The Night of the Hunter (29 page)

I ain't afraid of you! he whispered to the shadows. I got a watch that ticks! I got a watch that shines in the dark!

And with that he scurried back into the bed and lay still for a long while, heart thundering, daring not look to see if the shadow man had been angered as before and had stayed, fixed to that white square of moonlight: watching, waiting, speculating before he moved on, singing down some fateful country lane among dream meadows that were breathless beneath the affrighted moon. At last he forced his eyes to turn again and look and he saw that the man was not there. Only the others remained: the horse dancing and the soldier waving his sword at the circling winter galaxies and the clown pirouetting on his spindly legs. But the night of the hunter was gone forever and the blue men would not come again. And so John pulled the gospel quilt snug around his ear and fell into a dreamless winter sleep, curled up beneath the quaint, stiff calico figures of the world's forgotten kings, and the strong, gentle shepherds of that fallen, ancient time who had guarded their small lambs against the night.