“The sheriff has gone home,” one of the state police answered him.

Gareth took the officer’s hand and held it.

“I’m not sorry for what I done,” he told the deputy. “Killed them, that is.”

“You can wait to say that,” the man who had listened to his words commented thickly. This old deputy who had heard his words had known Gareth, as Dr. Ulric had, from birth. He had known Irene Vaisey from the time she was a girl.

“I couldn’t be shut out again. I couldn’t lose Sidney, you see, after I had already lost my horses, and my father and my two brothers. . . . Yet that was happening right in front of my eyes, officer! Them shutting me out with their better love-making. I was closed out . . . I had to kill them both because of the famished way they loved one another before my very eyes, you see. Like I didn’t exist anymore for them, nor never had existed—they loved one another like that. That hard. It was like they was angels. They looked into one another’s eyes like they had found the promised land.”

The deputy called the nurse and asked her to “do something.” The officer had stood up from his chair where he had listened to Gareth, but the boy pulled him down again into his seat.

“You listen to me,” he said. “God damn, law or no law, you listen to me. I am making my statement and you arrogant son of a bitch, you listen to me or take off your badge and quit. . . . I had to kill them. I couldn’t let Sid go over to his own enemy. Everybody knows Roy Sturtevant had been his mortal foe from the time they were both in the eighth grade, and yet here they were lookin’ like they had been admitted into the gates of Paradise. . . . I warned them, but they would not listen or pay me any mind. ‘You cain’t go over to the other side, Sid . . . I’ve stood by you for a long time, and you got to remember that it was because of you and Brian McFee that I had that accident in front of the train. I would never have had that happen to me had you not initiated me into your special gang, and you know that God damn well. I am the way I am today on account of you and the renderer, for it all come through your plans. He planned to kill Brian and Brian was made to plan to kill me, all so he could have you finally to himself, and you know it. We two was just makeweights, Brian and me. He knew in the end you would fall into his lap, and you have done just that . . .’ I warned him, officer, but he wouldn’t listen to reason. They were famished for one another’s lips, do you hear?”