The Man in the Deerstalker

He made a definite impression, even in Beach Springs, which was pretty well used to some of the oddest fragments of humanity. First of all, there was the way he came. Most of the human flotsam and jetsam which washed up sooner or later on the shores of Beach Springs did literally come from the sea, by way of the various ships which stopped there for one reason or another. A few came by land, through Coronation Pass in the mountains. But for someone to come in by plane was definitely an anomaly. The small plane which landed at the makeshift runway every couple of month came mainly to refuel and deliver a few supplies. But that day, it was different.

A crowd always gathered when the plane landed, mostly because it was the only thing of any particular interest which ever happened in the town, aside from the occasional bar fight and even these were so regular and predictable that people were jaded. But when he appeared and descended from the plane, the gathered crowd got something far more interesting then they expected.

He made an impression the instant he appeared. He was a remarkable specimen of a man--tall, broad-shouldered, with an easy assurance in his manner which suggested a sense of complete self-confidence yet without the self-awareness of arrogance or conceit. His face was hard and rough both in texture and expression. This was a face which had faced unflinchingly the harsh winds of reality both literally and metaphorically. He had a heavy five-o'clock shadow but such was the character of his face that it gave more the impression of an actual beard, as if he had deliberately chosen to let his hair grow so long and no longer. But what attracted more attention than his face was the way he was dressed. The long tan trench-coat he wore was unusual, but most of the people in Beach Springs had seen men wear trench-coats before. But the hat! It was a round hat, made of soft cloth, with one visor (something like a baseball cap) which extended over the man's rough forehead--but there was also another visor which stuck out the back, shading his bushy coal-black hair. Two flaps were attached to the sides as if to cover the ears, but at present, they were folded up over the top of the hat. No one had ever seen a hat like that except, a few, in old TV programs. Angel Story (who had come down to pick up supplies--most of the supplies that came into Beach Springs were for him) was the only one who even knew what it was. "A deerstalker," he commented in his low, dispassionate voice.

But there was something else about the man which also commanded attention, besides his unusual wardrobe choices. There was something about him which, despite his slightly rough appearance, marked him off as someone far different the usual class of man who wandered into Beach Springs--and which would have done so no matter how he was dressed. L. Nathan, who also at the plane to pick up supplies, took a good look at the stranger and then hurried away. Judging from the man's appearance, he had a feeling he would have some business before the day was out.

Beach Springs was just about the end of the world. It was an English-speaking town in a non-English speaking country (a relic of British colonialism); a city and yet a world in itself, cut off from the rest of its country not just by language but by the towering icy peaks of the Hyfrydol Mountains. There was nothing there to speak of, and most of the people who were there were there simply because there was nowhere else to go. The only businesses were a store (which sold a little bit of everything but not very much of anything), the tavern, generally known as the Story, and a boarding house which tried to style itself as a hotel. This was the Trentham, run by L. Nathan.

As he had calculated, the stranger in the deerstalker did make his way towards his establishment. From the front window (clean but so old it was hardly transparent any more), Nathan watched him come. Despite the cold weather and the fact that he was wading through snow above his ankles, he had unbuttoned his trench-coat and walked with his hands thrust into the pocket of his pants. Nathan noted that beneath his coat, his clothes were unremarkable--clean, but badly wrinkled as if he had been traveling for some time.

"Good afternoon, sir," he said, as he opened the door for the stranger. And, just for good measure, he added, "Merry Christmas."

The man pulled his right hand out of his pocket, scrutinized his wristwatch, and then reached up and straightened his hat. "You're early," he commented in a voice that was rough and yet well modulated. "It won't be Christmas for eleven hours and thirty-eight minutes."

Nathan was a little uncertain as to how to respond to that. He was not used to dealing with anyone with such a penchant for accuracy.

"Still time to finish your Christmas shopping," continued the man in a strange tone which left Nathan unsure whether the man was talking to him or to himself. "Time to wrap up the last stubborn little package. Time to check that last thing off your list. Time to ring out the last of the old so you're ready to ring in the new. Can I have a room for the night?"

"Just one night?"

"Shouldn't have business here for any longer than that. Might be even sooner. You never know."

"Any specifications?" asked Nathan, hoping there weren't. He didn't have that many different options.

"No."

"Name?"

"Sullivan. Sullivan Gilberts."

"Then if you follow me, Mr. Gilberts, I'm sure I can--" He stopped as it was clear the man was no longer listening to him. He had turned and was staring out the window. It was probably the weather which had attracted his attention, as it had begun to snow again. Or had there been something else? Nathan himself had some vague sense of having seen some movement out of the corner of his eye, like someone dashing away from the window--but he was hardly surprised by that. The stranger had attracted enough attention he wouldn't be surprised if the whole town was outside gawking in.

"It's snowing again," commented the stranger, pushing his hat lower on his forehead.

"I've never seen a winter so harsh here in Beach Springs. Usually, it's quite mild."

"They say it was snowing like this. Just like this."

"What?"

"London. It's a chilly place, you know. It was on a snowy day just like this. On a Christmas Eve like this too."

"Uh--" Nathan stared at the man in the deerstalker, completely confused. "What was on a snowy day just like this?"

"A man--a rich man--one might have called him a king, a king of business. We could call him Smith. Mr. Smith. He followed a star. It was the tail-light of a bus, you know. But it turned out to be the wrong star. It led him into a part of town he never usually went to. A part it really isn't safe to go to. But he went there. And found a child, wrapped in rags, and lying in a gutter. That's what happens when you follow the wrong star."

"Uh--really?" Nathan had no idea what to say, but the man paused as if expecting him to say something.

"A stranger," he commented after a moment. "A refugee. A kid without family or friends in a crowded town where there was no room for him. A kid, not a child. Twelve or thirteen probably. He didn't really know. Didn't know who his parents were or what his own last name was. Just a homeless waif shifting for himself on the streets. Not uncommon in London these days. Not uncommon anywhere, really. This Mr. Smith--he knew all that. But this was different. He had found this kid himself, found him shivering and cold on Christmas Eve. So he took him home."

"How nice." The man in the deerstalker had paused again, and Nathan said the first thing that came into his head.

"Yeah, it was, wasn't it? And it wasn't just a temporary spasm of generosity because of the day. He took that kid and officially adopted him. When you're as rich and influential as Mr. Smith, that's easy enough. Even the bureaucracy bows down to a king of finance. Though it wouldn't be official until later, that Christmas, that boy went from being a starving street rat shivering in the cold, to being the child of a king. And they all lived happily ever after."

"Really?" Nathan had finally gotten a grasp of the man's story and was puzzled by the cynical, bitter note to his voice as he concluded.

"Yeah. That's ending makes it a perfect Christmas story, doesn't it? That how it should end, all right--and maybe that's how it could have ended. But that's now how it did end." He turned and walked towards the door, still without taking his hands out of his pockets. "I'm going over to the Story. The man from the plane will bring my suitcase over in a few minutes. Have it taken up to my room, and I'll be back later." He pushed the door open with his elbows and stepped half-way out, but then turned back and threw over his shoulder, "It began with a K."

"What did?"

"The kid."

"Of course kid begins with K."

"So does kick. And clue."

"Clue begins with C."

"Phonetic spelling, chum. It's the future." And the man in the deerstalker vanished, the door swinging shut behind him.

He left a very puzzled man behind him. Of course, Nathan realized somewhere deep in his mind that he would have been a little disappointed if a man who wore a trench-coat and a deerstalker had turned out to talk just like anyone else. The enigmatic conversation of the man had seemed somehow in character with his initial impression of him. Indeed, this was not what puzzled him the most. It was his parting comment that left him puzzled--the comment that he was going to the Story. Generally speaking, those who frequented Nathan's place of business did not go to the Story and vice versa.

The Story was run by a man named Angel. Sometimes they called him Angel Story and sometimes they called the bar that, and no one knew (or cared) anymore which was named after which and what Angel's real last name was if it wasn't Story. Not that people who hung around the Story were usually sober enough to think through the matter rationally anyway. Angel was a short man, slightly stout, but sturdy and with a certain aura around him which tended to intimidate people. Perhaps it was his utter and complete calm. No matter what happened around him, it never seemed to cause the slightest ripple in Angel Story.

So, for instance, that afternoon when the man in the deerstalker casually strode into the Story, sat down at the bar, and asked for a sarsaparilla, Angel's impassive face did not give the smallest indication that this was an event in any way out of the ordinary. The man took his drink and drank it slowly and with a sense of calm and enjoyment, also seemingly unaware of the strangeness of his position. But if Angel and his unusual customer showed no signs of their feelings, the same could not be said for the rest of the patrons.

The man's entrance had caused a complete and sudden stop to the buzz of conversation which had filled the room an instant before, and all the eyes in the room were on him, except for one or two men who were passed out on the floor for one reason or another. The stranger had caused enough of a stir at the airplane. Here in the Story, it was magnified fourfold.

But now it was not mere surprise or curiosity. Not entirely. Quite a few of the men there felt--though they couldn't have said exactly why--a sense of irritation or even anger by the man and his presence there. "Just who does he think he is?" growled one of them, as he glared across the room at the incongruous figure at the bar.

"Sullivan," muttered the young man next to him.

"What?"

The other had been talking to himself but now he glanced up and answered. "Sullivan Gilberts. That's what he told Nathan his name was. "

"How do you know that, Cas?"

"I was listening--"

But the aforementioned Mr. Gilberts at that moment set down his drink and spoke out loud to Angel. In the silence, his voice carried easily to the whole room. "Pretty good. I haven't had such good sarsaparilla anywhere. Except St. Andre. Best sarsaparilla in the world is in St. Andre."

"Yeah?" said Angel. He said the word in the same low, inexpressive voice he said everything and so it was impossible to say whether he was being defiant, sarcastic, curious, or merely indifferent.

The man adjusted his hat and then scrutinized his watch. "Huh. I think any time now..."

There had been muttering in the far side of the room, but it was not loud enough for either Angel or the man in the deerstalker to really hear what was going on. But both had enough experience to sense what was going to happen at least five seconds before it did happen. Angel dropped down behind the bar and waited, his usual procedure when something happened in his establishment which was beyond his level of handling. (He was his own bouncer.) The man in the deerstalker put his hands in his pockets and swiveled on his stool to face the danger. The danger was about twenty of the largest and most volatile of the men in room rushing towards him with looks of pure rage. The man in the deerstalker seemed to understand perfectly well what was going on. They were just far enough from sobriety to be easily stirred into a passion while still close enough to know what they were doing and to do it well. His presence there had stirred them up, but something else must have ignited them. A single word or suggestion from someone else would probably have been enough to do it. Though he was looking at his attackers, his eyes moved just slightly in the direction of the door--almost as if he were following the movements of the young man who was ducking out of the door at that moment.

All this happened in a matter of seconds. At the same time, the foremost of the men growled out in a loud voice, "Hey, pretty boy, how about we mess up that face of yours?"

The man in the deerstalker grunted. "First time in years anyone's called me pretty. Thanks. Merry Christmas." And as the man approached, he kicked out his legs and hit him squarely in the stomach. The man doubled up and fell to the floor. The man in the deerstalker shook his head, still keeping his hands in his pockets. "Looks like you're not even sober enough to come up with appropriate insults."

The other men paused for just a second at the sudden fall of one of their members. And in that slight pause, the man in the deerstalker pushed back on his stool and then jumped, so that an instant later he was standing on top of the bar and the stool was shooting at another of his assailants. Even before it hit, he jumped. The largest of the men was rushing forward when the man in the deerstalker landed on his shoulder blades and, with a twist of his legs, sent him flying, knocking down two of his companions. "Fifteen to one, now," he commented. "That's more like a fair fight."

Now he was on the ground in the middle of them, and they all converged on him. He fought on, kicking and head-butting, pushing them back.

"Bet you wouldn't be so high-and-mighty without that fancy hat of yours," commented one of the men, making a grab for the deerstalker.

His target whirled and faced him. "Don't mess with the hat," he said, in a voice that was lower and rougher than usual. For the first time in the scuffle, took his hands out of his pockets and punched the man squarely in the face, sending him to the floor.

Before, the attackers had been driven back but they still were doing well in the fight. Once the man in the deerstalker took his hands out of his pockets, they didn't have a chance. These were men feared in Beach Springs, but only because of their size, temper, and brute strength. They simply were not used to dealing with anyone who was their equal in strength and superior in skill; a man who seemed to know exactly what they were going to do before they did it; a man who could use their own strength and anger against them.

It was one of the shortest brawls which had ever occurred in the Story. After the last man fell, the man in the deerstalker straightened his hat, sat back down at the bar, and drained the last of his sarsaparilla. "Not too bad," he commented to no one in particular. "But not good enough. Desperation. It's always a good sign, even if desperation is the mother of invention."

The room was essentially empty now. Those not involved in the fight had left during it when it began to be clear that the man in the deerstalker was going to win. Those who had survived the fight with enough strength to leave had left. The only ones left in any condition to count were the man in the deerstalker and Angel.

Angel had arisen from his hiding place and was now looking at his customer steadily. For once it seemed like there was a slight glimmer of some kind of emotion in the back of his eyes.

The man in the deerstalker looked up at him. "So, you want to start something, too? Angel from the realms of Story, bring your fight if you think it's worth. Ha." He gave a short, grunt-like laugh at his own joke. "If you don't mind, I want to look at something. You care?"

Angel was still looking at him steadily. "Sure, if you want to."

The man in the deerstalker stood up and walked to the far end of the room. The fight had not reached this far and the state of things was about as it had been ten minutes before. He selected one mug from several on the table and brought it back to the bar. He sniffed the half-finished contents and then glanced up at Angel. "Was the kid who had this even old enough to be drinking this kind of stuff?"

"Cas, you mean?" Angel either remembered exactly who had been sitting where or inferred the man's meaning from his words. "He says he's eighteen."

"Huh. Fifteen would be pushing it."

"I don't ask too many questions. After all, there aren't any laws about that here in Beach Springs. And he seems to be able to handle it all right."

"He seems to be able to handle a lot of things." The man in the deerstalker had poured the contents of the cup out into his own empty mug and then withdrew a small packet from somewhere inside his coat. Angel watched him keenly as he sprinkled white powder from the packet unto the glass. He knew more about the world than you might suspect, and he recognized what the man was doing.

Dusting for fingerprints.

"Wanna hear a story?" asked the man abruptly, looking up. "I suppose you could call it an angel's story. Appropriate for Christmas time. At least, you know they say that if you take in strangers, they may turn out to be angels unaware. That's how it happened. Though the angel was sort of like you--a fallen angel."

"Yeah?" said Angel impassively. ('Yeah' was one of his favorite words.)

"Happened in England. A snowy Christmas eve just like this one. A rich man. Call him Smith. Found this street urchin and took him in. Opened his home and everything he had to him. Adopted him as his own son. Nice thing to do, right? If you were a homeless orphan and someone did that for you, you'd be pretty grateful, right?"

"Probably," commented Angel, still without expression.

"In the months that followed, things went well. Happy family. But then something happened. Smith started finding things missing. Little things, at first. People told him it had to be the kid, but he wouldn't believe them. Not even when a fairly large sum of money went missing. He still wouldn't accuse his adopted son of the crime. But the kid knew what was going on, and so to prove his innocence, he did some investigating and caught the real thief, at some risk to himself. And they all lived happily ever after."

"Yeah?"

"Nice story, isn't it? It's got everything. Drama, pathos, and even a moral. It would have been appropriate if it had ended that way. Certainly, it would have been better if it could have ended that way. But it didn't." He shook his head and then smiled grimly. "What do you do when you're looking for something and you can't find it?"

"Look harder?"

"No. You make it look for you. Know what you do if you can't do that?"

Angel shrugged.

"The opposite." He wiped off the glass and stood up. He put the packet of white powder back inside his coat and pulled out in its place a small pile of money which he placed on the counter. "That should cover my sarsaparilla and the damages from the fight."

Angel looked at the money. It was more enough to cover that and twice that. "Who are you?" he asked. Though his face showed no expression, it was clear that he was puzzled.

"Sullivan. Sullivan Gilberts."

For once, Angel started just slightly.

"Thought you might be the one man here who knows enough of the world to know my name," the man remarked putting his hands back in his pocket and turning towards the door.

Angel did know the name. Sullivan Gilberts. An American. Son of an English nobleman and New England chef. Graduate summa cum laude from one of Europe's foremost universities with a degree in applied psychology. Mixed Martial Arts champion and lyric baritone. Primarily known as one of the greatest private detectives in the world. "What are you doing here?"

"Putting the last touches on my case. It began with a K."

"Case doesn't begin with K."

The man in the deerstalker pushed the door open with his elbow. "Phonetic spelling, chum," he threw over his shoulder. "It's the future."

It was snowing harder now. The man in the deerstalker strolled down Duke Street, the main (and essentially only) street of Beech Springs. He stopped in front of the one decent looking building in town--the stone Church of The Divinum Mysterium--the only place of worship in Beach Springs. It was an Anglican church that had wandered into Evangelicalism one day and never found its way home. There was a clock set in its steeple and the man in the deerstalker stopped to compare it to the time on his watch.

"Ten hours and fifty-five minutes until Christmas. We're into the crunch now. " He spoke out loud, as if to a companion, though he was apparently alone on the street. "It's just a matter of time now--a matter of seeing which is faster, the immovable object or the irresistible force." He sauntered on, muttering to himself something that sounded like, "Do cats eat bats? Do bats eat cats?" But it was hard to say for sure.

He was walking out of town now, walking almost due north and following a line parallel both to the sea and the mountains. There was a curious freak of geography here. A deep crevice or canyon cut through the ground. It wasn't very wide, though wide enough that even an agile man couldn't jump across it--yet narrow enough that two men could walk along the opposite sides and carry on a conversation.

"And still the snow comes down," commented the man in the deerstalker, talking louder though still apparently to himself, as he strolled along the side of this crevice. "It was on a night just like this, they say." He paused for a moment and under the shade of his hat, his eyes keenly watched a slight movement in the shrubbery on the other side. "But I don't suppose you would know anything about that, would you, Cas?"

There was a distinct increase in the movement in the shrubbery, and then suddenly a figure appeared on the far side of the crevice. The man in the deerstalker glanced at his watch and nodded. "Right on schedule."

"Who are you?" demanded the figure.

The man in the deerstalker didn't even bother to look too closely. He had already formed a fairly complete profile of the figure after seeing him through the window of the Trentham and then in the Story. A young man, no more than a boy, lithe in build with dark skin and hair like a starless night. Poorly dressed, with a sullen expression, and a beret-like hat pulled down low over his forehead. "Sullivan. Sullivan Gilberts," he answered. "But that's not really the answer you want, is it? You don't care who I am. You just want to know why I'm here."

The young man moved slowly along his side of this ravine, keeping pace with the man in the deerstalker. "Just curious," he said. He seemed to be trying to make his voice deeper and more adult than it really was. "Everyone in town is curious about you."

"Yeah. Figured you'd be especially curious. Your name's Cas, right?"

"Right."

"Last name?"

"Just Cas."

"With a C, I suppose?"

The youth looked at him sharply across the ravine but didn't answer.

The man in the deerstalker nodded. "It's Christmas time, kid. How about a Christmas story? On a night just like this one. London. Never been there?"

Cas didn't answer.

"Man lived there. A king of commerce. Name was Artemis Smith." If he noted the slight sudden start of his companion, he made no sign. "Call him Mr. Smith. He stumbled on some poor kid shivering in a gutter. Took him home. Adopted him as his own son. Happy Christmas story, yeah? Funny how it turned out, though."

"Huh." The other gave this curt monosyllable and nothing more. But he seemed to draw away slightly from the brink of the canyon.

"Funny how it turned out," the man in the deerstalker repeated. "Things started turning up missing around Smith's place. Couldn't believe that his son, who he'd done so much for--no, it couldn't be him doing it. I mean, what kind of ingrate would betray his benefactor like that?"

For a long minute, the two figures walked on in silence as the snow fell around them. Though it was still afternoon, the heavy clouds and snow made it seem like late evening. "What happened next--no one really knows," remarked the man in the deerstalker after a minute. "Turned out that the punk really was robbing Smith, and Smith confronted him about it. The kid fled the country. That much we know. Smith's never said much to anyone about that confrontation. But for almost a month after it, he seemed to limp a little bit, as if he'd suffered some kind of impact injury." He paused again. "I think I said before that kick begins with a K, didn't I?"

Cas made a growling sound in his throat. "I bet it wasn't anything like that. I bet that kid--whoever he was--was really innocent, and he just ran away because he was so upset at being falsely accused."

"Could be. Could be he was really a good kid, deep down. Maybe a little proud, a little headstrong. It was his pride which made him run all the way from London to St. Andre and from St. Andre to Beach Springs. Proud of his innocence. Victim of circumstances. And when Smith realized his mistake, he hired a detective to track down the kid and tell him that his name was cleared and that everything was all right. Happy ending all around. Nice for a Christmas story."

Cas looked up at him sharply, though it was so dark, the figures were hardly more than silhouettes to each other now. "Really?"

"It'd be a good ending to the story. I bet you wish it ended that way, and I know Smith wishes it ended that way. But it didn't. It ended here at the end of the world." He stopped walking and pushed his hat back on his head. "Every story has a villain, and I know who the villain of this story is. Now it's just a matter of catching him."

For just a moment, Cas paused on his side of the ravine and then suddenly turned and started running, vanishing in the white twilight.

The man in the deerstalker checked his watch. "Set and match, and about three minutes ahead of schedule." He quickened his pace. Even though it was still a rolling, even stride, it was nearly as fast as a run. "He's running scared now. Running scared in the snow. Never going to be able to hide his tracks that way. Not that he's been able to do that for the last seven months."

The man in the deerstalker knew the area very well for someone who had never been to Beach Springs before. He knew the exact point at which the ravine grew narrow enough to cross. He reached this point, jumped the ravine, and started striding back towards the town. The kid was scared, but even scared he wasn't stupid. He had a much better chance of hiding in Beach Springs than he did out in the wilderness, at least on a night like this. Without preparations, he couldn't hope to survive out here for the night and certainly not to escape through the mountains. His only hope would be to get into town and lay low there. The man in the deerstalker felt confident that if he followed this trajectory, he would cut him off or at least pick up his trail.

He paused for just a moment to pull his hat down a little tighter and button up his trench-coat and then hurry on, now with his hands in the pockets of the coat. The temperature was dropping rapidly. It was very unusual for Beach Springs. Snow was cascading down from the heaven in such large quantities that it suggested a celestial avalanche more than anything else. Icicles glittered hard and dangerous on the branches of the gaunt trees. There was something in the scene haunting and apocalyptic as if this were really some wild extremity beyond all space and time. "Ice," he commented out loud. (He always talked out loud to himself.) "The seventh circle. The element of betrayers. Ironic, isn't it? This place really is the end of the world."

Not that weather affected the man in the deerstalker all that much. He was used to moving through nearly any terrain in any kind of condition.

There it was. As quick as the snow was falling, the tracks were being filled in quickly, but not quickly enough to escape his notice. They were headed back towards town, as he had known they would. The kid was trusting in speed now, not even trying to hide his tracks. The man in the deerstalker quickened his pace just slightly. So far everything was going exactly according to plan. He wasn't about to lose his quarry now.

Through the unnatural night, he could see a dark hulk against the sky in the distance. It was the steeple of The Church of the Divinum Mysterium. That meant they were headed back towards town.

And then he saw him, a black blot against the white snow. He was slowing down. The snow was getting too deep for him, and he was too tired to keep up a run. Now it was just a matter of simple algebra. If objects A and B are traveling along path C and A's rate remains constant and B's rate grows incrementally less, how long will it take A to overtake B?

The boy sensed that the man in the deerstalker was getting closer, and he glanced over his shoulder, causing him to slow down even more. "Get out of here!" he all but screamed.

Desperation. It was always a good sign.

"I'm not who you're looking for. It's all wrong."

"Sure." The man in the deerstalker didn't decrease his speed at all as he answered, his voice loud but not different in pitch from his normal voice. "Suppose your name doesn't start with K, either."

"What?"

"Phonetic spelling, punk. Did you really think that'd be enough to throw me off your trail?"

"You've got the wrong guy, I'm telling you." He stumbled and picked himself up, but that decreased the distance between them significantly.

"Unlikely. Knew it'd take too long to find you in this town. Got a deadline, you know. It was either make you look for me or, failing that, get you to run away from me. If you were the wrong person, you wouldn't be running right now. You wouldn't have been bothered by my stories. You wouldn't have incited an attack on me in the Story because I mentioned St. Andre if you hadn't hidden out there for a while. If you don't have a guilty conscience, then why are you running? "

They were hardly two yards apart now. The black bulk of the church was growing larger and darker in front of them.

The boy stumbled again. He picked himself up even as he stumbled, but it decreased the distance by at least another foot and a half. And high above them, the bells on the church started ringing, sanding out a cataract of sound across the country. There was a strange frenzy to the bells which seemed appropriate for the scene being enacted.

And then it was all over. The boy had been running on pure instinct, without being very exact about where he was going. And so he had come up against a blank wall, the cold, unfeeling back of the church. And before he could decide which direction to turn, the man in the deerstalker had caught up.

With one motion, the man caught his shoulders and pinned him roughly against the wall behind him, his shoulder tight against the hard wall, his feet barely touching the ground. "What is your name?" he demanded loudly, his voice lower and rougher than before.

The man in the deerstalker could see just about how the boy was feeling. His defiance of earlier was gone. His dark face was almost blue with cold and he was shivering, though that might have been fear or guilt instead of cold. But mostly he was tired. Tired of running. Tired of fighting. Tired of hiding.

The light seemed to fade from his eyes and his body seemed to go slightly limp. "Kassim."

"With a K?" The man in the deerstalker smiled grimly. "Kassim what?"

"Kassim Smith." The boy spoke in a low voice, almost like a mumble, but perfectly clear. "You've found me."

"And what did you do? Why are you here?"

"Do you need me to spell it all out?" His voice rose in volume and pitch, and his body stiffened again. "I'm a thief. Is that what you want? I'm the one you were talking about-- I'm the kid that betrayed his own benefactor; that sold out the one man that had ever done anything good for him. Is that what you want?" He spoke angrily, almost defiantly. But it was born from desperation and perhaps a little shame, not from any real anger.

The man in the deerstalker kept him pinned against the wall with his left hand while he adjusted his hat with his right and then checked his watch. "Yeah, that's about what I was looking for. And just about on schedule, too. I thought you'd crack just about now if you were going to crack at all. So you don't have anything more to say? Not going to say you were a victim, that it wasn't as bad as it looked, that deep down you really not all that bad?"

The boy was holding back tears and trying his best not to show it. "Just do whatever it is you're going to do."

"I've seen a lot of bad guys in my time, but you take the cake, kid. Don't think I can say anything good about you except that you're decently good at running away. But to turn on Smith the way you did, to hurt him like you did--after he'd done so much for you. I can't excuse that. If someone made a list of those who're naughty and nice, they'd check it twice and put you right at the head of the naughty side. A rotten kid like you doesn't even deserve a trial and a place in jail with decent criminals." His right hand seemed to clench into a fist with an instinctive motion.

The boy's tears were gone now, replaced by a kind of desperate stoicism. "Just get it over with. Just beat me up and leave me here in the snow to die if that's what you're going to do."

The man in the deerstalker smiled grimly again. "That's how this story could end, all right. In reality, that's probably how it should end. But that's now how it does."

The boy's face seemed to grow darker. "You can't take me back to London." His voice was calm, but it lent more desperation to his words than any other tone would have. "I can't face him again. And--and I can't give back the money. I spent it all months ago."

"Come on, kid--I'm disappointed. Thought you had brains if nothing else. I may not be one of the greatest detectives in the world--hard to judge that objectively--but I'll tell you that I'm one of the highest paid. 'Course, I plan to give Smith a rebate because of it being Christmas and all, but he doesn't know that. And what he's paying me for tracking you down is far more than what you stole from him. It wouldn't be worth it, even if we didn't both know that your money would have been long gone by the time I found you anyway."

"Then, what? He just wants the satisfaction of seeing me dragged back and put in jail?"

"You lived with Smith for almost half a year. You really think he'd do that?"

"No." The boy's other emotions seemed to have been swallowed up by mere puzzlement. "But then, why did he hire you to find me? Why go to all that trouble? Why would it be worth it to him?"

"Easy answer." The man with the deerstalker released the boy and took a step back. "I had to track you down to tell you that he's not pressing charges against you."

"What?" The boy stumbled but caught himself on a projecting stone in the wall.

"I'm here," the man in the deerstalker continued quietly, "to tell that, so far as the law is concerned, you're innocent, and that so far as Smith is concerned, you are too. And that he wants you to come back." He glanced at his watch. "He told me several times that I would get an extra bonus if I got you home by Christmas. 'I can't bear to think of him spending Christmas alone again,' he said."

The boy pressed himself back against the wall of the church. "You're lying! It's some kind of a trap."

"Why would I trap you? What point would there be? Isn't any law to speak of in this miserable little town. I could just drag you away to the plane if I wanted to." He pushed his hat back. "My contract was to find you and tell you that. Whether you come with me or not is your choice. You seem pretty happy as you are."

The boy took a step forward, but there was still disbelief and suspicion in his eyes. "It doesn't make any sense. Why would he care what happens to me? After what I did, he should want me dead--not this--"

"Yeah, but you're his son. And he loves you."

The boy took another step forward. "You don't understand. Last Christmas--he gave me his heart. And I threw it away the very next day."

"Um-hum. And this year, if he wanted to save himself some pain, he'd give it someone better. But that's not the way love works." The man in the deerstalker put his hands back in his pocket. "Let me tell you something, kid. There are eleven months in the year when we can help the people who deserve our help. There are three hundred and sixty-four days for loving good kids. But it's almost Christmas--the one day for helping people who don't deserve our help, for doing good to people who are bad, for loving everyone who is unlovable." He raised his head and a new light seemed to enter his face and his voice. "Can't you hear what the bells are saying? 'Peace on earth and mercy mild/God and sinners reconciled.' That's it. That's what love is like. That's what this day is for. What did you think Christmas was about? Flying reindeer?"

The boy was staring at him in mute amazement.

The man in the deerstalker glanced at his watch again. "If the plane can take off in this weather, we should still be able to make it by Christmas. Come on, kid--let's take you home."

For a moment, the two stood in silence, and then the boy took another step forward and fell into step beside the man in the deerstalker, and the two of them walked away in the direction of the makeshift airstrip. And still, the bells pealed out their wild chorus. And still, the snow fell and the ice glistened on the trees, glowing in the dusky twilight. But now it seemed not so much like the end of the world as the beginning, not the white shroud of the dead past, but the blank, unspoiled page of the future, not like the end of day but the beginning of something better than day.