bench somewhat sheltered from the wind by the high gunwale. The old ferrier untied the moorings, then braced his knotted legs below the bulwark and began laboriously pulling in the guide rope, and the flat craft, swinging and bucking in the agitated water like a fish on a leash, began moving away from the dock platform.
Duffystared at the man in amazement, having expected to find, on one shore or the other, oxen turning a wheel. He's doing all the pulling himself, he marvelled. And in a sea like this? His heart will burst in two minutes. 'Let me help you with that,' the Irishman said, getting cautiously to his feet.
'No,' said the ferrier. Stay where you are.' He does
sound tired, Duffy thought as he shrugged and took his seat again, but with a more long-term weariness, in which this effort this morning is no more remarkable than the all-but-worthless coins I gave him.
Duffy glanced ahead across the choppy water, and suddenly remembered the calls and screams he'd heard the night before. I wonder, he thought with something of his boatman's weariness, if those screams across the lake really were Yount's party. I suppose they were. I'd like to think those flying things had nothing to do with me, but I think perhaps old Ludvig was right after all. I was a Jonah to Yount's people.
He looked nervously up at the shredding sky, half fearing to see bat-winged black figures wheeling above. Then it occurred to him that, whatever they had been, they couldn't help being blown away east by this fierce wind. It's as if their presence here itched the earth, he thought, and it's sneezing.
The guide-rope was pulled tight across the water and thrummed like a bass lute string each time the old man clutched it. Duffygripped the rail and held on, still half-expecting the old man to drop dead.
By imperceptible stages, though, the shoreline worked nearer, and eventually the ferry's ragged bow bumped the pilings of the north side dock. Duffy stood up. 'Well, sir,' he said, 'thank you for the extraordinary -'
'Get out of the boat now,' the old man told him.
The Irishman frowned and climbed out. Laconic, these rural types are, he thought.
There was a clearing littered with torn hides and splintered wood and the trampled remains of a campfire, but he could see no bodies. He wasn't sure whether to feel better about that or not.
* * *
Chapter Five
Toward midday the wind died down. It had blown away the cloud cover, and the sunlight began to make Duffy sleepy, so he laid his cloak under a tree and stretched out on it, dozing in the dappled evergreen shade.
He was snapped awake an hour later by a sound that was lately becoming uncomfortably familiar to him: the clang of swords. He got up, rolled his cloak, and padded a few yards deeper into the woods. This, at least, he resolved, is a fight I stay out of.
'Get the bastard!' someone was calling. 'Don't you see him?'
'No,' echoed a reply. 'He was down in that thicket a second ago.'
'Well - Oh Jesus-' Three quick clangs followed, and a gasping cry.
There was silence for a few moments, then the second voice spoke up again. 'Bob? Did you get the hunchback or did he get you?'
There was no answer. It's my guess the hunchback got Bob, Duffy thought with a hard grin.
