James Gunn - Wherever you may be

Matt refused to believe it. Vacant incredulity paralyzed him for amoment as he stared after the fleeing, bounding tire. Then, with asudden release, he sprinted after it.

"Stop!" he yelled futilely. "Stop, damn it!"

With what seemed like sadistic glee, the tire bounced high in the airand landed, going faster than ever. Matt pounded down the hot dusty roadfor a hundred yards before he pulled up even with it. He knocked it overon its side. The tire lay there, spinning and frustrate, like a turtleon its back. Matt glared at it suspiciously. Sweat trickled down hisneck.

A tinkling of little silver bells. Laughter? Matt looked up quickly,angrily. The woods were thin along the top of this Ozark ridge.Descending to the lake, sparkling cool and blue far below, they grewthicker, but the only one near was the young girl shuffling through thedust several hundred yards beyond the crippled car. And her head wasbent down to watch her way.

Matt shrugged and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. A late June afternoon in southern Missouri was too hot for thiskind of work, for any kind of work. Matt wondered if it had been amistake.

In shimmering heat waves and a slowly settling haze of red dust, herighted the tire and began to roll it back toward the green Ford withone bare metal wheel drum pointing upward at a slight angle. The tirerolled easily, as if it repented its brief dash for freedom, but it wasa dirty job and Matts hands and clothes were soiled red when he reachedthe car.

With one hand clutching the tire, Matt studied the road for a moment.He could have sworn that he had stopped on one of the few levelstretches in these hills, but the tire had straightened up from the sideof the car and started rolling as if the car were parked on a steepincline.

Matt reflected bitterly on the luck that had turned a slow leak into aflat only twenty-five miles from the cabin. It couldnt have happened onthe highway, ten miles back, where hed have been able to pull into aservice station. No, it had to wait until he couldnt get out of thisrutted cow track. The tires escapade had been only the most recent of aseries of annoyances and irritations to which bruised shins and scrapedknuckles were painful affidavits.

He sighed. After all, he had wanted isolation. Guys offer of a huntingcabin in which to finish his thesis had seemed like a godsend at thetime, but now Matt wasnt so certain. If this was a fair sample, Mattwas beginning to see how much of his time would be wasted just on theproblems of existence.

Cautiously, Matt rolled the tire to the rear of the car, laid itcarefully on its side, and completed pulling the spare from the trunk.Warily, he maneuvered the spare to the left rear wheel, knelt, liftedit, fitted it over the bolts, and stepped back. He sighed again, butthis time with relief.

Kling-ng! Klang! Rattle!

Matt hastily looked down. His foot was at least two inches from the hubcap, but it was rocking now, empty. Matt saw the last nut roll under thecar.

Matts swearing was vigorous, systematic, and exhaustive. It concerneditself chiefly with the perversity of inanimate objects.

There was something about machines and the things they made which wasbasically alien to the human spirit. They might disguise themselves fora time as willing slaves, but eventually, inevitably, they turnedagainst their masters. At the psychological moment, they rebelled.

Or perhaps it was the difference in people. For some people, thingsalways went wrong their cakes fell; their lumber split; their golfballs sliced into the rough. Others established a mysterious sympathywith their tools.

Luck? Skill? Coordination? Experience?

It was, he felt, something more conscious and malignant.

Matt remembered a near-disastrous brush with chemistry; he had barelypassed qualitative analysis. For him the tests had been worse thanuseless. Faithfully he had gone through every step of the endlessritual: precipitate, filter, dissolve, precipitate And then hewould take his painfully secured, neatly written results to what washis name? Wadsworth, and the little chemistry professor would studyhis analysis and look up, frowning.

"Didnt you find any whatyoumaycallit oxide?" he would ask.

"Whatyoumaycallit oxide?" Startled. "Oh, there wasnt anywhatyoumaycallit oxide."

And Wadsworth would make a simple test and, sure enough, there would bethe whatyoumaycallit oxide.

There was the inexplicably misshapen gear Matt had made on the millingmachine, the drafting pen that would not draw a smooth line no matterhow much he sanded the point

It had convinced Matt that his hands were too clumsy to belong to anengineer. He had transferred his ambitions to a field where tools wereless tangible. Now he wondered.

Kobolds? Accident prones?

Some time he would have to write it up. It would make a good paper forthe "Journal of "

Laughter! This time there was no possible doubt. It came from rightbehind him.

Matt whirled. The girl stood there, hugging her ribs to keep thelaughter in. She was a young little thing, not much over five feet tall,in a shapeless, faded blue dress. Her feet were small and bare anddirty. Her hair, in long braids, was mouse-colored. Her pale face wassaved from plainness only by her large, blue eyes.

Matt flushed. "What the devil are you laughing at?"

"You!" she got out between chuckles. "Whynt you get a horse?"

"Did that remark just arrive here?"

He swallowed his irritation, turned, and got down on his hands andknees to peer under the car. One by one he gathered up the nuts, but thelast one, inevitably, was out of reach. Sweating, he crawled all the wayunder.

When he came out, the girl was still there. "What are you waiting for?"he asked bitingly.

"Nothin'." But she stood with her feet planted firmly in the red dust.

Kibitzers annoyed Matt, but he couldnt think of anything to do aboutit. He twirled the nuts onto the bolts and tightened them up, his neckitching. It might have been the effect of sweat and dust, but he was notgoing to give the girl the satisfaction of seeing him rub it. Thatannoyed him even more. He tapped the hub cap into place and stood up.

"Why dont you go home?" he asked sourly.

"Caint," she said.

He went to the rear of the car and released the jack. "Why not?"

"I run away." Her voice was quietly tragic.

Matt turned to look at her. Her blue eyes were large and moist. As hewatched, a single tear gathered and traced a muddy path down her cheek.

Matt hardened his heart. "Tough." He picked up the flat and stuffed itinto the trunk and slammed the lid. The sun was getting lower, and onthis forgotten lane to nowhere it might take him the better part of anhour to drive the twenty-five miles.

He slid into the drivers seat and punched the starter button. Afterone last look at the forlorn little figure in the middle of the road, heshook his head savagely and let in the clutch.

"Mister! Hey, mister!"

He slammed on the brakes and stuck his head out the window. "Now whatdo you want?"

"Nothin'," she said mournfully. "Only you forgot your jack."

Matt jammed the gear shift into reverse and backed up rapidly.Silently, he got out, picked up the jack, opened the trunk, tossed inthe jack, slammed the lid. But as he brushed past her again, hehesitated. "Where are you going?"

"No place," she said.

"What do you mean no place? Dont you have any relatives?" She shookher head. "Friends?" he asked hopefully. She shook her head again. "Allright, then, go on home!"

He slid into the car and banged the door. She was not his concern. Thecar jerked into motion. No doubt she would go home when she got hungryenough. He shifted into second, grinding the gears. Even if she didnt,someone would take her in. After all, he was no welfare agency.