It was early evening, and she ought to be home finishing up the Saturday house cleaning that Suzanne most likely had not completed. However, Ruthe ended up on one of the few narrow streets in the downtown, hemmed on both sides by old brick buildings converted into apartment complexes. Oh, for the days when these were new and the best houses in town, she thought. They look so ashamed and defeated. She visualized bits of the misery that these dejected old structures might be seeing and hearing. One apartment might watch a succession of different lovers every night. Another could be shuddering daily to sounds of a quarrelsome family. Yet another taciturn old apartment might know of a crippled, neglected person, who never felt a ray of sunlight, or friendship.

Hundreds of variations, aren't there, Lord? she prayed. Behind those dirty windows and tattered curtains, a dozen unhappy people must be having the worst kind of day. While here I sit, perfectly snug and safe in our ol' car, with no bigger problem than figuring Ross out.

With her imagination she tried on the feeling of living here on a permanent basis. It was a caged feeling. She wanted to feel the backyard, Ruthe suddenly decided, so she headed to the end of the block and around into the back alley.

She peered at the back fire escapes and the little metal balconies, some of which were cluttered with laundry and rugs hung out to air. The small front yards had looked bad, but the muddy, messy patches in the back were worse.

Just about out at the street again, she heard a blood-curdling scream. Ruthe froze. A woman being molested? Or killed? Then it came again, from the second last old building along the alley.

She put the car into Park, ready to jump into action, then was unable to move for fear. Ought I do something? Lord, I'm scared! Anyhow, by the time I get to a pay phone she'll be murdered, or whatever -so what's the use? I'm too late! Her compassion and fears wrestled in the pit of her stomach.

Suddenly a pillow came hurtling through the open door at the top of the second floor fire escape. With a numb plop it landed in a puddle beside some soggy newspapers.

If there's a murderer loose, neither Mom, nor Grosz'mama want me here.

But this is not about hitchhikers. What if I were that poor woman?

"Oh Lord!" she cried aloud. "Nobody would blame me for running, but if I don't go to help, I'll always hate myself. You do want me to go, don't You? You'll protect me?"

Ruthe leaped out of the car and zipped up the fire escape. Gripping the rail she could do two steps at a time. Momentarily she paused, puffing in the half open doorway, trying to make out what was happening in the unlit room.

Slowly they focused. He was a big, hairy man with only a pair of brown print shorts on, and he was deliberately tightening a towel around her throat. Her thick black hair covered most of her face, but her faded, light-green nylon housecoat hung wide open.

Uh-gh-ch-h! Vomit climbed in her throat as Ruthe realized what he was doing to the nearly undressed woman. Something inside her boiled up and threw the lid. Without a second thought, she bounced up behind the man, landing her knuckled left fist as it arrived, just above his ear and around the corner from his eye. He fell over to his right. Slowly, but yes, he was falling.

In that split instant Ruthe recalled all the times she and Brandt had wrestled and fooled around on the floor until her mother had insisted she was too old for that game. How often had mom warned them to stop, saying that if they continued they might "hit someone on the temple" and that child would be as dead as Goliath.

Idon'tcareifheis! Ruthe viciously ground her teeth. Had it comin'!

The woman crumpled as his hold on the towel eased at the beginning of the man's fall. Quickly, Ruthe snatched at the towel and threw it behind her, stepping over the man's foot to halt the woman's fall with her own body. Her grasp wasn't right. All she could do was guide the victim's slump to the floor.

Ruthe drew the lustrous black hair out of the eyes as the purple seeped from the smooth, olive face. She patted the cheeks. Are you alive? You have to be!

Her Goliath moaned. -Lord! Ruthe squealed in silent panic. He's coming to?! I thought he was dead! Let's get her out'a here!

But the woman was unconscious, and it would be hard work to drag her down those cruel, metal stairs.

Ruthe had heard before how city people refused to become involved with their neighbours. It was no use calling for help, she decided, when she needed every breath she had left. Standing over him, hands on her hipbones, she glanced about, and thought while she took a deep gulp of air. He moaned again, and she knew when he came to he would be an offended bull.

Then she noticed; the bed was a high old brass-like affair with a pilled sheet over a lumpy mattress; against the wall beside it stood a big steel trunk about the same height as the bed frame. Her memory flitted back to a creative childhood game of cave-making.

Whoosh. Pushing with both hands and feet, Ruthe rolled her Goliath over so he was underneath the bed frame. Then she turned to the trunk. Crouching at an angle, pushing with a foot and both hands, she gave it all she had until it scraped to a stop beside the bed. There. He'll be wide awake before he does much else!

The little black-haired woman was moaning now. Though Ruthe panted urgently, the semiconscious heaving of her prisoner in his cave egged her on in her work. Dear- Lord! her anxious spirit gasped, You've given me more strength than I've ever had. Keep pouring it in! We're not done yet!

Lifting her in such a way that the olive-tanned arms and head fell over her shoulder, Ruthe dragged, or pushed in front of herself, the shorter woman to the door and balcony, where she had entered about sixty seconds ago. She paused to expel a long shaky breath. There had to be a better way to carry a body, but no one had ever shown her.

On the top step, Ruthe turned the body draped on her shoulder around, and sat her down on the metal platform. The sharp grilled metal work made the darker woman wince aloud.

If it wakes you up, good, thought Ruthe, and put the bare feet down a step, then lifting and tugging, sat down with her on the step below their bottoms. She put both feet down again, and pausing only to button the other's housecoat while she panted, Ruthe moved the body down onto the next one.

Lord! her heart and soul and back all screamed, Help! We've got to get- to a- hoss-abul, I su- ppose- but away- fore he-!

Just then her protege began to make bewildered grunts.

"Sh-sh- jus' sh-s-sh!" Ruthe gasped, still putting her down one step at a time with frantic urgency.

Fortunately, the limp body seemed to sense that they were escaping, and lifted a bit more of her own weight when Ruthe raised her.

At last the ground.

Ruthe now suspected the victim she was rescuing might be younger than she had first assumed. She pulled her up, and with the woman tilting at an angle, stumbled to the car in the alley. Ruthe put her in on the right side and hurried around to the left, just as the air above them tore with a roar, a thumping, bumping, and then a shattering crash. Ruthe's spine experienced a violent cramp as she visualized him raising the bed with his back and throwing it across the room. She noticed her knuckles twitched as she gripped the steering wheel and bent on getting far out of sight.

The university hospital over the bridge took the victim in, of course, but she was in no shape to answer questions. All Ruthe could tell was what she had seen, and what she imagined happened just before that.

The intern who quizzed her was a handsome young man with a very conscientious manner about him. His name was Dr. David Pollock, and when he allowed himself a smile, he dimpled so sweetly that Ruthe was ready to call him Davie. She just stopped herself in time.

The moment she described the strangler and how she had left him, or heard him, Dr. Davie grabbed a phone and punched in the short code for the police, briskly telling them to look for a strangler at-, Ruthe gave the street name and identified the building, which the doctor echoed.

This intern had asked her two and a half pages of questions when they were joined by a uniformed police officer, who said he had been sent to get the facts. Minutes later they were joined by a second who reported missing the strangler.

There were no more chairs in the cubicle, so they stood in a space between some polyester curtains, and looked down at Ruthe. They excused Dr. Davie when he asked. Giving their names as officers Aubrey and Ginter, they cross-examined Ruthe. She feared that they suspected her of making it all up. At the same time, they kept interrupting each other to tell her to relax.

Since there wasn't much to tell but her own actions, the quiz soon degenerated into a discussion on people who get emotionally involved and those who remain aloof. Ruthe got confused, and longed to drive off to pray, but she made a heated retort about being glad she could still get involved instead of being a cold professional when people needed help. They praised her again, and she realized they were giving her a backhanded compliment, so she backed away and left for home as soon as she could excuse herself.

She couldn't pray right away. Mentally she argued with the officers all the way home, defending her bleeding heart kind of social action. It was my faith in action. Their clinical detachment? No thanks!

Still moody when she arrived home, Ruthe got scolded from both Suzanne and her mother for not hurrying home to help with the Saturday cleaning chores. Not wanting to tell the truth about this adventure, she felt exceedingly glum and persecuted. After a brief nibble at the leftovers, she washed up supper dishes and set to doing the floors, the part Suzanne hated the most and had left undone for her. The unfairness didn't help, but Ruthe had found balm for her emotions before in vigorous floor scrubbing, so she threw herself into it, knowing her grunts and energy would work out her foul mood. Towards the end she was telling her Friend, Jesus, about it all.

Anyway, Ruthe decided as she was pouring the bucket of dirty water down the onion row in the garden, I did my part, didn't I? There is no need for that woman to find out who her rescuer was. So I'll stay away. What am I? Conceited? No way! There are others who can help this woman far better now than I ever could dream of doing. This country bumpkin is going to stop interfering in the lives of others.




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