I stopped from time to time to sense the feel of the afternoon, to
drink the air and be healed. In a few minutes I should be within the
forest and hear the little brook giggling to itself as it scurried
over its brown pathway. And then I heard--something--and turned.
The deep and weedy ditch, crowded with high stalks of last year's
goldenrod and fennel, edged all that pathway, draining the entire
field. Crawling snakelike through it he had followed me. And now
here he was, suddenly erect on the path behind me, looking at me
with narrowed eyes under his flat forehead.
I wasn't afraid--at first. Nothing like him had ever crossed my
path, and I stared at him with more of disgust and aversion than
terror.
He was tall and bony, immensely powerful, and his black skin showed
with a grayish shine upon it through the rents in his rags. His
gray-black, horny toes protruded through what once had been shoes,
and a shapeless, colorless felt hat covered his bullet head. His
corded black arms emerged from the torn sleeves of his checked
shirt, and his hairy chest was naked. There came from him an
indescribable reek of tobacco, whisky, filthy clothes, and the
beastlike odor of an unclean body.
Pages:
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214