"Don't know, Zeke. Perhaps."
As though satisfied by this mutual exchange of confidence, Zeke lapsed again into silence, and for a time nothing was heard save the voice of the car and occasional sighing bursts of wind high up in the tree-tops. Then there came a black line of shadow stretching across their way, on up ahead, and above it a yellowish, greenish streak of light where the clouds were breaking. Faint wisps of vapour went curling slowly across the streak and there was a patch of blue, very deep, and the momentary gleam of a star, and then they plunged into the shadow.
The air grew cooler, almost cold. The woods had swept down upon the road and engulfed it. Even the noise of the motor seemed quieter, and above it could be heard whisperings and occasional crackings. Something started up from a thicket by the side of the road and they could hear it scurrying through the underbrush. Zeke moved up the throttle and they began to move faster. And on either side of them came down the darkness, sweeping past them, pressing close, and before them wavered the faltering light, and the cool damp air came fingering and touched their faces.
Zeke stopped the car. The rushing darkness stopped. The breeze was still.
"Heah's de place," he said, and his voice was lower; Joe could barely hear him.
"I thought it was Fillmore. This isn't Fillmore."
"I know," said Zeke. "I doesn' go to Fillmo'. Dis is de place whuh I gets it. Up de paff a piece."
Joe was on the point of telling him to go on—on to Fillmore, where proper inquiry might be made, when a sense of curiosity prompted him to stop. He would see where the illegal traffic was being carried on. Zeke was trustingly letting him in on his business and he might not understand. After all, it was getting down in a way to the heart of the business—in a way getting closer to Uncle Buzz. He had never bothered much before. He climbed out of the car and Zeke shut off the motor.
The silence, as he followed Zeke down the narrow path, was oppressive. There would come a vast sighing like a wave of sound, and a settling, a few crackings far off, and then silence. The ground was soft with a matting of fallen leaves, damp and mouldy, and once as Zeke turned his pocket flashlight from the path there came a gleam of water. Briars flicked his face and scratched his hands, and once a low-hanging branch struck him across the eyes and he stumbled from the path and stepped into slime. He kept close behind his guide, for the darkness was intense and the path was tortuous. Directly Zeke stopped. The pocket light made a small circle on the ground.
"Heah 'tis," Zeke whispered, and pointed with the light.