The Cry of the Owl Read Free

went out, the car door opened, then the house door.
    “Hi-i, Greg!” the girl called.
    “Hi, honey. Sorry I’m late. Brought you a plant.”
    “Oh-h, thank you. It’s gorgeous, Greg!”
    Their voices stopped, shut off by the closing door.
    Robert sighed, unwilling to leave immediately, though now was his safest time to leave, when they were fussing around the plant. He wanted a cigarette. He was also thoroughly chilled. Then he heard a window being raised.
    “Where? Out here?” asked Greg.
    “Right here, I guess. I didn’t
see
anything.”
    “Well, tonight’s a good night for it,” Greg said cheerily. “Nice and black. Maybe something’ll happen.”
    “Not if you scare whoever it is away,” said the girl, laughing, talking just as loudly as the man.
    They didn’t want to find anybody, Robert thought. Who would? The man’s shoes clumped on the side porch. Greg was making a tour of the house. Robert was relieved to see that he had no flashlight. But he still might circle the basketball board. The girl was looking out of the window, which was open about ten inches. Greg returned from his circle of the house and entered by the kitchen door. The window was put down, then raised by Greg, a little less high than before, then Greg turned away. Robert walked from the basketball goal toward the house, toward the open window. He walked almost arrogantly, as if to prove to himself he had not been intimidated by having to take shelter for a few minutes. He stood exactly where he had stood before, on the other side of the tree and about three feet from the window. Bravado, he thought. Sheer bravado and foolhardiness.
    “. . . the police,” Greg was saying in a bored tone. “But let me have a look around first. I’ll sleep in the living room, honey, because it’s easier to run out than if I’m upstairs. I’ll sleep in my pants and shoes, and if I catch anybody—” Grimacing, he brought his big fists up in front of his face.
    “Want a nice piece of firewood as a bludgeon or something?” the girl asked in her soft voice, smiling, and it was as if the violence of his words had not penetrated her at all. Still, she was the sort of girl who would be smiling and casual when she was worried, Robert felt, and he liked that. She never looked nervous. He loved that. She said something else he couldn’t catch, but he was sure she was going into the living room to show Greg the piece of wood she meant. She had a black coal hod by the fireplace full of wood and kindling.
    Greg’s laughter came from the living room, loud and bold.
    Robert shrugged, smiling. Then he opened his overcoat, pushed his hands into his trouser pockets and walked with his head up away from the house and down the driveway.
    The girl lived on the Conarack Road, which led, after six straight but hilly miles, into Humbert Corners, where Robert supposed the girl worked. Robert went through Humbert Corners on the way to Langley, where he lived, a town very much bigger, on the Delaware River. Langley was known as a shopping center, the home of the largest used-car dealer in the district—“Red Redding’s Used Car Riots”—and also of Langley Aeronautics, which made parts for private planes and helicopters. Robert had been working there as an industrial engineer since the end of September. It was not a very interesting job, but it paid quite well, and Langley Aeronautics had been glad to get him, because he had come from a prestigious job in New York, with a firm that redesigned toasters, electric irons, radios, tape recorders, and nearly every gadget and appliance in the American home. Robert had brought an assignment with him from New York, the completion of a set of two-hundred-and-fifty-odd detailed drawings of insects and spiders, which a young man in France had begun for a Professor Gumbolowski. Robert’s friends the Campbells, Peter and Edna, had introduced him to the professor in New York and had insisted that Robert bring over his drawings of