However that may be, the tense period in Haven really ended with the month of July-by this time, almost everyone in town had lost his teeth, and a number of other, stranger mutations had begun. Those seven people who had visited Bobbi's shed, communing with what waited in the green glow, had begun to experience these mutations some ten days earlier, but had kept them secret.

Considering the nature of the changes, that was probably wise.

Because Hank Buck's revenge on Albert “Pits” Barfield was really the last act of outrageous craziness in Haven, and in that light it probably deserves a brief mention.

Hank and Pits Barfield were part of the Thursday-night poker circle to which Joe Paulson had also belonged. By July 31st the poker games had ended, and not because that bitch “Becka Paulson had gone crazy and roasted her husband. They had stopped because you can't bluff at poker when all the players are telepaths.

Still, Hank held a grudge against Pits Barfield, and the more he thought about it, the more it grew in his mind. All these years, Pits had been bottom-dealing. Several of them suspected it-Hank could remember a night in the back room of Kyle Archinbourg's place, seven years ago it must have been, playing pool with Moss Harlingen, and Moss had said: “He's bottom-dealing just as sure as you're born, Hank. Six-ball in the side.” Whack! The six-ball shot into the side pocket as if on a string. “Thing is, bastid's good at it. If he was just a little slower, I could catch him at it.”

“If that's what you think, y'ought to get out'n the game.”

“Shit! Everyone else in that game is as honest as the day is long. And the truth is, I can outplay most of “em. Nine-ball. Corner.” Whap! “Suckardly little prick is fast, and he never overuses it-just does a little if he really starts to go in the hole. You notice how he comes out every Thursday night? “Bout even?”

Hank had. All the same, he had thought the whole thing was just a little buggyboo in Moss's head-Moss was a good poker player, and he resented anyone whose money he couldn't take. But others had voiced a similar suspicion over the intervening years, and more than a few of them-some of them damned nice fellows, too, fellows Hank had really enjoyed pulling a few beers and dealing a few hands with-had dropped out of the game. They did this quietly, with no fuss or bother, and the possibility that Pits Barfield might be responsible was never hinted at. It was that they had finally gotten into the Monday-night bowling league up to Bangor and their wives didn't want them out late two nights a week. It was that their work schedules had changed and they couldn't take that late night anymore. It was that winter was coming (even if it was only May) and they had to do a little work on their snowmobiles.

So they dropped out, leaving the little core of three or four that had -been there all along, and somehow that made it worse, knowing those outsiders had either picked it up or smelled it as clearly as you could smell the jungle-juice aroma which arose from Barfield's unwashed body most of the time. They got it. Him and Kyle and Joe Paulson had been snookered. All these years they had been snookered.

After the “becoming” got rolling really well, Hank discovered the truth once and for all. Not only had Pits been doing a little basement dealing, he had also, from time to time, indulged in a little discreet card-marking. He had picked these skills up in the long, monotonous hours of duty at a Berlin repple-depple in the months after the end of World War II. Some of those hot, muggy July nights Hank would lie awake in bed, head aching, and imagine Pits sitting in a nice warm farmhouse, shirt and shoes off, stinking to high heaven and grinning a great big shit-eating grin as he practiced cheating and dreamed of the suckers he would fleece when he got back home.

Hank endured these dreams and headaches for two weeks… and then, one night, the answer came. He would just send old Pits back to the repple-depple, that's what he would do. Some repple-depple, anyway. A repple-depple maybe fifty light-years away, or maybe five hundred, or five million. A repple-depple in the Phantom Zone. And Hank knew just how to do it. He sat bolt upright in bed, grinning a huge grin. His headache was gone at last.

“Just what the hell is a repple-depple, anyway?” he muttered, and then decided that was the least of his problems. He got out of bed and set to work right then, at three in the morning.

He caught up to Pits a week after the idea had struck him. Pits was sitting in front of Cooder's market, tipped back in a chair and looking at the pictures in a Gallery magazine. Looking at pictures of naked women, bottom-dealing, and stinking up repple-depples-these were the specialties of Pits Barfield, Hank decided.

It was Sunday, overcast and hot. People saw Hank walking toward where Albert “Pits” Barfield sat tipped back in his chair, workboots curled around the front rungs, checking out all those Girls Next Door; they felt-heard the one thought beating steadily

(reppledepplereppledepplereppledepple)

in Hank's mind, they saw the great big ghetto-blaster radio he was carrying

by the handle, saw the pistol jammed into the front of his pants, and they stepped away quickly.

Pits was deeply absorbed in the Gallery gatefold. It showed a great deal of a girl named Candi (whose hobbies, the magazine said, included “sailing and men with hands both strong and gentle'), and he looked up far too late to do anything constructive on his own behalf. Considering the size of the pistol Hank was carrying, people opined (usually without even opening their mouths, except to shovel in more food) over supper that night, it had probably been too late for poor old Pits when he got up that Sunday morning.

Pits's chair came down with a bang.

“Hey, Hank! What-”

Hank pulled the gun-it was a souvenir of his own Army service. He had done his time in Korea, and not in any repple-depple, either.

“You just want to sit right there,” Hank said, “or they're gonna be washing your guts off that store window, you cheating son of a bitch.”

“Hank… Hank… what…

Hank reached inside his shirt and brought out a small pair of Borg earphones. He jacked them into the big radio, turned it on, and tossed the phones toward Pits.

“Put em on, Pits. Let's see you deal your way out of this one.”

“Hank… please…”

“I ain't going to treat with you on this, Pits,” Hank said with great sincerity. “I'll give you a five-count to put on those earphones, and then I'm gonna give you a sinus operation.”

“Christ, Hank, it was a fucking quarter-limit poker game!” Pits screamed. Sweat poured down his face, stained his khaki shirt. The smell of him was large, vinegary, and amazingly repugnant.

“One… two…”

Pits looked around wildly. There was no one there. The street had cleared magically. There wasn't so much as a car to be seen moving on Main Street, although there were plenty slant-parked in front of the market. Complete silence had fallen. In it, both he and Hank could hear the music coming from the earphones -Los Lobos wondering if the wolf would survive.

“It was a lousy three-raise quarter-limit poker game and I hardly ever did it anyway!” Pits shrieked. “Somebody for Chrissake put a halter over this guy!”

“… three…”

And with a final, ludicrous defiance, Pits screamed: “And he's a sore fucking loser!”

“Four,” Hank said, and raised his service pistol.

Pits, his entire shirt now stained nearly black with sweat, his eyes rolling, smelling like a manure pile which had just been napalmed, gave in. “Okay! Okay! Okay!” He screamed, and picked up the earphones. “I'm doin” it, see? I'm doin” it!”

He put the phones on. Still holding the pistol on him, Hank bent over the ghetto-blaster, which could play cassette tapes as well as receive AM and FM stations. The Play button below the cassette holder had been taped over. Written on the tape was this one rather ominous word: Send.