He began to walk again, his shoes now clicking and scraping on sun-dried rock which would always be wet in its many seams from the spray. There were barnacles growing in those cracks, and scattered here and there like shrapnel bursts of bone were the shells the gulls had dropped to get at the soft meat inside.
A moment later he stood upon the naked headland. The seawind struck him full force, lifting his heavy growth of hair back from his forehead. He lifted his face into it, into the harsh-clean salt-smell of the blue animal. The combers, glassy blue-green, moved slowly in, their slopes becoming more pronounced as the bottom shallowed up beneath them, their peaks gaining first a curl of foam, then a curdly topping. Then they crashed suicidally against the rocks as they had since the beginning of time, destroying themselves, destroying an infinitesimal bit of the land at the same time. There was a ramming, coughing boom as water was forced deep into some half-submerged channel of rock that had been carved out over the millennia.
He turned first left, then right, and saw the same thing happening in each direction, as far as he could see... combers, waves, spray, most of all an endless glut of color that took his breath away.
He was at land's end.
He sat down with his feet dangling over the edge, feeling a little overcome. He sat there for half an hour or better. The seabreeze honed his appetite and he rummaged in his pack for lunch. He ate heartily. Thrown spray had turned the legs of his bluejeans black. He felt cleaned out, fresh.
He walked back across the marsh, still so full of his own thoughts that he first supposed the rising scream to be the gulls again. He had even started to look up at the sky before he realized with a nasty jolt of fear that it was a human scream. A warcry.
His eyes jerked downward again and he saw a young boy running across the road toward him, muscular legs pumping. In one hand he held a long butcher knife. He was naked except for underpants and his legs were crisscrossed with bramble welts. Behind him, just coming out of the brush and nettles on the far side of the highway, was a woman. She looked pale, and there were circles of weariness under her eyes.
"Joe! " she called, and then began to run as if it hurt her to do so.
Joe came on, never heeding, his bare feet splashing up thin sheets of marsh water. His entire face was drawn back in a tight and murderous grin. The butcher knife was high over his head, catching the sun.
He's coming to kill me, Larry thought, entirely poleaxed by the idea. This boy... what did I ever do to him?
"Joe! " the woman screamed, this time in a high, weary, despairing voice. Joe ran on, closing the distance.
Larry had time to realize he had left his rifle with his bike, and then the screaming boy was upon him.
As he brought the butcher knife down in a long, sweeping arc, Larry's paralysis broke. He stepped aside and, not even thinking, brought his right foot up and sent the wet yellow workboot it was wearing into the boy's midriff. And what he felt was pity: there was nothing to the kid - he went over like a candlepin. He looked fierce but was no heavyweight.
"Joe!" Nadine called. She tripped over a hummock and fell to her knees, splashing her white blouse with brown mud. "Don't hurt him! He's only a little boy! Please, don't hurt him!" She got to her feet and struggled on.
Joe had fallen flat on his back. He was splayed out like an x, his arms making a v, his open legs making a second, inverted v. Larry took a step forward and tromped on his right wrist, pinning the hand holding the knife to the muddy ground.
"Let go of the sticker, kid."
The boy hissed and then made a grunting, gobbling sound like a turkey. His upper lip drew back from his teeth. His Chinese eyes glared into Larry's. Keeping his foot on the boy's wrist was like standing on a wounded but still vicious snake. He could feel the boy trying to yank his hand free, and never mind if it was at the expense of skin, flesh, or even a broken bone. He jerked into a half-sitting position and tried to bite Larry's leg through the heavy wet denim of his jeans. Larry stepped down even harder on the thin wrist and Joe uttered a cry - not of pain but defiance.
"Let it go, kid."
Joe continued to struggle.
The stalemate would have continued until Joe got the knife free or until Larry broke his wrist if Nadine had not finally arrived, muddy, breathless, and staggering with weariness.
Without looking at Larry she dropped to her knees. "Let it go!" she said quietly but with great firmness. Her face was sweaty but calm. She held it only inches above Joe's contorted, twisting features. He snapped at her like a dog and continued to struggle. Grimly, Larry strove to keep his balance. If the boy got free now, he would probably strike at the woman first.
"Let... it... go!" Nadine said.
The boy growled. Spit leaked between his clenched teeth. There was a smear of mud in the shape of a question mark on his right cheek.