"What will we do?" she whispered.
"All we can do is outwait him. We can't deal with him. He won't make any deals. He's way beyond that. We'll have to wait until night. I don't think he'll leave. We'll have to try to get to the water at night. Can you swim?"
"Of course."
"We can make it to shore then, with the money."
There was no point in telling her the deal I had planned. There was no chance of making the deal. I was certain that if he found us, he'd kill both of us. When he had talked to me, I had sensed the pleasure he took in killing. The way he had talked of George, and the way he had talked about holding the knife at Ruth's throat. That can happen to a man. There are men who hunt who do not take their greatest pleasure in the skill of the hunt, but rather in the moment of seeing the deer stumble and fall, or the ragged bird come rocketing down. From animal to man is a difference in degree, not in kind. The lust to kill is in some men. It has sexual overtones. I had sensed that in Fitzmartin. I could even sense it in the tone of his voice as he had called to me when he had passed the cave. A warm, almost jocular tone. He knew we were on the island. He knew he would find us. He felt warm toward us because we would give him pleasure. Come out and be killed, Tal Howard. A warm and confident voice. It was not so much as though he had stepped beyond sanity, but as though he had stepped outside the race, had become another creature. It was the same way we all might one day be hunted down by the alien creatures of some far planet. When the day comes, how do we bargain for life? What can the rabbit say to the barrel of a gun?
I lay on my side. She lay facing me. I saw the sheen of her eyes and the whiteness of her teeth in the half light of the cave. I could sense the soft tempo of her breathing.
"So we wait," she said.
"And we'll have to be very careful. He likes the night."
"We'll be careful. It's worth being careful. You know, Tal, I thought all along this would get messed up. Now I don't think so any more. Isn't that strange? Now that it is as bad as it can get, I think we're going to make it."
"I hope so."