The Fourth R | Page 2

the
next inevitable problem created by their own act--"
A blinding flash of light cut a swath across the road, dazzling them. Around the curve
ahead, a car careened wide over the white line. His mother reached for him, his father
fought the wheel to avoid the crash. Jimmy Holden both heard and felt the sharp Bang! as
the right front tire went. The steering wheel snapped through his father's hands by half a
turn. There was a splintering crash as the car shattered its way through the retaining fence,
then came a fleeting moment of breathless silence as if the entire universe had stopped
still for a heartbeat.
Chaos! His mother's automatic scream, his father's oath, and the rending crash split the
silence at once. The car bucked and flipped, the doors were slammed open and ripped off
against a tree that went down. The car leaped in a skew turn and began to roll and roll,
shedding metal and humans as it racketed down the ravine.
Jimmy felt himself thrown free in a tumbleturn that ended in a heavy thud.

* * * * *
When breath and awareness returned, he was lying in a depression filled with soft rotting
leaves.
He was dazed beyond hurt. The initial shock and bewilderment oozed out of him, leaving
him with a feeling of outrage, and a most peculiar sensation of being a spectator rather
than an important part of the violent drama. It held an air of unreality, like a dream that
the near-conscious sleeper recognizes as a dream and lives through it because he lacks the
conscious will to direct it.
Strangely, it was as if there were three or more of him all thinking different things at the
same time. He wanted his mother badly enough to cry. Another part of him said that she
would certainly be at his side if she were able. Then a third section of his confused mind
pointed out that if she did not come to him, it was because she herself was hurt deeply
and couldn't.
A more coldly logical portion of his mind was urging him to get up and do something
about it. They had passed a telephone booth on the highway; lying there whimpering
wasn't doing anybody any good. This logical part of his confused mind did not supply the
dime for the telephone slot nor the means of scaling the heights needed to insert the dime
in the adult-altitude machine.
Whether the dazzle of mental activity was serial or simultaneous isn't important. The fact
is that it was completely disorganized as to plan or program, it leaped from one subject to
another until he heard the scrabble and scratch of someone climbing down the side of the
ravine.
Any noise meant help. With relief, Jimmy tried to call out.
But with this arrival of help, afterfright claimed him. His mouth worked silently before a
dead-dry throat and his muscles twitched in uncontrolled nervousness; he made neither
sound nor motion. Again he watched with the unreal feeling of being a remote spectator.
A cone of light from a flashlight darted about and it gradually seeped into Jimmy's
shocked senses that this was a new arrival, picking his way through the tangle of brush,
following the trail of ruin from the broken guard rail to the smashed car below.
The newcomer paused. The light darted forward to fall upon a crumpled mass of cloth.
With a toe, the stranger probed at crushed ribs. A pitifully feeble moan came from the
broken rag doll that lay on the ground. The searcher knelt with his light close to peer into
the bloody face, and, unbelieving, Jimmy Holden heard the voice of his mother straining
to speak, "Paul--I--we--"
The voice died in a gurgle.
The man with the flashlight tested the flaccid neck by bending the head to one side and
back sharply. He ended this inspection by letting the head fall back to the moist earth. It

landed with a thud of finality.
The cold brutality of this stranger's treatment of his mother shocked Jimmy Holden into
frantic outrage. The frozen cry for help changed into protesting anger; no one should be
treated that--
"One!" muttered the stranger flatly.
Jimmy's burst of protest died in his throat and he watched, fascinated, as the stranger's
light moved in a sweep forward to stop a second time. "And there's number two!" The
callous horror was repeated. Hypnotically, Jimmy Holden watched the stranger test the
temples and wrists and try a hand under his father's heart. He watched the stranger make
a detailed inspection of the long slash that laid open the entire left abdomen and he saw
the red that seeped but did not flow.
"That's that!" said the stranger with an air of finality.