Yet it had happened once before, for if it had not happened, why had there been the letter? The letter had made him come here and the letter had been written because he had come, so he must have come before. And in that other time he'd stayed…and stayed only because he could not get away. This time he would go back, this time he need not stay.
A second chance, he thought, I've been given another chance.
Yet that wasn't right, for if there had been a second time, old John H. would have known about it. And there couldn't be a second time, for this was the very day that John H. had talked to the man out of the future.
Sutton shook his head.
There had been only one time that this had happened, and this, of course, was it.
Something will happen, he told himself. Something that will not let me go back. Somehow I will be forced to steal the clothes and in the end I'll walk to that farmhouse up there and ask if they need a hand for harvest.
For the pattern was set. It had to be set.
Sutton touched the wrench with his toe again, pondering.
Then he turned and went down the hill. Glancing over his shoulder as he plunged into the woods, he saw old John H. coming down the hill.