So I vowed to keep quiet, but that little nervous giggle escaped from me again. “Oh boy, Mr. Stamper here is got a good sense humor, seein’ our car in this fix!” And I felt the hand grow even tighter on my arm.. . . Almost oblivious now to the hand, Lee watches the little birds work the runneling beach: How their poor bonded lives are written for them ...everlastingly tuned to the pitiless sea, immutably timed to the measured echo of the waves. “An’, y’know, guys, the way I see it, a fellow like Mr. Stamper with such a good sense humor about our fix he should be able to help us outen it, I see it that way.” I didn’t see it at all that way, but I didn’t voice my dissension. I half turned to gauge the distance to the jetty, but the driver’s gum-cracking henchmen read my look and shuffled over to cut off any attempt at a sudden break, and I began to feel properly trapped (At the bottom of the hole the boy’s eyes burned from long minutes without blinking. His numbed legs had collapsed unnoticed beneath him and his crumpled skull mask dangled from his neck like an amulet. The aching cold in his fingers was forgotten as he watched the light in the sky overhead move closer to his restricted line of vision. “I’m ready, Father in Heaven. O please. Come take me. I don’t want to die in this old hole. I don’t want to go home ever again. Just come and take me with you, O God...”) and also for the first time properly afraid; I’d heard tales of these beach hooligans and their ideas of sport. . . . Lee shakes his arm free of the driver’s grip and moves a few steps closer to the sea. He feels tired, almost sleepy. He looks for the daytime moon but the clouds have blown across it. He looks back at the busy detail of birds working the dangerous surf; their hectic pecking and hunting makes him more tired than ever... “Gosh, I mean, you’re a Stamper, Mr. Stamper; a Stamper oughta be able to help us out.” . . . He sees the birds as slaves, slaves to the rocking waves. “I mean, now say, for instance Hank Stamper, I bet he could just put a big strong shoulder agin our car and push it out with one heave.” Slaves, birds in bondage to the waves. Run run run down the beach right at the edge of the receding wave peckety peckety peckety after sand fleas turn around run run run back before the next wave rolls salty death over you ...over and over and over. (The little boy prayed fervently in his constricting dark, as the wind blew a hymn over the top of the hole, and the light came closer, brighter . . .) “An’ if Hank could do it I bet you could do it too, hey? So let’s see you put a shoulder an’ try. Come on, hey?”  I saw there was nothing to do but humor my tormentors and hope that they would grow tired of the game; so I rolled my pants legs another roll and walked around to the seaward side of the car. The water was like cold knives against my ankles. I put my shoulder against the rear fender and made as though I were shoving. . . . Slaves to the waves; pause too long pecking out a morsel from the running sand and WATCH OUT all the others turn run run run back except one careless bird, and when the wave rolls back a gray-speckled dot kicks desperately to free its wing from the sand before the next wave run run run up turn run run run back (“O Father in Heaven I see you comin’ I’m waitin’ I’m waitin’!”) turn run run run . . . “You gonna have to do better than that, Mr. Stamper; Hank Stamper’d be downright ashamed, you goin’ at it so puny an’ the water getting so high.” . . . One of the other birds comes across the drowned wad of feathers and pauses for a fraction of a second before running on in his eternal game with the waves; can’t stop! no time to mourn! sand feas or starve! No time, no time! (The light brightened. The boy could see one edge of it, like the tip of a great glowing finger crooking to him from the sky!) “Mr. Stamper, I don’ even think you’re tryin’. We’ll have to help you out.” I felt the icy rasp of salt water scrape my throat, and the first choking of panic. “C’mon, you can try!” . . . He feels tiredness creeping up his bones like the cold; he tosses his head and spits a mouthful of water. The birds, why do they do it? He thinks of the Darlingtonia he picked earlier. They aren’t like the birds, they can afford the luxury of patience. They can wait. And if one doesn’t attract his quota of flies and starves, it is only the dropping of a leaf. The plant still lives, the roots still live. Bur that little bird was just one and when he drowned, that was it, that was all of him, the one little bird. He lost. The wave wins, the bird loses. And the waves always eventually win. Unless . . . “Right down here, Mr. Stamper, your shoulder.” My mind became frantic as I felt more hands on me. . . . Unless you play it smart, unless you acknowledge your fate and accept it. Like the car.... “Get your shoulder here, Mr. Stamper.” “You better not . . . my brother will . . .”  “Your brother will what, Mr. Stamper? Your brother isn’t here. All alone, you said.” . . . He doesn’t struggle against them; they begin to weary of the sport without a struggle... “My goodness, you got wet, Mr. Stamper.” . . . And even when they step back he doesn’t try to come out of the water that is breaking waist deep . . . “You must really like the water, Mr. Stamper.”... He turns instead toward the incoming froth of the waves, looking out at the beautiful line of the horizon, then at the frantic efforts of the silly birds. All the poor silly devils need do is run run run and then wait . . . for that cold final crack to stop the whole insufferable hassle. A half-dozen steps and you end this frantic game. You don’t win, but you don’t lose, either. A stalemate is the best you can hope for, don’t you see? The very best . . . “Look.” “Who’s that?” “Oh Christ-o-Friday. It is him. . . .” “Split! Everybody split!” The driver leads and the others foll............