Sweating and straining, he shifted the wardrobe across to the window, and then he stood it on its side while he opened the shutters. Outside it was a dull, warm day, typical north Pacific coast weather, and he could hear Susan’s radio playing pop music through the wide-open kitchen window.

He was about to turn back to the wardrobe when he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. He looked again across the dust-colored yard, and he saw the man in the long white coat standing in the grass by the fence.

A cold, unnerving chill went down his back. He closed his eyes and then looked again, and the man was still there. The man’s face was hidden under the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat, but Neil could see that he had a tawny, light-colored beard, and that he was wearing a gun belt outside his coat.

The voice breathed, “Allen, for God’s sake… Allen, help me…”

And the figure was beckoning. With wide sweeps of his arm, he was beckoning.

Neil felt stunned, as if he had been anesthetized with novocaine. He stood by the open window for a long, paralyzed moment, and then he turned and ran down the stairs as fast as he could, almost twisting his ankle on the bottom stair.

Susan called, “Neil!” but he was already out of the house and running across the yard, running hard for the fence. He could hear his own panting in his ears, and the sound of his feet on the hard dust. The morning of gray clouds and warm wind jumbled past his eyes as he ran.

He half-expected the man in the long white coat to vanish. But the figure was still there, tantalizingly close, a strange white specter on a humid and ordinary day. Neil reached the fence, clambered over it, and jogged across the rough grass to where the man was standing.

Even this close, it was difficult to make out the man’s features. They were shaded so deeply by his hat that Neil could only just distinguish his dull, dark eyes.

The two of them stood ten feet apart, and the grass rustled around them. Crickets jumped and skirred, and the wind blew toward the ocean, the wind from the valleys of Sonoma and Napa and Lake counties, and the broad, harsh plain that led out to Sacramento.

Neil said, “Who are you? What do you want? You’ve been around here for days.”

When he answered, the man’s voice seemed curiously close, as if he were whispering in Neil’s ear. His lips scarcely moved, if they moved at all.

He said, “Allen?”

Neil shook his head. “I’m not Allen. Who’s Allen?”

“Allen went for help,” breathed the man. “For God’s sake, Allen.”

“Who is Allen?” demanded Neil. “Tell me who Allen is and maybe I can help you.”

From the house, he heard Susan call: “Neil? Neil?”