"Lorin' had his radio on; listened on the way down. Smoky Delbert come to and talked. He named me as the man who shot him and said I shot from ambush! Be seein' you, Ted."
5
COON VALLEY
Tammie whined uneasily and Ted woke with a start. He glanced at the clock on the mantel and saw that it read twenty minutes past five. The last time he had looked, he remembered, the clock had said half past two. Obviously he'd fallen asleep in the chair where he'd been waiting for someone to come or something to happen. No one had come, but they were coming now. On the Lorton Road, Ted heard the cars that Tammie had detected twenty seconds earlier.
He got to his feet and looked out into the thin, gray mistiness of early dawn. With its lights glowing like a ghost's eyes in the wan dimness, a car churned up the Harkness drive and a second followed it. The boy shrank away. Last night's events now seemed like some horrible nightmare, but the tread of steps outside and the knock on the door proved that they were not.
Ted opened the door to confront Loring Blade and Corporal Paul Hausler, of the State Police. He glanced beyond them at the men gathered beside the cars and saw that three of the nine were attired in State Police uniforms. The six volunteer posse men were Tom and Bud Delbert, Smoky's brothers; Enos, Alfred and Ernest Brill, his cousins; and Pete Tooms, who would go anywhere and do anything as long as it promised excitement and no monotonous labor.
Loring Blade greeted Ted, "Good morning, Ted."
The boy muttered, "Good morning."
"You seen your dad?"