"000007-some_wil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Budrys Algis)

Some Will not Die

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SECTION THREE

PROLOGUE:

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Custis had been asleep for about a half hour when somebody touched his shoulder. He turned over in one easy motion and caught the hand around the wrist. With his next move he was on his feet, and the girl's arm twisted back between her shoulder blades. "What's up, Honey?" he said quietly, putting just enough strain on her shoulder to turn her head toward him.

The girl was about eighteen or twenty, with a pale bony face and black hair hacked off around her shoulders. She was thin, and the top of her head came up to his collarbone. She was wearing a man's army shirt that bagged around her, and a skirt made by cutting off a pair of pants at the knees, opening the seams, and using the extra material to make gussets. The whole business was pretty crudely sewn, and came down to just above her dirty calves.

"I was bringing you something to eat, soldier," she said.

"O.K." He let go of her wrist, and she turned all the way around, putting the pail of stew down on the ground in front of him. There was a wooden spoon sticking up out of it. Custis sat down, folded his legs under him, and started to eat.

The girl sat down next to him. "Go easy," she said. "Half of that's mine."

Custis grunted. "The commander send you over here with this?" he asked, passing the spoon.

She shook her head. "He's busy. He always gets busy about this time of day, working on that bottle of his." She was eating as hungrily as Custis had, not looking up, and talking between mouthfuls.

Custis looked over toward the guard. The man was squatted down, with an empty dinner bucket beside him, scowling at Custis and the girl.

"That your man?" Custis asked her.

She looked up briefly. "You could say that. There's maybe six or seven of us that don't belong in anybody's hut. There's maybe fifty men without any families."

Custis nodded. He looked over toward the guard again, shrugged, and took the spoon from the girl. "The commander here--what's his name?"

"Eichler, Eisner--something like that. Anyhow, that's what he says. I was with the last bunch he took over up here, a couple of years ago. Never did get it straight. Who cares? Names come easy. He's the only commander we got."

So that didn't tell him anything. "What's your name?"

"Jody. You from Chicago, soldier?"

"Right now, yeah. Name's Joe Custis. You ever seen Chicago?"

She shook her head. "I was born up here. Never seen anything else. You going back to Chicago, Joe? Go ahead--finish that--I'm full."

Custis looked around at the cliffs and huts. "I figure I'll be getting out of here, maybe. Maybe Chicago's where I'll head for."

"Don't you know?"

"Don't much care. I live where my car is."

"Don't you like cities? I hear they've got all kinds of stores and things, and warehouses full of clothes and food."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"Some of the fellows here came out from Chicago, and Denver, and places like that. They tell me. But Chicago sounds like it's the best of all."

Custis grunted. "Ain't never been to Denver." He finished the stew. "Food's pretty good here. You cook it?"

She nodded. "You got a big car? Room for extra people to ride in?" She leaned back until her shoulder was touching his.

Custis looked down at the stewpot. "You're a pretty good cook."

"I like it. I'm strong, too. I'm not afraid to work. And I shoot a rifle pretty good, when I have to."

Custis frowned. "You want me to take you to Chicago?"

The girl was quiet for a moment. "That's up to you." She was still leaning on his shoulder, looking straight out ahead of her.

"I'll think about it."

The guard had been getting uglier and uglier in the face. Now he stood up. "All right, Jody, he's fed. Now get away from him."

Custis got slowly to his feet, using two fingers of his right hand to quietly push the girl's shoulder down and keep her where she was. He looked over toward the guard with a casual glance, and jumped him. He chopped out with his hands, and the rifle fell loose. Custis dropped the man, scooped up the rifle, and pulled out the clip. He worked the bolt and caught the extracted cartridge in mid-air. Then he handed the whole business back to the man.

"You tend to your job and I'll give you no trouble, son," he told him, and went back to where the girl was sitting. The guard was cursing, but by the time he'd reloaded the rifle he'd come to realize just how much Custis had done to him. If he didn't want the girl spreading his story all over the camp, his best move was to keep quiet from now on. He did it.

The girl looked sideward at Custis as he sat down again. "You always move that fast?"

"When it's gonna save me trouble, I do."

"You're a funny bird, you know? How come you've got that black smear around your eyes?"

"Rubber, off my goggles. Some of it's under the skin. Can't wash it off."

"You must of been wearing those goggles a long time."

"Ever since I was big enough to go along with my dad. He had a car of his own--full-track job. Found it, scroungin' around an old U.S. Army place called Fort Knox. That was back before everything got scrounged out. So he took the car and went out looking for people. What with one thing and another, he sort of got into working with people of one kind or another. I don't know where my mother is; couldn't be alive, I guess, if all I remember is being in the car with my dad.

"It wasn't a bad car. Too slow, though. On roads, I mean. We got caught that way in a town, once. This place was built around the only bridge standin' over the river, and we had to go through it. There was a couple of birds with a bazooka--anti-tank rocket launcher, is what that is--down at the far end of the town, behind some piled-up concrete. We opened up on them, but this car only had a 35-millimeter cannon. High velocity stuff, and that wears hell out of the riflin'. It was pretty far gone. We kept missing, and they kept trying to fire this bazooka thing. They must have had ten of the rockets that fit it, and one after another they was duds. One of them fired, all right, but when it hit us it didn't go off. Punched through the armor and got inside the car. The primer went off, but the charge was no good. The primer goin' off smoked up the inside of the car so bad we couldn't see. Dad was drivin', and I heard him trying to stay on the road. Then we hit something with one track--maybe they got us with another rocket--so we went around in a circle and flipped over sideways.

"Well, I crawled out and the car was between me and the birds with the bazooka. Then my dad crawled out. Both of us were busted up some, but our legs were okay. Meanwhile, these two birds were bangin' away with rifles. Dad and I, all we had was .45s. I figured the only thing to do was try and run for it, and I said so. Dad said the way to do it was to split up, or they'd get us both. And I couldn't see it, because if we got separated there was no tellin' when we'd get back together again. Well, Dad got this funny look on his face and gave me a shove away from him, and he started running. He yelled: 'Don't you waste me, hear?' and he was shooting at these guys. I got 'em both, later."

"Your dad must have been a funny kind of man."

Custis shrugged. He sat with the girl through the afternoon, making talk, until finally another rifleman came over to them from the line of huts.

He looked down at Custis and the girl, his eyes flicking back and forth once and letting it go at that. "This Henley fellow you brought wants to see you, soldier."

"What's his trouble?"

"I figured that's his business. He give me his wristwatch to come get you. I done that."

The man was a big, hairy type--bigger than Custis. But when Custis came smoothly to his feet, annoyance showing on his face, the rifleman took a step back. Custis looked at him curiously. The damnedest people were always doing that with him, and he had a hard time understanding it.

"I'll see you later," he said to the girl, and walked off.

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Henley suddenly said: "Custis--if we get out of here, don't take me back to Chicago."

"What?"

"No, listen--they'll kill us if we go back without Berendtsen. Or maybe with him. Let's go somewhere else. Or let's stay on the plains. We can live off the country. We can raid farms. Put me in your crew. I don't care--I'll learn to shoot a machinegun, or whatever you want me to do. But we can't go back to Chicago."

"I wouldn't have you in my crew if I had to drive and fire the guns all by myself."

"Is that your final answer?" Henley's lips were quivering.

"Damned right!"

"You think you know all the answers!"

Custis growled: "Get a hold on yourself."

And Henley did it. He waited a moment, but then he stopped his pacing, and flicked one hand up to brush his perspired hair back into place. "I'll get out of this. You watch me--I'll get out and see you executed."

Custis said slowly, shaking his head: "Look, I want to get out of here just as much as you do. I think maybe I can. If I do, I'll try and take you along, because I got you into this. But if you can't stand the gaff, you shouldn't of come out here in the first place."

"Never mind the speeches, Custis. From now on, I'll look after myself. Don't expect any help from me."

"Hey, you two," the rifleman said from the doorway, "commander wants you."

The sun was going down behind the mountains. It was still broad daylight farther up on the westward faces of the peaks, but the valley was filling with shadows. Custis followed Henley along the line of huts, feeling a little edgy in the thick gloom here at the base of the cliff, and wondering how all this was going to work out.

He watched Henley. The officer was walking in short, choppy strides, and Custis could see him working his self-control up to a high pitch. His face lost its desperate set, and the look of confidence came back to him. It was only if you knew what to look for that you could still see the panic in him, driving him like a fuel.

They reached the commander's hut.

"Come in," the commander said from his table, and Custis couldn't decide whether he was drunk on his home brew or not. The inside of the hut was so dark that all he could see of the old man was a shadow without a face. It might have been almost anyone sitting there.

Custis felt his belly tightening up. Henley stopped in front of the table, and Custis took a stand beside him.

"I'm glad to see you're still here, Custis," the old man said. "I was afraid you might be killed trying a break."

"I'm not crazy."

"I didn't think you were."

Henley interrupted. "Have you decided what you're going to do?"

The commander sighed. "Just why would you want Berendtsen back, Major?"

"Then, he's available?"

"Just answer the question, please. We'll do this my way."

Henley licked his lips. Custis could hear the sound plainly. "Well," the political officer finally said in a persuasive voice, "there's been no hope of stability anywhere since he was deposed. Governments come and go overnight. A constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on. We've never been under Berendtsen's rule, but his law stood up better than most. We need something like that in Chicago--the whole upper Middlewest needs it." Now that he'd gotten started, he was talking much more easily. "Paper money's so much mouse-stuffing, credit's nonexistent, and half the time your life's at the mercy of the next man's good will. We don't have a society--we have a poorly organized rabble. If Berendtsen's still alive, we need him. He's the only man anyone'll follow with any enthusiasm."

"Follow a corpse?"

"Follow a name--a legend. A legend of a time when there was civilization in the world."

"Do you really believe that, Henley?"

"Of course!"

"Oh, you believe that it'll work--you can see how a crowd would fall into line, believing it. But you realize, don't you, that if Berendtsen were to take over Chicago, the first thing he would do is order you and your gang hung."

Henley gave it one more try. "Would he? If we were the ones who gave him the opportunity to come back and finish what he'd begun?"

"I don't think Ted Berendtsen would have shown that kind of suicidal gratitude. No."

"Then you won't do it?"

"I'm not Berendtsen."

"Then, who is? Do you know where he is?"

"Berendtsen's been dead thirty years," the old man said. "What in heaven's name did you expect? If he was alive--and he's not--he'd be sixty years old now. A man that age, in this world--your whole scheme's fantastic, Major, and rational men would know it. But you can't let yourselves think rationally about it. You need your Berendtsens too badly."

"Then that's your final word?"

"I want to ask Custis something, first. You stay and listen. It'll interest you."

Custis frowned.

"Custis?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you think I'm Berendtsen?"

"You asked me that. No."

"You don't. Well, do you think Berendtsen's alive?"

"No."

"I see. You don't think I'm Berendtsen, and you don't think Berendtsen's alive--then, what're you doing up here in these mountains? What were you hoping to find?"

Custis felt himself getting angry. He felt he was being chivvied into a corner. "Nothing, maybe. Maybe I'm just a guy doing a job, because he has to. Not looking for anything or anybody--just doing a job."

The commander laughed mirthlessly. The sound stabbed at Custis out of the growing darkness in the cabin. "It's time we stopped lying to each other, Joe. You put your car--your entire life--in a position where you might lose them instantly. You know it and I know it, and let's not argue the merits of dust grenades against napalm shells. Why did you take that kind of gamble? Why were you dangling that bait? Who were you hoping might snap at it?"

"It was a quick way of finding out what Henley wanted to know."

"And how did you propose to get out, once you'd gotten yourself in? You don't give two cents paper for Henley. You're an independent armored-car commander on a simple contract job; why all the extra effort? You must have known damned well this mission wasn't in the interests of the Seventh Republic You're a child of the age. If you'd let yourself stop and think, you would have realized what was going on. But you don't care anything about the Eighth Republic, either. A man doesn't pledge allegiance to one of a meaningless string of numbers. No. What you wanted to do was to pledge allegiance to a man who's thirty years dead. Now deny it."

Custis didn't have an answer. It was dark outside. He'd played out his string, with the commander and with himself.

"You want me to tell you I'm Berendtsen, don't you?"

"Maybe," Custis said grudgingly.

The commander laughed again--a harsh, bitter croak of sound that made the hackles stand on Custis's neck. Henley was breathing heavily in the darkness.

"You and Henley--both damned fools. What would you do with your Berendtsen, Joe? Starve with him, up here in these mountains with an old man? If you found him, did you expect him to go and remake the world for you? He tried that, once. And maybe he succeeded, if men can still hope because he lived.

"But what could he do now, an old man? His sort of life is a young man's game--if it's anyone's.

"You, Joe--you're a different breed from this jackal beside you. What do you think Berendtsen started with? What's the matter with you, Custis? You've got a car, and a crew that'll follow you anywhere. What do you need some ready-made hero for?"

Custis had no answer at all.

"Don't worry, Joe--Henley's getting an earful. I can hear the gears turning in his head. Right now, he's planning how to use you. He can see it already. The Chicago machine swinging in behind you. The carefully built-up legend they'll manufacture around you. The indomitable strong American from the plains. All you'll have to do is stand up on a platform and shout, and his gang will take care of the rest. That's what he's thinking. But you don't have to worry about him. You can take care of him. It'll be a long time before anyone like you has to worry about anyone like Henley --years. And I can sit here and tell you this, and the likes of Henley'll still not worry, because they think they can always run things. Of course, in order to safeguard the legend of Joe Custis, he has to make sure, once and for all, that Berendtsen won't return--"

Custis heard the sound of steel snaking out of Henley's boot-top. He jumped for where the man had been, but Henley'd had minutes to get ready. Custis heard him bump into the desk, and the thin scream of his blade through the air.

The old man'll have moved, Custis thought. He'd had time. He heard the ripe sound of Henley's dagger, and then the dull chunk! as its hilt stopped against flesh. He heard the old commander sigh.

He stood still, breathing open-mouthed, until he heard Henley move. He went in low, under where the blade might be. As Custis hit him, Henley whispered: "Don't be a fool Don't make any noise! With any luck, we can walk out of here!"

He broke Henley apart with his hands, making no noise and permitting none from Henley. He let the officer slip to the floor and went silently around the table, to where he felt the old man folded over. He touched his shoulder. "Commander--"

"It's all right," the old man sighed. "I've been waiting for it." He stirred. "I've left things in a terrible mess. He was quicker to make up his mind than I had expected." He hunched himself up, his cracked fingernails scraping at his shirt. "I don't know now...you'll have to get out without me, somehow. I can't help you. Why am I so old?"

"It's O.K., Commander. I've had somethin' figured out. I'll make it."

"You'll need a weapon." The commander raised his head and pulled his shoulders back. "Here." He tugged at his chest and fumbled the wet knife into Custis's hand.

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Some Will not Die

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SECTION THREE

PROLOGUE:

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Henley was pacing back and forth in his hut when Custis stopped in the doorway. He twitched his lips nervously. "It's time you got here. I watched you out there, lollygagging with that girl."

"Make your point, Henley. What'd you want to see me about?"

"What did I want to see you about! Why didn't you come here as soon as the commander released you? We have to make plans--we have to think this through. We have to decide what to do if our situation grows any worse. Hasn't it occurred to you that this man might be planning to do almost anything to us?"

Custis shrugged. "I didn't see any sense in getting all worked up about it. When he makes up his mind, we'll find out about it. No use making any plans of our own until we find out what his are."

Henley stared angrily at him. "Don't you care? Don't you care if you get killed?"

"Sure I do. But the time to worry about that was back on the plains."

"Yes, and you decided quite easily, didn't you?" Henley stared at Custis waspishly. "It wasn't very hard for you to risk all our lives." His eyes narrowed.

"Unless--You know something, Custis. No man in his right mind would have acted the way you've acted unless you knew you weren't in any danger."

"That's a bad direction for you to think in."

"Is it? You drove up here like a man coming home. What do I know about you, after all? A freebooting car commander, off the same part of the plains where the outlaws run. Yes, I know you've worked for Chicago before, but what does that mean?" Custis could smell the hysteria soaking the officer's clothes. "You've sold us out, Custis! I can't understand how Chicago could ever have trusted you!"

"They must have, or I wouldn't of been hired for this job."

Henley gnawed his lip. "I don't know." He stopped and muttered down at the ground. "There are people who want my place for themselves. They might have planned all this to get rid of me."

"You're a damned fool, Henley."

Custis was thinking that, as late as a few years ago, he would have felt sorry for Henley. But since then he'd seen a lot of men go to pieces when they thought they might get killed. More of them died than would have if they'd kept thinking. It seemed to be something built into them. Custis had never felt it, and he wondered if there might not be something wrong with him. But, anyhow, Custis had learned it wasn't anything to feel one way or the other about. It was something some people did, and when you saw it you allowed for it.

Henley suddenly said: "Custis--if we get out of here, don't take me back to Chicago."

"What?"

"No, listen--they'll kill us if we go back without Berendtsen. Or maybe with him. Let's go somewhere else. Or let's stay on the plains. We can live off the country. We can raid farms. Put me in your crew. I don't care--I'll learn to shoot a machinegun, or whatever you want me to do. But we can't go back to Chicago."

"I wouldn't have you in my crew if I had to drive and fire the guns all by myself."

"Is that your final answer?" Henley's lips were quivering.

"Damned right!"

"You think you know all the answers!"

Custis growled: "Get a hold on yourself."

And Henley did it. He waited a moment, but then he stopped his pacing, and flicked one hand up to brush his perspired hair back into place. "I'll get out of this. You watch me--I'll get out and see you executed."

Custis said slowly, shaking his head: "Look, I want to get out of here just as much as you do. I think maybe I can. If I do, I'll try and take you along, because I got you into this. But if you can't stand the gaff, you shouldn't of come out here in the first place."

"Never mind the speeches, Custis. From now on, I'll look after myself. Don't expect any help from me."

"Hey, you two," the rifleman said from the doorway, "commander wants you."

The sun was going down behind the mountains. It was still broad daylight farther up on the westward faces of the peaks, but the valley was filling with shadows. Custis followed Henley along the line of huts, feeling a little edgy in the thick gloom here at the base of the cliff, and wondering how all this was going to work out.

He watched Henley. The officer was walking in short, choppy strides, and Custis could see him working his self-control up to a high pitch. His face lost its desperate set, and the look of confidence came back to him. It was only if you knew what to look for that you could still see the panic in him, driving him like a fuel.

They reached the commander's hut.

"Come in," the commander said from his table, and Custis couldn't decide whether he was drunk on his home brew or not. The inside of the hut was so dark that all he could see of the old man was a shadow without a face. It might have been almost anyone sitting there.

Custis felt his belly tightening up. Henley stopped in front of the table, and Custis took a stand beside him.

"I'm glad to see you're still here, Custis," the old man said. "I was afraid you might be killed trying a break."

"I'm not crazy."

"I didn't think you were."

Henley interrupted. "Have you decided what you're going to do?"

The commander sighed. "Just why would you want Berendtsen back, Major?"

"Then, he's available?"

"Just answer the question, please. We'll do this my way."

Henley licked his lips. Custis could hear the sound plainly. "Well," the political officer finally said in a persuasive voice, "there's been no hope of stability anywhere since he was deposed. Governments come and go overnight. A constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on. We've never been under Berendtsen's rule, but his law stood up better than most. We need something like that in Chicago--the whole upper Middlewest needs it." Now that he'd gotten started, he was talking much more easily. "Paper money's so much mouse-stuffing, credit's nonexistent, and half the time your life's at the mercy of the next man's good will. We don't have a society--we have a poorly organized rabble. If Berendtsen's still alive, we need him. He's the only man anyone'll follow with any enthusiasm."

"Follow a corpse?"

"Follow a name--a legend. A legend of a time when there was civilization in the world."

"Do you really believe that, Henley?"

"Of course!"

"Oh, you believe that it'll work--you can see how a crowd would fall into line, believing it. But you realize, don't you, that if Berendtsen were to take over Chicago, the first thing he would do is order you and your gang hung."

Henley gave it one more try. "Would he? If we were the ones who gave him the opportunity to come back and finish what he'd begun?"

"I don't think Ted Berendtsen would have shown that kind of suicidal gratitude. No."

"Then you won't do it?"

"I'm not Berendtsen."

"Then, who is? Do you know where he is?"

"Berendtsen's been dead thirty years," the old man said. "What in heaven's name did you expect? If he was alive--and he's not--he'd be sixty years old now. A man that age, in this world--your whole scheme's fantastic, Major, and rational men would know it. But you can't let yourselves think rationally about it. You need your Berendtsens too badly."

"Then that's your final word?"

"I want to ask Custis something, first. You stay and listen. It'll interest you."

Custis frowned.

"Custis?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you think I'm Berendtsen?"

"You asked me that. No."

"You don't. Well, do you think Berendtsen's alive?"

"No."

"I see. You don't think I'm Berendtsen, and you don't think Berendtsen's alive--then, what're you doing up here in these mountains? What were you hoping to find?"

Custis felt himself getting angry. He felt he was being chivvied into a corner. "Nothing, maybe. Maybe I'm just a guy doing a job, because he has to. Not looking for anything or anybody--just doing a job."

The commander laughed mirthlessly. The sound stabbed at Custis out of the growing darkness in the cabin. "It's time we stopped lying to each other, Joe. You put your car--your entire life--in a position where you might lose them instantly. You know it and I know it, and let's not argue the merits of dust grenades against napalm shells. Why did you take that kind of gamble? Why were you dangling that bait? Who were you hoping might snap at it?"

"It was a quick way of finding out what Henley wanted to know."

"And how did you propose to get out, once you'd gotten yourself in? You don't give two cents paper for Henley. You're an independent armored-car commander on a simple contract job; why all the extra effort? You must have known damned well this mission wasn't in the interests of the Seventh Republic You're a child of the age. If you'd let yourself stop and think, you would have realized what was going on. But you don't care anything about the Eighth Republic, either. A man doesn't pledge allegiance to one of a meaningless string of numbers. No. What you wanted to do was to pledge allegiance to a man who's thirty years dead. Now deny it."

Custis didn't have an answer. It was dark outside. He'd played out his string, with the commander and with himself.

"You want me to tell you I'm Berendtsen, don't you?"

"Maybe," Custis said grudgingly.

The commander laughed again--a harsh, bitter croak of sound that made the hackles stand on Custis's neck. Henley was breathing heavily in the darkness.

"You and Henley--both damned fools. What would you do with your Berendtsen, Joe? Starve with him, up here in these mountains with an old man? If you found him, did you expect him to go and remake the world for you? He tried that, once. And maybe he succeeded, if men can still hope because he lived.

"But what could he do now, an old man? His sort of life is a young man's game--if it's anyone's.

"You, Joe--you're a different breed from this jackal beside you. What do you think Berendtsen started with? What's the matter with you, Custis? You've got a car, and a crew that'll follow you anywhere. What do you need some ready-made hero for?"

Custis had no answer at all.

"Don't worry, Joe--Henley's getting an earful. I can hear the gears turning in his head. Right now, he's planning how to use you. He can see it already. The Chicago machine swinging in behind you. The carefully built-up legend they'll manufacture around you. The indomitable strong American from the plains. All you'll have to do is stand up on a platform and shout, and his gang will take care of the rest. That's what he's thinking. But you don't have to worry about him. You can take care of him. It'll be a long time before anyone like you has to worry about anyone like Henley --years. And I can sit here and tell you this, and the likes of Henley'll still not worry, because they think they can always run things. Of course, in order to safeguard the legend of Joe Custis, he has to make sure, once and for all, that Berendtsen won't return--"

Custis heard the sound of steel snaking out of Henley's boot-top. He jumped for where the man had been, but Henley'd had minutes to get ready. Custis heard him bump into the desk, and the thin scream of his blade through the air.

The old man'll have moved, Custis thought. He'd had time. He heard the ripe sound of Henley's dagger, and then the dull chunk! as its hilt stopped against flesh. He heard the old commander sigh.

He stood still, breathing open-mouthed, until he heard Henley move. He went in low, under where the blade might be. As Custis hit him, Henley whispered: "Don't be a fool Don't make any noise! With any luck, we can walk out of here!"

He broke Henley apart with his hands, making no noise and permitting none from Henley. He let the officer slip to the floor and went silently around the table, to where he felt the old man folded over. He touched his shoulder. "Commander--"

"It's all right," the old man sighed. "I've been waiting for it." He stirred. "I've left things in a terrible mess. He was quicker to make up his mind than I had expected." He hunched himself up, his cracked fingernails scraping at his shirt. "I don't know now...you'll have to get out without me, somehow. I can't help you. Why am I so old?"

"It's O.K., Commander. I've had somethin' figured out. I'll make it."

"You'll need a weapon." The commander raised his head and pulled his shoulders back. "Here." He tugged at his chest and fumbled the wet knife into Custis's hand.

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