The Mind Thing Page 16

  He threw out his perceptor sense to refamiliarize himself with what was currently happening—what changes, if any, might have occurred during the days while his mind had been away.

  Mrs. Gross was alone in the house, in the kitchen, at the moment sterilizing some mason jars in preparation for preserving or canning something.

  Nothing had changed in the barnyard or in the barn except that the three cows were no longer in the latter. No doubt they were out in pasture. All was well.

  Mrs. Gross came out of the house—walking right over him as she came down the kitchen steps. With mild curiosity, and since he had nothing else to do, he followed her with his sense of perception. She went around behind the barn, stopping just about at the limit of his ability to follow her. “Jim!” she called out, “Yoo-hoo, Jim!” He heard a voice call back in answer, although it was too far for him to hear the words.

  He remembered now. The Kramer boy, he’d learned from conversations in the Gross house, had been willing, at his father’s suggestion, to come over and work for Mrs. Gross for the rest of the school vacation, or until she had sold the farm and turned it over to the new owner.

  He knew and could picture Jim—with the memories of the cat Jerry, which had been a Kramer cat: a husky young boy about the age of Tommy Hoffman. He’d be a much better host than the aging and frail Mrs. Gross. But of course he wouldn’t be sleeping here.

  “Will you bring in a few ears of the corn, Jim?” Mrs. Gross was calling out. “I’ll cook it for our lunch, huh? And maybe scone cucumbers when you pass the patch.”

  She came around the barn and went back into the house.

  * * *

  Jim Kramer stopped what he was doing, picking beans, and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief as he headed for the edge of the cornfield. He was husky all right, and just Tommy’s age, and had known Tommy, although they hadn’t been really close friends. One way in which they had differed was that Tommy had been interested in farming, would have been content to have spent the rest of his life as a farmer. Jim had bigger ideas. When he’d be graduated in June of next year, he was going to go to college and study engineering. Just what kind he hadn’t fully decided yet. Probably mechanical engineering; chemical engineering, his alternative, would perhaps take him further and lead to bigger money, but he was a natural-born mechanic and more interested in machinery than in chemicals, so it would make more sense for him to study something at which he already had a good start. He could take apart and put together any car or tractor he’d ever had a chance to fiddle with, and after college he’d be able to design cars and other machinery.

  Meanwhile, he didn’t mind farm work and was good at it. He was glad this deal with Mrs. Gross had come along to let him earn some money this summer to add to his college fund. The pay wasn’t generous, but it was adequate. And it was a full-time job while it lasted. At first he’d tried—it had been his father’s idea—to spend only half of each day here, the other half back on his own farm. But after only a day or two it became obvious that, unless the Gross farm was to deteriorate and lose crops, it was a full-time job. His father had seen the point, and agreed.

  He picked half a dozen of the best ears of corn—and then, after considering, two more. He had a healthy appetite and doing outdoor work sharpened it. Mrs. Gross would probably eat only two ears, but he might want six himself. On his way to the farmhouse he also picked half a dozen big cucumbers—more than she’d need, but the extra ones would keep—and came around the barn and into the house with them. He put them down on the kitchen table.

  When he turned to leave, Mrs. Gross said, “Wait, Jim. It’s almost lunchtime; it won’t take me long to cook that corn and everything else’s ready except for cutting up a couple cucumbers. Hardly pay you to go all the way out to those beans and back again. Sit down or lie down and rest a little; you’ve been working hard.”

  “Fine,” he said. “But in that case let me shuck that corn for you first, though. Then maybe I’ll take a short nap in the barn till you call me.”

  “Barn? Why the barn when there’s a nice sofa in the next room? And it’ll be easier for me to call you there than having to go out to the barn.”

  “Well, all right.”

  He shucked the corn for her and then went into the living room and lay down on the sofa, after taking his shoes off so he wouldn’t get it dirty. He wasn’t really tired this early in the day, but a fifteen- or twenty-minute nap would be welcome. He was one of those fortunate people who can go to sleep easily and quickly anywhere at any time and awake fully refreshed after even a ten-minute nap.

  He closed his eyes and slept—and, in his mind, there was sudden pain and sudden but very brief struggle.

  He continued to lie there—but in his brain the mind thing was taking advantage of the rest of the nap period to sort through his memories and readying himself to be, or seem to be, Jim Kramer. For the rest of today. He wouldn’t have to use the frail German hausfrau after all.

  “Ready, Jim,” Mrs. Gross called from the kitchen. “You awake?”

  “Sure,” he called back. “Just a sec.” He swung his feet off the sofa and bent over to put his shoes back on.

  He stood and stretched himself in the doorway to the kitchen. “Mmmm, smells good,” he said.

  “Sit down, sit down. Help yourself while it’s hot.”

  When he had eaten his fill he went back to work. Finishing picking the beans that were ready took most of the afternoon. Tomorrow they’d have to be taken into town to sell to the trucker who’d take them to the cannery. But, the mind thing knew, not by his present host; Jim Kramer would be dead by tomorrow.

  When he had brought the cows in from pasture and milked them, he was through for the day. He went home. The Jim Kramer who ate dinner with his parents that evening was perhaps a little quieter than usual, but otherwise he seemed perfectly normal. The only uncharacteristic thing about him was the way he spent the evening. After the table had been cleared he took all ten volumes of an encyclopedia from the bookcase and started looking through them, reading an article in one volume and then picking another, apparently from some reference or word in the preceding article. His father, walking past the table once, saw him reading under “Electron” and a second time under “Radar.”

  “Thinking about electrical engineering, Jim, instead of mechanical or chemical?” he asked.

  “Just looking up a little on it, Dad,” Jim said over his shoulder. “Electrical engineering or electronics. Electronics is getting more and more important. Just might be the best bet, if I find it makes sense to me.”

  “Could be. Well, you got a year to make up your mind.”

  “Yes, but it will make some difference in what subjects I take my last year in high. And school starts next month, so I better make up my mind before then.”

  Mr. Kramer turned away. “Okay, Jim. Your decision; you know more about it than I do.”

  “Wait a minute, Dad. Can I borrow the truck for a few hours tomorrow morning?”

  “I guess so; I won’t be using it early. But what about working for Mrs. Gross?”

  “That’s okay. With the truck I can work for her and still do an errand of my own at the same time. Got five bushels of beans I got to take in town and sell tomorrow for her. With the pickup I can make it to Green Bay and back in the same time it’d take me to hitch up her horse and wagon and go to Bartlesville. And I’ll get her a better price for them in Green Bay and have a chance to do what I want there.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Just a stop at the library to borrow some books. It’s kind of—well, spotty, trying to dig information out of assorted parts of an encyclopedia. One good elementary text on electronics would be a lot better.”

  “I can see that. Jim, if you can’t find what you want at the library, go to a bookstore. And if they haven’t got it, have them order it. I’ll pay for it. For several books, if you want.”

  “Thanks a million, Dad. I think the library will do it, but if it doe
sn’t, I’ll take you up on that.”

  He gathered up the volumes of the encyclopedia and put them back in the bookcase. The mind within the mind of Jim Kramer had instantly memorized every page which Jim had apparently only glanced at, in addition to those he had pretended to read. At leisure later, he could digest and evaluate what he had learned.

  For the rest of the evening he stayed in character by turning on the radio and listening to it while he read, or appeared to read, the subscription copy of Popular Mechanics which had come in the mail that day. At ten o’clock when his parents went up to bed he turned down the radio but kept on reading for a while. Jim had managed to convince his parents that he didn’t need quite as much sleep as they did and, since he got up at the same time, it was all right for him to stay up half an hour or an hour longer than they did. At ten-thirty he raided the refrigerator for a snack, as usual, and then went upstairs to his own bedroom. But not to sleep; he took off only his shoes and lay quietly on top of his bed until the luminous dial of his wrist watch told him it was half-past two. Then he left very quietly, carrying his shoes till he was safe outside the house.

  There was bright moonlight, both an advantage and a danger, since he could see easily himself, but he also could be seen. When he died tomorrow morning in an auto accident on the way to Green Bay—and the mind thing had decided to wait that long; there was no logical way for him to die accidentally tonight without causing speculation and investigation—the mind thing did not want anyone to report having seen him abroad tonight. Quickly and quietly he made his way to the Gross farm, reached under the kitchen steps and dug briefly, bringing out the shell that was the material body, now deserted, of the thing that now animated Jim Kramer. He smoothed back the dirt so there would be no indication that anything had been buried there.

  With the shell inside his shirt, so that if he were seen it would not be reported that he had been carrying something, he started back past his own house and toward Staunton’s. Twice he made detours off the road and into the woods; two of the intervening farms had watchdogs that would bark if he went by on the road, perhaps waking someone who might look out a window and see him.

  The house at the end of the road was dark; Staunton was in bed and probably asleep. But in case he might be lying awake, Jim took off his shoes for the trip across the yard and around the house. There were steps leading up to the kitchen door here too, and it would be as good a hiding place as any. He buried the shell again, this time being even more careful than at the Gross place to smooth over the dirt and leave no indication of digging and burying.

  Then he went back home by the same route, let himself in quietly and tiptoed upstairs to his bedroom. Mission accomplished. This time he undressed down to his shorts, because his mother would look in to waken him in the morning and that was the way he had been sleeping. Deliberately he tossed and turned enough to rumple the sheets thoroughly, and then lay quietly until his mother opened the door and called him. He answered sleepily and sat up on the edge of the bed yawning.

  At breakfast be still acted sleepy and yawned a few times. When his mother asked if he’d stayed up later than usual last night he told her that he hadn’t, but that for some reason he’d had trouble getting to sleep, hadn’t really slept soundly until maybe an hour or so before she’d waked him.

  “Probably worrying about this career decision you’re considering,” his father said. “But, Jim, if you got only an hour or two of sleep, I don’t like the idea of your driving into Green Bay; you might go to sleep at the wheel. Why don’t you go back to bed, and let me tell Mrs. Gross you’ll be able to work only a half day today? She won’t mind for once and you can make that trip this afternoon instead.”

  Jim yawned again. “Thanks, Dad, but no; I’ll be all right as soon as I start working and get waked up. I’ll just turn in earlier tonight to make up for it. I’m okay.”

  Half an hour later he was through Bartlesville and on the way to Green Bay. He had let Mrs. Gross catch him yawning too, while he loaded the beans into the pickup truck. With both his parents and Mrs. Gross able to testify to how sleepy he was, there wouldn’t be any question, when he ran off the road into a tree or swerved into a head-on collision with another car, of suicide—of anything but his having gone to sleep at the wheel.

  He decided finally on a concrete bridge abutment he knew he’d be reaching in another ten miles or so. A swerve head-on into another car would provide even more impact, but would involve someone else’s death besides his own. So that was discarded, not out of any feeling of mercy for the other victim or victims—human lives meant nothing at all to the mind thing—but simply because it would make the accident more spectacular, more talked about.

  The bridge abutment came, and he hit it squarely, at a little over sixty miles an hour. The impact was sufficient.

  Instantly the mind thing was back in his own body, now under the back steps of the house Staunton was living in.

  It was five minutes after nine o’clock.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Doc Staunton had slept fitfully, not over the equivalent of two or three hours during the night, and when he awakened at seven and saw that it was light, he gave up trying to sleep.

  He made himself breakfast and then sat over coffee waiting till it got late enough to go to town. He and Miss Talley had talked quite a while over dinner and he doubted that she’d finished his typing before midnight, or even later; he knew he shouldn’t call at her house before nine at the earliest, and ten would be better. He was restless, though, and at eight-thirty he got into the station wagon and drove into town.

  There was nothing to do when he got there. He didn’t want to go to the post office or call the sheriff before he’d got the statements from Miss Talley and, even if he’d felt like having a beer so early in the morning, the tavern didn’t open until ten. He stopped in the restaurant for more coffee.

  At a quarter after nine, he decided he’d still wait fifteen minutes to call Miss Talley and see if she was up and ready to see him. By now the sheriff should be in his office in Wilcox; he could call there now and try to make an appointment for later in the morning.

  He got the sheriff on the wire and was just getting around to setting the time for an appointment when the sheriff said. “Just a second, Doc. Hold the line.” And then, a minute later, “Doc, it can’t be this morning; you’ll have to call me later. Just got a flash from a state police radio car. There’s been an accident between Bartlesville and Green Bay; got to get there quick. Sorry.” The line went dead.

  Doc replaced the receiver and stared for a moment at the phone, wondering whether the accident could possibly have happened to anyone he knew. Probably not, he thought, or the sheriff would have mentioned it but then again the sheriff didn’t know exactly who Doc knew, except for a few people; and besides, the sheriff had been in a hurry.

  He dropped another coin and called the sheriff’s office. When a deputy answered, Doc identified himself and explained that he’d been talking to the sheriff when an accident flash had caused the sheriff to excuse himself; could the deputy tell him who, if anyone, had been hurt in the accident?

  The deputy was cooperative. A high school student named James Kramer, who lived somewhere outside Bartlesville, had been killed. He’d been alone in a truck he was driving to Green Bay and he’d probably gone to sleep at the wheel; he’d driven straight into a concrete bridge abutment and had died instantly.

  Doc thanked him and had hung up again before the name Kramer began to register. It was a family named Kramer who lived next to Mrs. Gross, and he remembered now having heard that their son, a high school boy about Tommy Hoffman’s age, had been working for Mrs. Gross until she could sell her farm. And the Kramers had owned the gray cat that had spent almost a week with him—until yesterday!

  And now the Kramer boy was dead—under circumstances that could all too easily have been suicide. Human suicide number three, and again a connection between it and an animal suicide!

  S
uddenly, Doc Staunton wasn’t scared any more. He felt coldly calm, knowing what he had to do—and quickly, since he’d wasted too much time already.

  This—whatever this was—was nothing for a county sheriff. This was something for investigation by the F. B. I. and by top scientists. Not that he wouldn’t talk to the sheriff too, but this was way over the heads of local law enforcement officers, even of the state police—although the F. B. I. would want to use them for routine parts of the investigation. Maybe he could even get the army interested. Fortunately he knew, from his work on satellite and moon-probe projects, several top army security officers and two F. B. I. men. More to the point, they knew him well enough not to dismiss him as a crackpot and to give serious consideration to anything, however seemingly wild and impossible, that he told them.

  He’d start phoning people, and stirring things up, the moment he got those statements from Miss Talley. But one thing came ahead even of that, something he could do right now that would take him less than an hour: Move out of the danger zone.

  He was already walking to his car as he decided that. He’d go out to the house, pack his belongings and put them in the station wagon. Then, when he picked up Miss Talley’s typing, he’d head right for Green Bay, make his headquarters at a hotel there, and start making long-distance calls. If he had half as much influence as he thought he had, there’d be F. B. I. men and security agents in town before the day was over. And while he was waiting for them he could find out as much as possible about the death of Jim Kramer and add that to his statement. A Green Bay stenographer could take care of that, unless Miss Talley wanted to go to Green Bay with him and follow through with what she’d started. He rather thought that she would.