The crow's eyes seemed to grow larger. They were rimmed with red, he noticed, a darkly rich ruby color. Rainwater dripped and ran, dripped and ran. The crow leaned forward and, very deliberately, tapped on the glass.
The Judge thought: It thinks it's hypnotizing me. And maybe it is, a little. But maybe I'm too old for such things. And suppose... it's silly, of course, but suppose it is him. And suppose I could bring that rifle up in one quick snap motion? It's been four years since I shot any skeet, but I was club champion back in '76 and again in '79, and still pretty good in '86. Not great, no ribbon that year so I gave it up, my pride was in better shape than my eyesight by then, but I was still good enough to place fifth in a field of twenty-two. And that window's a lot closer than skeet-shooting distance. If it was him, could I kill him? Trap his ka - if there is such a thing - inside that dying crow body? Would it be so unfitting if an old geezer could end the whole thing by the undramatic murder of a blackbird in western Idaho?
The crow grinned at him. He was now quite sure it was grinning.
With a sudden lunge the Judge sat up, bringing the Garand up to his shoulder in a quick, sure motion - he did it better than he ever would have dreamed. A kind of terror seemed to seize the crow. Its rain-drenched wings fluttered, spraying drops of water. Its eyes seemed to widen in fear. The Judge heard it utter a strangled caw! and he felt a moment's triumphant certainty: It was the black man, and he had misjudged the Judge, and the price for it would be his miserable life -
"EAT THIS! " the Judge thundered, and squeezed the trigger.
But the trigger would not depress, because he had left the safety on. A moment later the window was empty except for the rain.
The Judge lowered the Garand to his lap, feeling dull and stupid. He told himself it was just a crow after all, a moment's diversion to liven up the evening. And if he had blown out the window and let the rain in, he would have had to go to the botheration of changing rooms. Lucky, really.
But he slept poorly that night, and several times he started awake and stared toward the window, convinced that he heard a ghostly tapping sound there. And if the crow happened to land there again, it wouldn't get away. He left the safety catch off the rifle.
But the crow didn't come back.
The next morning he had driven west again, his arthritis no worse but certainly no better, and at just past eleven he had stopped at a small café for lunch. And as he finished his sandwich and thermos of coffee, he had seen a large black crow flutter down and land on the telephone wire half a block up the street. The Judge watched it, fascinated, the red thermos cup stopped dead halfway between the table and his mouth. It wasn't the same crow, of course not. There must be millions of crows by now, all of them plump and sassy. It was a crow's world now. But all the same, he felt that it was the same crow, and he felt a presentiment of doom, a creeping resignation that it was all over.
He was no longer hungry.
He pushed on. Some days later, at quarter past twelve in the afternoon, now in Oregon and moving west on Highway 86, he drove through the town of Copperfield, not even glancing toward the five-and-dime where Bobby Terry watched him go by, slackjawed with amazement. The Garand was beside him on the seat, the safety still off, a box of ammo beside it. The Judge had decided to shoot any crow he might see.
Just on general principles.
"Faster! Can't you move this f**king thing any faster?"
"You get off my ass, Bobby Terry. Just because you were asleep at the switch is no reason to get on my butt."
Dave Roberts was behind the wheel of the Willys International that had been parked nose-out in the alley beside the five-and-dime. By the time Bobby Terry had gotten Dave awake and up and dressed, the old geezer in the Scout had gotten a ten-minute start on them. The rain was coming down hard, and visibility was poor. Bobby Terry was holding a Winchester across his lap. There was a .45 Colt tucked in his belt.
Dave, who was wearing cowboy boots, jeans, a yellow foul-weather slicker, and nothing else, glanced over at him.
"You keep squeezing the trigger of that rifle and you're going to blow a hole right through your door, Bobby Terry."
"You just catch him," Bobby Terry said. He muttered to himself. "The guts. Got to shoot him in the guts. Dasn't mark the head. Right."
"Stop talkin to yourself. People who talk to theirselves play with theirselves. That's what I think."
"Where is he?" Bobby Terry asked.
"We'll get him. Unless you dreamed the whole thing. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes if you did, brother."
"I didn't. It was that Scout. But what if he turns off?"
"Turns off where?" Dave asked. "There's nothing but farm roads all the way to the Interstate. He couldn't get fifty feet up a one of them without going into the mud up to his fenders, four-wheel drive and all. Relax, Bobby Terry."
Bobby Terry said miserably, "I can't. I keep wonderin how it'd feel to get hung up to dry on some telephone pole out in the desert."