Текст книги "Nameless"

Автор книги: Sam Starbuck

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I laughed. "Good for him. You stay here. I'll heat something up for us."

"I can – "

"Lucas, for God's sake, stay there. It's not exactly a chore."

"There's canned soup in the pantry," he called after me, as I shut the door to keep the living room's heat in. The kitchen was still cold, but not the icy-frigid it had been when I came in. I put the milk away in the fridge.

There was soup in the pantry, but not much else. I put it on the stove to heat and then poked around curiously for as long as I could justify. There wasn't much to see. When the food was ready I poured it into bowls and returned to the welcome heat of the living room.

"Well," I said. "You're just about out of everything. I'll send the boy up with some food for you – he wants to see you anyway. You're in no condition to be wandering around in the snow."

"Snow?" Lucas asked, looking alarmed.

"Probably this evening. I doubt it'll be very much, but they don't exactly plow your road."

He ate a spoonful of soup, hissing when it burned his tongue.

"Tell him I'll pay commission," he said, when he'd swallowed.

"He'll like that, but you don't have to."

"I want to. I should pay you too – by the time you get back your whole day will be wasted."

"I don't think it's wasted. And even if it were, it's my choice," I said. "Besides, I got to see your workshop. All these masks – they don't make you nervous at all?"

He glanced around. "No. But I made them, so..." another shrug. "Do they scare you?"

"I wouldn't say scare, but I wouldn't sleep in here. There's just...a lot of them. They are beautiful, though," I added, picking up Dottore again and admiring the thin wire glasses and the high cheekbones.

"I don't suppose you want one," Lucas said. I looked over the edge of the mask at him.

"You're really determined to pay me, huh?" I said.

"I just think you should have something."

"Can I have this one?"

He looked at Dottore nervously.

"Wouldn't you rather have Arlecchino, though? I have some good ones..." he stood, still carrying his bowl in one hand, and reached up to a high shelf. The mask he took down had bulging cheeks and an intricate copper-and-white design, with a large knob on the left side of its forehead. "The clever clown," he said with a grin.

"If you'd rather not give me Dottore, that's all right..."

"No...I just thought you might prefer this one," he said hastily. He didn't seem to regret giving up the mask itself – there was no possessiveness in his gaze. It was more that he didn't want to give it to me. But, whatever mask fit Lucas best, I was no doubt destined for the educated fool.

"I'll wrap it for you," he added, taking a piece of cheap white muslin from the workbench and tucking it around the mask carefully, padding the eyes with little folds of the cloth before tying the corners into a thick knot in the concave hollow at the back. While he was working I sat down and began eating, so that when he was finished he could join me without too much discomfort.

There was plenty to look at, as we ate. Long flats of thin leather lay in a pile next to a pot on a complicated-looking hot plate. Nearby, a wooden upright had a wire structure built around it faintly resembling a face, and next to that were several dried lumps of clay that could be assembled into a nose, mouth, forehead, even ears if you squinted the right way. I caught myself glancing back at Lucas as he ate, studying the shape of his nose, the way the lamp cast little triangular shadows below his eyes.

When the wind began to howl in the eaves I realized that I should be heading homeward if I didn't want to become a house-guest for the night. He saw me to the door through the now-warm kitchen.

"I hope you feel better," I said, carefully shouldering the bag with the mask inside it. I put my boots on, the dried mud cracking off here and there and falling onto the mat.

"I'm sure I'll be fine in a few days," he answered. "I'll come to see you soon."

"Well, don't push yourself, get well first. If you start to feel worse, the Culligan farm's closest – head south where the asphalt starts, they'll drive you in to see Dr. Kirchner."

"Thanks, Christopher," he said, and gave me a smile before he closed the door behind me.

Outside it was still cold and the clouds were turning the light blue, making the wet earth look almost black beneath the grass. Snow began to fall while I was still walking, and by the time I reached the edge of the village I was dusted lightly with white flakes. Children were out and running around in it, scraping the thin layers of snow off the pavement and hurling it at each other. The boy was among them, in fact, and I waved him over to where I stood on the opposite side of the street, avoiding the snowball-fight.

"You come from The Pines?" he asked. "How is he?"

"He's been sick. I want you to take him some food tomorrow, when you go up for tutoring. He says he'll pay you."

His chest puffed out proudly. "I'll do it. You think the snow will stick?"

"At least for a day or two. Ask the grocer to fix up a package of food for the man at The Pines and put it on Christopher Dusk's account. Butter, eggs, some canned soup, bread, some vegetables. Tell Lucas he can send the payment back to Dusk Books with you, or settle next time he's in town. Matters of high finance, now. Are you certain you're up to it?"

"Of course I am!" he said. A stray handful of snow fell nearby and he turned to shout an insult at the girl who'd thrown it. "I better run or they'll hit you too. See you tomorrow!" he added as he ran across the street.

I walked on, down into Low Ferry proper, where people were less jubilant and went everywhere with their collars turned up, muttering about the weather.

I was glad to get back to the warmth of my home and unpack Dottore, setting him on the kitchen table upstairs. The way Lucas had handled him made me treat him with a little more respect than I had at first, and I wasn't certain where I wanted to display him yet.

The door clattered in the shop below and a voice called my name – there'd be plenty of time to decide what to do with him later, while I was serving my customers. I yelled back, gave Dottore one last look, and went down the stairs to the shop.

***

I soon had other artistic concerns regarding the decoration of the bookstore as well. Dusk Books actually had two front doors, one on top of the other: a wooden door that opened out and a glass door that opened in. In the summertime I only used the glass door, hooking the wooden one permanently against the outer wall. When the cold weather set in I usually reversed them, unhooking the wooden door so that it swung shut and propping the thin, uninsulated glass one against the inner wall until spring.

The wooden door was faded and peeling a little, as it usually was come autumn, and I'd been waiting for weeks to paint it. I'd wanted to do it before the snow started, but the humidity rolled in so fast that I hadn't had the chance. In wet weather it would dry too slowly and peel too quickly.

After that first flurry of snow, we had a handful of clear and reasonably dry days and Paula started to harass me about the sorry state of my storefront. So, four days after the snow had melted, when the clear weather seemed likely to hold for a little while longer, I went down to the hardware store and bought a gallon of green paint. I dug the old sanding-block, brushes, roller, and primer out of my closet, set them outside with the paint, and then began loading up a rolling shelf with books.

Considering that a new layer of paint on the door in the winter and a touch-up to my store sign in the spring were the extent of my yearly upkeep on Dusk Books, I felt that I had the right to enjoy them a little. Thus, twice-yearly, Low Ferry's main street was treated to my out-of-doors book sale when the paintbrushes came out.

I set out the second rolling shelf as well, with a pot of coffee and some pastries from the cafe as a lure to get people up the walk and onto the porch to investigate the books. I offer good bargains when I'm in a painting mood, and business is usually brisk.

"Good morning, Christopher!" Charles called, as I was fitting sandpaper into the block and deciding where to begin my attack. "Sanding the door?"

I paused and considered his question. He chuckled.

"That's a yes," he said.

"Something like that," I agreed. I knelt and smoothed my hand over the wood at the bottom of the door.

"Going to start from the bottom or the top?"

"Well, that's always the question. Do I sand top-down and save the crouch-work for last, or do I start at the bottom so that I can be stretching by the time I'm done?" I asked. "Have some coffee."

"Don't mind if I do," Charles said, helping himself to a cup and a danish before stepping back. "Just on my way to see Old Harrison about some firewood."

"Oh yes? For the bonfire?" I asked, lying down and squirming onto one shoulder, starting to sand.

"Bottom-going-up, hm? Yes, bonfire – I thought his boys could build it for us this year. Are you coming?"

"Wouldn't miss it," I replied.

"What about the dancing afterwards?"

"Oh, I don't know, it's really for the youngsters, huh?" I grunted, working at a knot in the wood.

"What do you think you are? I don't ask for myself, actually, there are a few women in the village who think it's high time you settled down."

I laughed. "Everyone seems to think that. Who's been asking? No, never mind. I'd rather not know."

"Sandra, actually."

"Sandra! Doesn't she have enough trouble on her plate with Nolan and Michael?"

"I get the feeling she's not asking for herself. Anyhow, it all seems to have calmed down now."

"Oh? Did she pick someone?"

"I don't know," Charles said vaguely, just as Jacob appeared on my walkway, still sporting a spectacular bruise on his face from his car accident.

"Mornin'," he said, stepping around the paint cans and helping himself to a pastry. "Painting the door, Christopher?"

"Yep," I replied, sighing.

"Going to seal it?"

"Think so."

"Before or after?"

"Both," I said, to stop him from giving me advice.

"Shouldn't seal before if you're going to seal after."

Sometimes, the effort is pointless.

"Jacob, just the man I wanted to see," Charles said. "Now, I was wondering what you think of the church buying a new coffee urn. I know we have three, but one of them's gasping it's last..."

They talked and drank coffee, watching as I sanded dirt, mold, and the worst of the cracked and peeling paint off the door. Others came and went as well, while my shoulders cramped and my clothes became covered in a thin film of green powder.

People like to watch other people work. There's something soothing in seeing someone use their hands and muscles to make a thing beautiful. They'll stop to watch someone build a chair or brick a wall or paint a door, and the sale on books gave them a good excuse. They took books and put money in the canister I'd set out for it and hung around criticizing my technique with the sanding block until I'd finished.

The end result was, if not attractive, at least smooth enough to hold a few more coats evenly. Some day that poor sad piece of wood was going to crack from all the weathering and sanding and probably the bugs living in it, but it hadn't yet.

When I'd finished sanding, I wrapped my sore red hands in rags and reached for an empty bucket, pouring equal amounts primer and brand-new paint into it. Even watered down with grayish primer, the first layer looked nice against the previous year's old coat, streaked here and there where the wood showed through from sanding. I put the primer on with a roller, ignoring the door's little fiddly bevels and edges for now.

"How many times today has someone asked you if you're painting a door?"

The question came just before lunch time, as I was sitting on the ground with one leg splayed and the other drawn up against my chest, finishing off the bottom. Lucas, of course.

"Numbers untold," I answered. "Buy a book?"

"I own one already, thanks," he replied. He sat sideways on the steps, his back against the porch roof's support post. I looked at him over my shoulder. His eyes were a little less fever-brilliant and his nose was definitely closer to the right color.

"You're on the mend," I said.

"I am. The boy said the food was put on your account."

"I didn't think you had one," I answered.

"No...that would require speaking to the grocer," he said with a small smile. Two elderly women came up the walk and he drew his legs against his chest tightly, though there was plenty of room for them to pass already. They began to pick over the books on the shelves, glancing at me occasionally. They deposited a few dollars, took some dusty science-fiction novels, and waved as they departed.

"Is there any reason for such...meticulous caution?" I asked, when they were gone. Lucas didn't bother asking what I meant.

"Not what you could call reason," he said with a shrug. "I just don't like talking to people. Does the green help the door at all, or is it only decoration?"

"The paint helps, but it comes in a variety of colors," I replied. "I don't believe it has any particular qualities, green."

"It's unusual," he pointed out.

"It's cheerful. People like it," I said, spilling paint on the dropcloth under the door as I gave the edge one last swipe. I dropped the roller into a bucket of paint thinner, stretched, and stood up. My spine cracked, rolling up from hips to shoulders, satisfyingly loud and solid. The paint at the top was already drying, but it could wait a while before the next coat. "Is it time for lunch yet?"

"More or less." He held up an envelope and offered it to me without standing. He looked tense and uncertain, perched on the edge of the porch, not quite looking at me. "I estimated. If there's any extra, you could open an account for me here," he said, as I counted the money in the envelope.

"I'll find out – I didn't ask," I replied. "This is about right, probably. Come and have lunch, if you want."

"The cafe?" He looked apprehensively at the very crowded cafe across the street.

"No – I have food upstairs," I said. I left the books out but collected the money-tin, setting it on the counter inside. Lucas followed me upstairs, hands stuffed in his pockets.

"This is where you live?" he asked, as I stripped the rags off my hands, running them under the hot water for what good it would do.

"Home sweet home." I nodded at the room beyond the kitchen, which served as both living room and bedroom.

"I like it," he said.

"It works. I don't spend much time here."

"Why not? It's nice."

"It's small," I replied. "I like my store better. Besides, I can't really see people from here unless I look out the window."

"What's so awful about that?"

"I don't like looking down to people. It reminds me of the city. You probably understand that, don't you?"

He leaned against the counter. "I don't think you left the city for the same reasons I did."

"You don't mind looking down."

"I prefer not having to look at all."

I took out a package of turkey, setting it on the counter between us. "Sandwiches?"

"That sounds fine."

"There's bread in the cupboard on your left."

He turned to his right for a moment, then stopped and turned the other direction, finding the bread without too much difficulty.

"There isn't a tomato to be had at the moment, but I have onions if you want them," I said.

"Thanks."

"Slice the cheese?"

"Of course."

I watched his fingers wield the knife more skillfully than most, spread mustard on the bread, pluck shreds of turkey apart and layer them evenly. Two white plates, brown bread, end of an onion slice, the bright yellow tang of cheese. He didn't enter the other room until I did, and he kept his eyes on the table where we sat. He must have been curious, but I can imagine he thought it was rude to look around the single room I lived and slept in.

"So you came here," I said, swallowing a bite of food, "to escape people, then."

"I thought so," he shrugged.

"But you haven't. If anything..."

"Yes." He laughed a little. "All I escaped was anonymity, which wasn't what I wanted at all."

"No more crowds to hide in."

"No. I never really know how familiar to be with anyone here. They all seem to know me much better than I know them. I think they pity me. Or they think I'm weird. That's what the boy says."

"Oh yes?"

"Well, not in so many words. People ask him about me."

"They've asked me too."

"I thought they would."

"I would think it would drive you back to the city."

"Oh, no. It's a small price."

"A small price for what?"

He didn't answer for a while. "Nothing. I mean. It's a lesser evil. I thought I wanted to get away from people – really I wanted to get away from people who knew me, and of course that didn't work. But...well, things change, don't they?"

It occurred to me, quite suddenly, that Lucas was once again hiding something from me. It wasn't my business – it wasn't as though he had made any kind of promise to be truthful to me. Still, it was unnerving. He hid from the rest of the world but the understanding I had of him, and thought he agreed with, was that he never had to hide from me and in return I would never give him reason to. I might scold or reprove him, because friendships can't exist with less. But I would never give him cause to be afraid to speak.

I wondered if Lucas had ever actually had the escape he so desperately wanted – not from people but simply from all of it. Did he want to crawl into a dark place and hide like an animal? Did he want a person who would be his harbor?

I didn't know what he wanted. Most peoples' wants are so transparent and so common that you hardly think about them. Some want fame, some want money, most want love. I couldn't puzzle out Lucas at all, though. Refuge is not something people want, just something they need because their other wants aren't met by the crowded heat of humanity.

"Christopher?" he asked, worriedly. "Did I say something stupid?"

"What? Of course not," I answered. "I'm sorry – the paint fumes, they make me a little dizzy. Is your sandwich all right?"

"It's good, thank you."

"You like it here in the country, don't you?"

"I don't suppose it's really a matter of like or dislike," he answered.

"Isn't it?"

"I hadn't thought about it."

"You can't be too unhappy, if you didn't think about it at all," I prompted. "If you'd hated it, you'd have left by now."

"I like my cottage. I spend most of my time there."

"You don't get lonely?"

He gave me a searching look. "I keep my own company. Do you ever get lonely? You live alone."

"In the middle of Low Ferry. I never have the chance."

"Loneliness isn't necessarily..." he seemed to be groping for words. "Some people are incapable of being alone – you can't blame them for it, it's just the way they are, no different from having big feet or blue eyes. Some people like it too much." He glanced around quickly and pushed his plate away. "Thank you for the sandwich, but I should go. The boy will be expecting me and I have other errands to run."

"Of course," I answered, a little startled by the sudden change in subject. "I'll walk you out."

At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and turned, looking up at me where I stood a few steps above. He was frowning more in thought than in concern.

"I'm not fond of being alone. It's just necessary sometimes," he said. "You're welcome to visit whenever you want."

"I never thought otherwise," I reassured him, as he walked to the front door. "Are you enjoying your book, by the way?"

"Very much, thank you," he said. "It's an education."

"Oh?"

"I'm sorry, I really should go – thanks again," he called from the porch step. As he walked out towards the street I came forward and touched the door. It was dry at the top, only a little tacky at the bottom. Time to start painting again. I wanted to be finished that day, so that it wouldn't be on my mind on Halloween.

I picked up the bucket of paint, found a wide paintbrush without too many bristles missing, and set to work on the soothing, pleasing business of painting my door. I like using a paintbrush more than a roller; there's more weight to it. Besides, it's so much better for the fiddly bevels and edges.

Chapter FIVE

It could not be doubted that Low Ferry was devoutly and not very diversely religious. The one church was the center of many peoples' lives, particularly the older people and the farmers – sometimes it was the latter's only regular social contact with someone outside of their family from week to week. They drove in every Sunday when the roads were good, and when they were flooded out or snowed under they rode in on horseback, stabling the horses in the parish house's spacious garage.

Still, as with so many small towns where farmers have been the bedrock of the economy for generations – especially in Low Ferry, where most of the families had immigrated from Europe in the last two centuries – there were deeper currents below the surface. Christianity sat on the village like the snow and there was a great deal of brown, earthy tradition underneath. As their most recent immigrant I could see it clearly, but I don't know if those born and raised in Low Ferry even knew it was there.

Unlike Chicago, with its spook stories about poisoned candy and very real stories about kids getting hit by cars, there wasn't much to fear on Halloween in Low Ferry. Nobody was even in a car after dark on October thirty-first. The only reason that the church held a Halloween Party every year, really, was because we all needed somewhere to gather. It might as well be under the wide ceiling of the cavernous church basement, close to the cemetery. It gave the adults an excuse to dress up, at any rate.

I planned to dress up myself, that year, in my Dottore mask if nothing else. I didn't really have anything to go with it, but when you're wearing a handmade replica of a seventeenth-century costume prop there's only so much you really need.

As I stepped into the street I ran into Carmen and her boyfriend coming out of the cafe, and joined them for the short walk to the church. Clara, toddling along between them, was dressed up as a kind of elaborate combination of dinosaur and unicorn, some of it already smeared with chocolate.

"She did it herself," Carmen confided. "I asked what she wanted to be, and she said she wanted her dinosaur pajamas and her unicorn hat."

"It's not a bad look," I said, waving to Jacob as he passed. Others were streaming up the street, the families coming from trick-or-treating, the older kids from god-knows-where. The single adults in the village, like myself, exchanged sheepish what-are-we-doing-here looks as we went.

"Aren't you cold?" Carmen asked, pointing to my scarf, wrapped around the mask I carried instead of around my throat.

"It's not so bad out," I answered. "Bracing, that's what it is."

"You sound like Charles."

"May I live to be his age," I intoned, and Carmen laughed.

"Hello Paula!" she called, as the door to the hardware store opened and Paula emerged. She was certainly...shiny, in a heatproof silver welding-apron and a headdress made out of bolts and needle-nosed pliers. "What are you?"

"The spirit of industry," Paula replied. "You?"

"The parent of a unicorn-saur," Carmen said.

"Christopher?" Paula lifted an eyebrow at my clothes – plain black denims and a black jacket. "Johnny Cash?"

"I haven't put mine on yet," I said.

"Fair enough. Be my date tonight?" she asked, offering me her arm.

"Never happier," I replied, and took it as we continued up the street.

The church was dark for the most part, but lights blazed around the back-entrance, down a narrow road that divided the church from the cemetery. Carmen chased after Clara, who was running on ahead, while I stopped to greet a few farmers and say hello to Bert, who owned the grocery store.

"Christopher!" Charles called from the doorway, where he was wrestling one of the coffee urns into submission. "Come inside, son! Aren't you cold?"

"Not much," I answered, but I joined him inside and caught the top of the urn as it began to slide off. I carried it after him down the half-flight of stairs and into the basement. The warm lower-level, below the sanctuary, smelled like dust and stale tea, coffee, pastries, and chafing-dish fuel.

"Care to help me?" he asked, setting the urn down, and I nodded and trailed after him deep into the forbidden depths of the basement, through a couple of unmarked doors and into the kitchen's storeroom. He deposited a tray full of chipped mugs in my hands and picked up another urn.

"Don't know that I told you," he grunted, as he hauled the large cylinder along, "but we've got a new Sweeper this year for the festivities. New Fire Man, too."

"Oh?" I asked, elbowing a door open for him. "Well, don't spoil the surprise. Are you Straw Bear this year?"

"Of course," Charles said. "Here, put the mugs down."

I obediently set the mugs on the counter with my mask on top of them and helped him hold the urn while it filled with water from a high tap. When it was done we eased it back against his shoulder.

"So," he continued, as he carried it out into the larger room where the partygoers were, "you don't look like you're in costume, Christopher."

"Right here," I said, picking up my mask and unwinding the scarf. I turned away from him, pulled it over my face, tied the straps in the back, and turned around – eyes now framed by circles of copper wire, thin nose protruding, bushy eyebrows caught permanently mid-waggle. Charles laughed.

"Oh, that's wonderful," he said. "Did Lucas make it?"

"You know him?" I asked, surprised, and then felt stupid. Of course he knew him – even those who hadn't met Lucas knew at least about the peculiar recluse at The Pines.

"Sure. He was up here just last week, asking me about the Straw Bear."

"Really," I said, intrigued. "He showed you his masks, I guess."

"A few. He said he had more." Charles was staring almost disconcertingly at my mask. "He's very...deft, I guess you could say. It looks like you."

"What?" I asked, studying my reflection in the big silver urn.

"Well, a little bit. Not the eyebrows, but the face, you know?"

"Huh." I hadn't noticed, but without the glasses perched on Dottore's nose I supposed the narrow, scholarly face would look like mine. "Is Lucas here?"

"Haven't seen him yet, but he'll probably show up. He's been invited, anyway."

Charles set up the water to heat and people began to crowd around us, picking at the trays of food on the table. The children were more concerned with the games that a couple of industrious youngsters were running, where you could win a few pieces of candy or a small toy. The adults wanted coffee to keep them awake.

I felt faintly superior to most of the others there – their masks, if they wore any, were cheap plastic things well below the level of craftsmanship Lucas had put into mine. I got a lot of compliments on it, and a few outright stares.

The children were in much more elaborate outfits than the adults, chasing each other through the room or huddling in groups to plot mischief. I looked around for Lucas but, not seeing him, went to busy myself hopping from group to group, picking up news and redistributing it. All of the players in that season's live-action soap opera – Michael, Nolan, Sandra, Cassie, Nolan's younger sister and one or two other minor characters – were drifting around the party as well, being watched by the village and watching each other warily.

Around nine o'clock, with night well-fallen and some of the younger children already taken home by their parents, people began to slip outside. The cold evening air was almost a welcome relief after the warmth of the basement, and the sense of anticipation among the adults began to grow. I took off my mask and tied it carefully to a belt-loop, joining them in the cemetery.

In twos and threes, bringing their children with them or following them out, the adults began to gather inside the cemetery gates, off to either side of the dirt road that wound around and between the headstones. A group of young teens lounged on the steps of the few mausoleums, some ways off. The children stood at the gates, watchful, either remembering past years or having been told by older siblings what was about to happen. In the distance the edge of a forty-acre forest, marking the far boundary of the cemetery, loomed darkly.

Some of the adults had gone missing in the bustle. Charles, for one, and Leon; Jacob's wife as well. I thought perhaps Leon was the new Sweeper, and about time, since the schoolteacher who had done it for years was laid up with lumbago worse than ever and it was time she passed the broom, so to speak.

It occurred to me that Jacob's wife might be the Fire Man this year. Low Ferry wasn't a paragon of gender equality, but the Fire Man needed to be nimble and light. By and large the men of Low Ferry were built on huge broad lines, good for farming but not for the relative acrobatics the Fire Man needed. The part was usually played by a young man or woman. I'd been asked once, my second year in the village, but I'd had to decline.

My speculations were cut short as the Sweeper appeared, hooting and coughing his way down from the main road. It was certainly Leon, dressed in layers of burlap tied on with bits of yarn and old worn belts. He swept the loose top layer of dirt on the road with his broom, aimlessly, clearing any little remnants of snow to the sides. He shook his head as he came, setting off the little bells tied to the wispy straw wig bound in a topknot and hanging down over his ears. Once inside the gate he moved his broom more vigorously, occasionally shoving a giggling child off the road.

Three or four mounted riders followed him, the horses kicking up mud from the melting snow, ruining the crazy patterns the sweeper left behind him. There was Jacob's wife, along with three young men – one of the Harrison boys and two I couldn't place in the darkness. The riders threw sticks into the crowds for people to catch or scramble after: long poles made of balsa and a few of hollow plastic, not too hard or heavy, hardly dangerous at all. Their horses, decorated with ribbons and more bells, stomped and snorted. A few children playfully sword-fought with the sticks or went haring off into the darkness, already looking for the Straw Bear. Eventually the adults herded them into a group that trailed loosely down the road after the riders.