Go With Me (17 page)

“Morning,” said Whizzer.

“You’re up early,” said Wingate.

“Can’t seem to sleep much anymore,” said Whizzer.

“No,” said Wingate. He waited, watching Whizzer in his cart.

Whizzer looked around the yard where the mist hung in curtains of silver and gold as the sun rose above it.

“Going to burn off all right,” said Whizzer. “Going to be another good one.”

“Very likely.”

Whizzer could hear in the woods around the yard the sudden soft patter of drops falling as the mist condensed on the trees and showered briefly down.

“’Course,” said Whizzer, “it might come on to rain.”

“It might.”

“Yes,” said Whizzer, “it might, at that. Can I buy you a cup of coffee, inside? It’s just made.”

“Was that girl here yesterday, that girl Blackway’s been after?” asked Wingate.

“You mean that girl Blackway’s been after?” Whizzer asked.

“That one.”

“You mean that girl with the long hair?”

“Was she here yesterday?”

“She was,” said Whizzer. “Told us you’d sent her.”

Wingate didn’t reply.

“Told us she’d gone to you because she’s scared of Blackway,” Whizzer said. “You said she was to come here and find Scotty.”

“That’s right.”

“Scotty wasn’t here.”

“I saw Scotty,” Wingate said. “Last night. He said they had some kind of trouble at the Fort yesterday.”

“Trouble?” Whizzer asked.

“Some kind of fight.”

“Trouble at the Fort?” Whizzer said. “Well, sure. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

“No,” said Wingate.“Where did she go when she left here without Scotty?”

“You mean when she left here?”

“Where did she go?”

“Well,” said Whizzer, “I don’t know where they went, exactly. To find Blackway, it looks like. Probably they were going up into the Towns, to the place he has up there.”

“They?”

“She went with Lester and Nate the Great, there.”

“I told her to get Scotty,” said Wingate.

“Scotty wasn’t here.”

“So you said,” Wingate said. “You figured Lester and that boy were up to the business?”

“I thought so,” said Whizzer.“Nate the Great don’t have a lot to say. He don’t look like much, but there’s more to him than you might think. And Les — well, you know Les.”

“I know him,” said Wingate.

“Les knows all the tricks.”

“He does.”

“Come to it, Les’ll go all the way through.”

“He will.”

“Les was willing,” Whizzer said. “So was Nate the Great. Scotty wasn’t here. And the girl said you told her there was nothing you could do to help her.”

“The Towns are out of my district,” said Wingate.

“You could have gone in there if you had to, though,” said Whizzer. “Couldn’t you?”

“What do you think?”

Whizzer nodded.

“She was sitting in her car,” Wingate said. “She was sitting in her car with a little knife like you’d use to cut up an apple. If Blackway came after her, she was going to drive him off with a fruit knife.”

“She’s a pistol,” said Whizzer. “Blackway might have picked on the wrong girl, this time, it looks like.”

Wingate was silent.

“Did you?” asked Whizzer.

“Did I what?”

“Tell her there was nothing you could do to help her.”

“That’s right,” said Wingate.

“Well, then,” said Whizzer, “Somebody ought to done something, it looked like. It wasn’t going to be you.”

“She wanted me to arrest Blackway because she was afraid he meant to hurt her,” said Wingate.

“He did,” said Whizzer.

“Maybe he did,” said Wingate. “I told her I couldn’t arrest somebody for what somebody else thought he meant to do.”

“Sure,” said Whizzer.

“I told her I couldn’t do that,” said Wingate, “and she wouldn’t want to live in a country where I could. That’s a country with no law.”

“Sure,” said Whizzer.

“Would you?”

“What?”

“Want to live in a country with no law?” Wingate said.

“Well, maybe not,” said Whizzer. “But I’ll tell you something else: I wouldn’t mind living in a country with no Blackway.”

“Well,” said Wingate, “you do, it looks like. Don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Whizzer.