First Blood

'You listen,' Teasle said. 'I'm going to clear that mess of traffic. 'The time I'm through, you be in that cruiser.'

They eyed each other. The next thing, Teasle was over to the guy who had hit the cruiser. The guy was still shaking his head at the damage.

'Driver's license, insurance card, ownership papers,' Teasle told him. 'Please.' He went and shut the cruiser door.

'But I didn't have a chance to stop.'

'You were following too close.'

'But you slammed on your brakes too fast.'

'It doesn't matter. The law says the car in back is always wrong. You were following too close for an emergency.'

'But—'

'I'm not about to argue with you,' Teasle told him, 'Please give me your driver's license, insurance card and ownership papers.' He looked over at the kid, and of course the kid was gone.

5

Rambo stayed out walking in the open to make it clear that he was not trying to hide. Teasle could give up the game at this point and leave him alone; if he did not, well then it was Teasle who wanted the trouble, not himself.

He walked along the left-hand sidewalk, looking down at the stream wide and fast in the sun. Across the stream was the bright yellow, freshly sandblasted wall of a building with balconies over the water and a sign high on top MADISON HISTORIC HOTEL. Rambo tried to figure what was historic about a building that looked as if it had just been put up last year.

In the center of town, he turned left onto a big orange bridge, sliding a hand along the smooth warm paint on the metal rail until he was half across. He stopped to peer down at the water. The afternoon was glaring hot, the water fast and cool-looking.

Next to him, welded to the rail, was a machine with a glass top full of gumballs. He took a pe

Sure they do, Rambo thought. And the early bird gets the shaft.

He peered down at the water again. It was not long before he heard somebody walk up behind him. He did not bother to see who it was.

'Get in the car.'

Rambo concentrated on the water. 'Will you look at all the fish down there,' he said. 'Must be a couple of thousand. What's the name of that big gold one? It can't be a real goldfish. Not that big.'

'Palomino trout,' he heard behind him. 'Get in the car.'

Rambo peered further down at the water. 'Must be a new strain. I never heard of it.'

'Hey, boy, I'm talking to you. Look at me.'

But Rambo did not. 'I used to go fishing quite a bit,' he said, peering down. 'When I was young. But now most streams are fished out or polluted. Does the town stock this one? Is that why there's so many fish down there?'

That was why all right. The town had stocked the stream for as long as Teasle could remember. His father often used to bring him down and watch the workmen from the state fish hatchery stock it. The workmen would carry pails from a truck down the slope to the stream, set them in the water and the ease the pails over to let the fish slide out, the length of a man's hand and sleek and sometimes rainbow colored. 'Jesus, look at me!' Teasle said.

Rambo felt a hand grab on his sleeve. He tugged loose. 'Hands off,' he said, peering down at the water. Then he felt the hand grabbing at him again and this time he swung around. 'I'm telling you,' he said. 'Hands off!'

Teasle shrugged. 'All right, play it tough if you want. That doesn't bother me none.' He unhooked the handcuffs from his gun belt. 'Let's have your wrists.'

Rambo kept them at his sides. 'I mean it. Let me be.'

Teasle laughed. 'You mean it?' he said and laughed. 'You mean it? You don't seem to understand I mean it too. Sooner or later you're getting in that cruiser. Only question is, how much force I have to use before you do it.' He rested his left hand on his pistol and smiled. 'It's such a little thing, getting in the cruiser is. What do you say we don't lose our perspective?'

People walking by looked curiously at them.

'You would draw that thing,' Rambo said, watching Teasle's hand on the pistol. 'At first I thought you were different. But now I see I've met crazy ones like you before.'

'Then you're one up on me,' Teasle said. 'Because I've never met anything quite like you before.' He stopped smiling and closed his big hand around the grip of his gun. 'Move.'

And that was it, Rambo decided. One of them was going to have to back down, or else Teasle was going to get hurt. Bad. He watched Teasle's hand on the bolstered pistol, and he thought, You bloody stupid cop, before you pull that gun, I could snap off both your arms and legs at the joints. I could smash your Adam's apple to sauce and heave you over the rail. Then the fish would really have something to feed on.

But not for this, he suddenly told himself, not for this. Just thinking about what he could do to Teasle he managed to satisfy his anger and control himself. It was a control he had not been capable of before, and thinking about his control made him feel better too. Six months ago when he finished convalescing in the hospital, he had been unable to keep hold of himself. In a bar in Philadelphia some guy had kept pushing ahead of him to see the go-go girl take off her pants, and he had broken the guy's nose for him. A month later, in Pittsburgh, he had slit the throat of a big Negro who pulled a knife on him when he was sleeping one night by a lake in a park. The Negro had brought a friend who tried to run, and Rambo had hunted him all through the park until he finally caught him trying to start his convertible.

No, not for this, he told himself. You're all right now.

It was his turn to smile. 'O. K., let's have another ride,' he said to Teasle. 'But I don't know what the point is. I'm only going to walk back into town again.'

6

The police station was in an old schoolhouse. And red yet, Rambo thought as Teasle drove into the parking lot at the side. He almost asked Teasle if painting the schoolhouse red was somebody's idea of a joke, but he knew that none of this was a joke, and he wondered if he should try talking himself out of it all.

You don't even like this place. It doesn't even interest you. If Teasle hadn't picked you up, you would have gone straight through on your own.

That doesn't make a difference.

The cement steps leading up to the front door of the station looked new to him, the shiny aluminum door was certainly new, and inside there was a bright white room that took up the width of the building and half the length and smelled of turpentine. The room was checkered with desks, only two of which had anybody at them, a policeman typing, and another policeman talking into the two-way radio that was along the right back wall. They both stopped when they saw him, and he waited for it to come.

'Now that's a sorry sight,' the man by the typewriter said.

It never failed to come. 'Sure,' Rambo told him. 'And now you're supposed to say, What am I, a girl or a boy. And after that you're supposed to say, If I'm too poor to get a bath and a haircut, you'll take up a collection for me.'

'It's not his looks I mind,' Teasle said. 'It's his mouth. Shingleton, have you anything new I ought to know about?' he asked the man by the radio.

The man sat tall and solid. He had an almost perfectly rectangular face, neat sideburns down to slightly below his ears. 'Stolen car,' he said.

'Who's handling it?'

'Ward.'

'That'll be fine,' Teasle said and turned to Rambo. 'Come on then. Let's get this over.'