It had been two glorious days since I'd heard a radio or seen a newspaper. I didn't know that a madman was running loose in the Capital District, murdering by slow torture in the rural hills above the Hudson. All I knew was that the sunshine was brilliant, the scenery had been stolen from postcards, and my bike was running perfectly.
I even enjoyed tipping up my last water bottle to take the last half-sip of water. It seemed perfectly timed to drain the supply just before I stopped to replenish it. I had passed the Vroomansville Institute half a mile back, and it was advertised to be one mile from Vroomansville, so in only a few minutes I would be in the town where I planned to have lunch. I hoped that the little store would have some fresh fruit to nibble on while I rested.
I never thought that there might not be a little store. Vroomansville wasn't even a crossroads. It was a sharp bend in Route Twelve, the beginning of a lesser road, and a store-type building that looked as though the "For Sale" sign had been hanging there ever since Henry Ford did his thing.
Skipping lunch was no big deal. I still had an apple from the last stop, I carried about five pounds of unwanted emergency fuel on my hips, and it was only ten or fifteen miles to Stanleyville. Water was the problem. I'd already put in forty miles of hard work in full sun at temperatures over ninety degrees. I don't sweat in streams the way the boys do, but I still needed a big drink and a rest in the shade.
I'd never yet seen a road without a roadhouse somewhere. There was none on the side road and none behind — I thought. It was criminal stupidity not to realize that the Institute would have a bar. In blithe ignorance, I crossed the bridge confidently expecting to find a public house just around the curve.
Even before I lost sight of the bridge behind the curve of the road, the hill became so steep that I was forced to walk. I made an embarrassingly clumsy business of dismounting; a bike laden with tent, sleeping gear, cooking gear, and clothes for all possible weathers is top-heavy. My cleated shoes didn't help. A walking bikie has all the grace of a grounded albatross.
Sometimes riding, sometimes plodding up hills so steep that I kept my feet level despite the cleats, I pressed on into wilderness that made the bucolic scenery of the morning look like downtown Chicago.
It took me an hour to travel less than five miles. While I was gathering strength to remount after a long climb, I lost control of the bike and very nearly dropped it derailleur-side down. I wasn't even moving at the time, I was just standing there. I could no longer deny that my co-ordination was shot, and I knew that one's judgement goes first. If I kept on without water, the only way I could avoid doing something fatally stupid would be to collapse of heat stroke first. I must stop at the very next place, and if nobody was home, I must search for their outside faucet.
I slogged on for two more miles without seeing a "next place".
As I plodded toward the crest of a hill, I heard a car a few miles behind me. It was good to have something to think about besides the way I ached from walking. When I got to the top I pulled off the road and waited for it to pass; I didn't feel up to keeping track of traffic and handling the bike at the same time.
When the car was halfway up the next hill it turned right and disappeared, and I saw what I'd been too fuzzy-headed to notice before: a roof showing through the trees. Not only a house ahead, but definitely somebody home! I climbed onto the bike and shifted to a smaller cog. I was so cheered by the prospect of water that I built up enough speed on the downhill to stay in the saddle until I was close enough to read the name on the mailbox: "Sean Marino". I thought it appropriate that an exhausted bikie should call on a Marino for help. When I'd limped past the curve in the long crushed-rock drive I saw that the car that had passed me was parked behind another. When I got closer, I noticed the outside faucet in plain view ten feet to the right of the front door. I stumbled up the steps and knocked.
The man who opened the door looked as though he were in worse shape than I was. He was a short fellow, only a few inches taller than me, with mouse-colored hair and a face so pale that his beard-stubble looked a day longer than it was. I'd seen a face that drained only once before, in the ambulance entrance at St. Peter's.
"I'm sorry ... " I gestured vaguely with the bottle nearest the faucet.
"You're coming in!" he said, and grabbed my arm.
I pulled back a little, saying "Mr. Marino?" I'd like to say it was intelligence that made me leave the "Halt" in my pocket, that I was aware that sudden pain might make him hold on even tighter. In truth I'd forgotten I carried dog repellent.
"What?"
"The mailbox said Marino ... "
"What? Oh, yeah, I'm Marino." He covered his face with his free hand for a moment. "Sorry to scare you like that." He didn't let go. "I've just caught a burglar & I'm a little upset."
Forgetting for a moment how far out into the country I was, I exclaimed "We've got to call the police!"
"No! I mean, I've already called the cops. Got him all tied up nice and neat, so all we have to do is wait for the boys in blue."
His grip didn't hurt so much now that I knew why he was clinging to me. The thing to do was make small talk, get him to relax a bit. Should I remark that the "boys" wore brown? I'd crossed a county line or two since I'd seen a deputy, though; Schoharie might wear gray. I patted his hand and said, "It might be a while, way out here like this." There was a Bell hanging on the hall tree, with a pair of cycling gloves in it. I raised my free hand to loosen the chin strap of my own Bell, then froze. My fuzzy brain had just combined the statement that Marino had tied up the burglar with the observation that Marino was too terrified to tie his own shoes.
"Where is he!"
"Wha?"
"The burglar. We've got to make sure he's still tied."
"Yeah." Something about his grin made me remember the hot-pepper spray in my pocket, and remember that all dog-repellant could do against a man was buy you a chance to run.
He dragged me through the kitchen into a work-room festooned with tools and littered with bike parts. The man face-down on the floor looked gigantic to me. His shirt had been torn off. I supposed that I'd arrived just as Marino began to attend to the bruise on the burglar's temple and four or five small punctures in his back. Women's stockings securely bound his feet and hands. The hands ... his hands had square patches of tan on the back, exactly like the patches that my hands would show when I took off my cycling gloves. A warm-all- over sensation reminded me that I tend to faint when I'm tense. I said "I have to sit down" and sank to the floor. My host let go of my aching arm.
It was agony to be so tired and stupid when I needed to think clearly. None of the blood that oozed from the small punctures ran toward the giant's feet. He had been jabbed with something after he was lying down and helpless. If I hit "Marino" and failed to knock him out the first time, he would do me grievous harm. I had too little experience to be sure of knocking him out unless I picked up the floor pump — a yard- long cylinder of steel — and hit him with everything I had. I can't say that I reasoned all that out then, but I did know that I couldn't run away, and that I didn't dare to attack unless I was sure that I wanted to kill.
Stalling, I said "I'll be fine in a minute." Someone who lived here was a bikie. The man on the floor got his tan wearing a jersey and cycling gloves. The other guy hadn't been outside in months. You can't kill a man for being pale.
A wooden sole digging into my leg got my attention. "I've got to get out of these shoes," I said.
My host said, "Make yourself comfortable." He wasn't scared any more. I suddenly felt naked and chilly in my shorts and T-shirt. I fussed more over unlacing than I needed to, to cover a search for clues. There was a spool of nylon twine on the workbench; if the story he'd told me was true, it didn't make sense to go off to some other room to fetch stockings. The frameset in the bicycle vise, a sturdy diamond-mixte with a brazed-on rack, was surely built for a heavy man like the one on the floor. I could try to catch him in a lie but it still wouldn't be enough.
I said "Mr. Marino," and then I had it. I looked around for a starting point and pointed to the diamond-mixte. "That's a fine-looking bike." I hoped that I sounded as though I were trying to take my mind off the "burglar". "Do you race?"
"Yeah." He patted the frame, trying, I thought, to look like a proud owner. The owner of this workroom was serious about equipment, and he had money. He wouldn't race on a heavy-duty, long-wheelbase machine. On the other hand, I rode my familiar utility bike in the Washington Park Citizen's Criterium even though my brother was more than willing to set his Pro up to fit me.
"There's a race this May I'd sure like to see. It's in California, so I don't suppose you've heard of it." The little guy picked up a screwdriver, slapping it against his hand and looking at me. "Eight hundred miles in eighty-one hours, they say. The top finishers in the JMO will ride in the Race Across AMerica."
"I've never heard of a race called the Jayemoh," he said, and he kept slapping that screwdriver as he sort of tiptoed towards me.
I covered my face. "I think I'm going to faint, please get me some water."
He stopped, thinking it over. "I don't think I'd like for you to faint," he said.
He turned, took a few steps towards the kitchen. Unseen, unheard in my stocking feet I rose, grabbed the tire pump, and did my best to break it on his head.
I had no qualms at all while I was waiting for the ambulance to pick up the two wounded men. I could believe that a bikie might turn to burglary. I could believe that he might get caught burgling another bikie. I could believe that the other bikie might be in the habit of slathering on so much U-Val that he never got a tan. I could believe that he could be interested in racing and yet have never heard of the longest open non-drafting bicycle race in the world. But that a man named Sean Marino could make a habit of attending bike races and never hear the words "John Marino Open" — that I couldn't believe.