Desperation

by Stephen King

Besides, he thought, handing the cop his license, this isn’t Albania, you know. It may not be in our zone of perception, but it’s definitely not Albania.

At the same moment Peter looked in the compartment where he kept business cards and saw his license. He couldn’t remember putting it in there—why in the name of God would he have?—but there it was. In the photograph he looked not like an assistant professor of English at NYU but an unemployed petty laborer (and possible serial killer). Yet it was him, recognizably him, and he felt his spirits lift. They had their papers, God was in his heaven, all was right with the world. Besides, he thought, handing the cop his license, this isn’t Albania, you know. It may not be in our zone of perception, but it’s definitely not Albania.

“Are they a gang?” Peter asked. He still didn’t see where this was going. “Close as you’d get in a place as small as Fallon,” the cop said. He raised Peter’s license to his face, looked at it, looked at Peter, lowered it again. But he did not offer to give it back. “Dropouts, for the most part. And one of their hobbies is kifing out-of-state license plates. It’s like a dare thing. I imagine they got yours while you were in buying your cold drinks or using the facilities.” “You know this and they still do it?” Mary asked. “Fallon’s not my town. I rarely go there. Their ways are not my ways.”

“So what do I do? We can’t very well drive all the way across the country with no license plate on the back of the car, can we?”

“Get in the car,” the cop said, indicating his cruiser. The flashers were still pulsing on the roof, bright even in the bright desert daylight. “Right now, please, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson.”

Peter had begun to feel like a character in a movie (the one which came most persistently to mind was Midnight Express), and these details only added to that sensation.

There was mesh between the front of the car and the back, and no handles or window-cranks on the doors. Peter had begun to feel like a character in a movie (the one which came most persistently to mind was Midnight Express), and these details only added to that sensation. His best judgement was that he had talked too much about too many things already, and it would be well for him and Mary to stay quiet, at least until they got to wherever Officer Friendly meant to take them. It was probably good advice, but it was hard advice to follow. Peter found himself with a powerful urge to tell Officer Friendly that a terrible mistake had been made here—he was an assistant professor of English, his specialty was postwar American fiction, he had recently published a scholarly article called “James Dickey and the New Southern Reality” (a piece which had generated a great deal of controversy in certain ivied academic bowers), and, furthermore, that he hadn’t smoked dope in years. He wanted to tell the cop that he might be a little bit overeducated by central Nevada standards, but was still, basically, one of the good guys.

His wife was in this with him; he’d do well to remember that.

The thing up ahead, off the road with its tinted windshield pointed in the direction of Fallon and Carson City and Lake Tahoe, wasn’t a truck after all; it was an RV.

The thing up ahead, off the road with its tinted windshield pointed in the direction of Fallon and Carson City and Lake Tahoe, wasn’t a truck after all; it was an RV. Not one of the real dinosaurs, but still pretty big. Cream-colored, with a dark green stripe running along the side. The words FOUR HAPPY WANDERERS were printed in the same dark green on the RV’s blunt nose. The vehicle was road-dusty and canted over in an awkward, unnatural way. As they neared it, Peter saw an odd thing: all the tires in his view appeared to be flat. He thought maybe the double set of back tires on the passenger side was flat, too, although he only caught the briefest glimpse of them. That many flat shoes would account for the land-cruiser’s funny, canted look, but how did you get that many flat shoes all at once? Nails in the road? A strew of glass?

Words from an old song, floating in his head: Somethin happenin here . . . what it is ain’t exactly clear . . .

“You have the right to remain silent,” the big cop said in his robot’s voice. “If you do not choose to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. I’m going to kill you. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?”

“You have the right to remain silent,” the big cop said in his robot’s voice. “If you do not choose to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. I’m going to kill you. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?” She was looking at Peter, her eyes huge and horrified, asking him without speaking if he had heard what the cop had mixed in with the rest of it, that robotic voice never varying. Peter nodded. He had heard, all right. He put a hand into his crotch, sure he would feel dampness there, but he hadn’t wet himself. Not yet, anyway. He put an arm around Mary and could feel her trembling. He kept thinking of the RV back there. Door ajar, dollbaby lying face-down in the dirt, too many flat tires. And then there was the dead cat Mary had seen nailed to the speed-limit sign. “Do you understand your rights?” Act normally. I don’t think he has the slightest idea what he said, so act normally. But what was normal when you were in the back seat of a police-cruiser driven by a man who was clearly as mad as a hatter, a man who had just said he was going to kill you? “Do you understand your rights?” the robot voice asked him. Peter opened his mouth. Nothing came out but a croak. The cop turned his head then. His face, pinkish with sun when he had stopped them, had gone pale. His eyes were very large, seeming to bulge out of his face like marbles. He had bitten his lip, like a man trying to suppress some monstrous rage, and blood ran down his chin in a thin stream. “Do you understand your rights?” the cop screamed at them, head turned, bulleting blind down the deserted two-lane at better than seventy miles an hour. “Do you understand your fucking rights or not? Do you or not? Do you or not? Do you or not? Answer me, you smart New York Jew!” “I do!” Peter cried. “We both do, just watch the road, for Christ’s sake watch where you’re going!”

“Don’t worry about me,” the cop said. His voice was mild again. “Gosh, no. I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. In fact, I’ve got eyes just about everywhere. You’d do well to remember that.”

“I see holes like eyes,” the cop said. “My mind is full of them.” He said nothing else until they got to town.

A mile or so farther on, they passed a sign which read DESPERATION’S CHURCH & CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS WELCOME YOU! The words CHURCH & CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS were readable, although they had been coated with yellow spray-paint. Above them, in the same paint, the words DEAD DOGS had been added in ragged caps. The churches and civic organizations were listed beneath, but Peter didn’t bother to read them. A German Shepherd had been hanged from the sign. Its rear paws tick-tocked back and forth an inch or two above a patch of ground that was dark and muddy with its blood.

They passed a trailer park behind a stake fence. Most of the trailers were small and looked as if they had seen better days—around the time Cheers first went on the air, perhaps.

They passed a trailer park behind a stake fence. Most of the trailers were small and looked as if they had seen better days—around the time Cheers first went on the air, perhaps. Dispirited-looking laundry flapped between a few of them in the hot desert wind. In front of one was a sign which read: I’M A GUN-TOTTIN’ SNAPPLE-DRINKIN’ BIBLE-READIN’ CLINTON-BASHIN’ SON OF A BITCH! NEVER MIND THE DOG, BEWARE OF THE OWNER! Mounted on an old Airstream which stood near the road was a large black satellite dish. On the side of it was another sign, white-painted metal down which streaks of rust had run like ancient bloody tears: THIS TELACOMMUNICATIONS PROPERTY RATTLESNAKE TRAILER PARK NO TRESSPASSING! POLICE PATROLED! Beyond the Rattlesnake Trailer Park was a long Quonset hut with rusty, corrugated sides and roof. The sign out front read DESPERATION MINING CORP. To one side was a cracked asphalt parking lot with a dozen cars and pickups in it. A moment later they passed the Desert Rose Cafe. N. Then they were in the town proper. Desperation, Nevada, consisted of two streets that crossed at right angles (a blinker-light, currently flashing yellow on all four sides, hung over the intersection) and two blocks of business buildings. Most seemed to have false fronts. There was an Owl’s Club casino and cafe, a grocery, a laundrymat, a bar with a sign in the window reading ENJOY OUR SLOTSPITALITY, hardware and feed stores, a movie theater called The American West, a few others. None of the businesses looked as if they were booming, and the theater had the air of a place that has been closed a long time. A single crooked R hung from its dirty, bashed-in marquee. Going the other way, east and west, were some frame houses and more trailers. Nothing seemed to be in motion except for the cruiser and one tumbleweed, which moved down Main in large, lazy lopes.

There was an Owl’s Club casino and cafe, a grocery, a laundrymat, a bar with a sign in the window reading ENJOY OUR SLOTSPITALITY, hardware and feed stores, a movie theater called The American West, a few others.

from ’62 or so right through the seventies, it was the biggest open-pit copper mine in the United States, maybe in the world. Then it played out. They opened it up again year before last. They got some new technology that makes even the tailings valuable.

Beyond the town was an enormous curving bulwark with an improved dirt road at least four lanes wide running up to the top in a pair of wide switchbacks. The rest of this curved rampart, which had to be at least three hundred feet high, was crisscrossed by deep runoff trenches. To Peter they looked like wrinkles in old skin. At the foot of the crater (he assumed it was a crater, the result of some sort of mining operation), trucks that looked like toys compared to the soaring, wrinkled wall behind them were clustered together by a long, corrugated building with a conveyor belt running out of each end. Their host spoke up for the first time since telling them his mind was full of holes, or whatever it was he’d said. “Rattlesnake Number Two. Sometimes known as the China Pit.” He sounded like a tourguide who still enjoys his job. “Old Number Two was opened in 1951, and from ’62 or so right through the seventies, it was the biggest open-pit copper mine in the United States, maybe in the world. Then it played out. They opened it up again year before last. They got some new technology that makes even the tailings valuable. Science, huh? Gosh!”

There were four or five cars in the lot. One, a rusty old Ford Estate Wagon, was marked FIRE CHIEF. There was another police-car, in better shape than the Fire Chief’s car but not as new as the one their captor was driving. There was a single handicapped space in the lot. Officer Friendly parked in it. He turned off the engine and then just sat there for a moment or two, head lowered, fingers tapping restlessly at the steering wheel, humming under his breath. To Peter it sounded like “Last Train to Clarksville.”

“Don’t kill us,” Mary said suddenly in a trembling, teary voice. “We’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t kill us.”

Peter turned left. He and Mary were still walking hip to hip, still holding hands. They came to a set of three stone steps leading up to modern tinted-glass double doors. The building itself was much less modern. A white-painted sign hung on faded brick proclaimed it to be the DESPERATION MUNICIPAL BUILDING. Below, on the doors, were listed the offices and services to be found within: Mayor, School Committee, Fire, Police, Sanitation, Welfare Services, Department of Mines and Assay. At the bottom of the righthand door was printed: MSHA FRIDAYS AT 1 PM AND BY APPOINTMENT.

“You’re Peter,” he said. “Yes, Peter Jackson.” He wet his lips. The cop shifted his eyes. “And you’re Mary.” “That’s right.” “So where’s Paul?” the cop asked, looking at them pleasantly while the rusty leprechaun squeaked and spun on the roof of the bar behind them. “What?” Peter asked. “I don’t understand.” “How can you sing ‘Five Hundred Miles’ or ‘Leavin’ on a Jet Plane’ without Paul?” the cop asked, and opened the righthand door.

There was a girl of about six sprawled at the foot of the stairs, half-propped against the last four risers. One hand was thrown back over her head.

Machine-cooled air puffed out. Peter felt it on his face and had time to register how nice it was, nice and cool; then Mary screamed. Her eyes had adjusted to the gloom inside the building faster than his own, but he saw it a moment later. There was a girl of about six sprawled at the foot of the stairs, half-propped against the last four risers. One hand was thrown back over her head. It lay palm-up on the stairs. Her straw-colored hair had been tied in a couple of tails. Her eyes were wide open and her head was unnaturally cocked to one side. There was no question in Peter’s mind about whom the dolly lying at the foot of the RV’s steps had belonged to. FOUR HAPPY WANDERERS, it had said on the front of the RV, but that was clearly out of date in these modern times. There was no question in his mind about that, either. “Gosh!” the cop said genially. “Forgot all about her! But you can never remember everything, can you? No matter how hard you try!” Mary screamed again, her fingers folded down against her palms and her hands against her mouth, and tried to bolt back down the steps.

His last thought as the darkness swallowed him forever really wasn’t a thought at all, but an image: the bear on the dashboard next to the cop’s compass. Head jiggling. Painted eyes staring. The eyes turned into holes, the dark rushed out of them, and then he was gone.

He pulled the trigger at least three times. There might have been more, but three reports were all Peter Jackson heard. They were muffled by his stomach, but still very loud. An incredible heat shot up through his chest and down through his legs at the same time, and he heard something wet drop on his shoes. He heard Mary, still screaming, but the sound seemed to come from far, far away. Now I’ll wake up in my bed, Peter thought as his knees buckled and the world began to draw away, as bright as afternoon sunlight on the chrome side of a receding railroad car. Now I’ll— That was all. His last thought as the darkness swallowed him forever really wasn’t a thought at all, but an image: the bear on the dashboard next to the cop’s compass. Head jiggling. Painted eyes staring. The eyes turned into holes, the dark rushed out of them, and then he was gone.

Ellie shaking him. Was he late for work? How could he be late for work? They were on vacation. Then, shockingly loud, penetrating the blackness like the beam of a powerful light, gunshots. Three of them, then a pause, then a fourth.

Don’t think it, don’t think it, don’t you dare think it.

Screaming. Somewhere. A woman. From below them. Maybe— He tried to get on his feet but his knees wouldn’t lock. He fell forward off the bed he was sitting on (except it wasn’t a bed, it was a cot) and landed on his hands and knees. A fresh bolt of pain passed through his head, and for a moment he thought his skull would split open like an eggshell. Then he was looking down at his hands through clotted clumps of hair. Both hands were streaked with blood, the left considerably redder than the right. As he looked at them, sudden memory (Kirsten oh Jesus Ellie catch her) burst in his head like a poison firework and he screamed himself, screamed down at his bloodstained hands, screamed as what he had been trying to burrow away from dropped into his mind like a stone into a pond. Kirsten had fallen down the stairs— No. Pushed. The crazy bastard who had brought them here had pushed his seven-year-old daughter down the stairs. Ellie had reached for her and the crazy bastard had punched his wife in the eye and knocked her down. But Ellie had fallen on the stairs and Kirsten had plunged down them, her eyes wide open, full of shocked surprise, Ralph didn’t think she’d known what was happening, and if he could hold onto anything he would hold onto that, that it had all happened too fast for her to have any real idea, and then she had hit, she had cartwheeled, feet flying first upward and then backward, and there had been this sound, this awful sound like a branch breaking under a weight of ice, and suddenly everything about her had changed, he had seen the change even before she came to a stop at the foot of the stairs, as if that were no little girl down there but a stuffed dummy, headpiece full of straw. Don’t think it, don’t think it, don’t you dare think it. Except he had to. The way she had landed . . . the way she had lain at the foot of the stairs with her head on one side . . . Fresh blood was pattering down on his left hand, he saw. Apparently something was wrong with that side of his head. What had happened? Had the cop hit him, too, maybe with the butt of the monster sidearm he had been wearing? Maybe, but that part was mostly gone. He could remember the gruesome somersault she had done, and the way she had slid down the rest of the stairs, and how she had come to rest with her head cocked that way, and that was all. Christ, wasn’t it enough?

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Ralph asked. His choked voice came out of a throat plated with dead blood. He couldn’t believe what he heard that voice saying, but he supposed that in time he would. That was the worst of it. In time he would. “Kirsten’s dead.”

Across from them were two other closet-sized cells. In one of them was their eleven-year-old son, David, and a man with white hair. Ralph could see nothing else of this man, because he was sitting on the bunk with his head lowered onto his hands. When the woman screamed from below them again, David turned in that direction, where an open door gave on a flight of stairs

“The shotgun, lady!” David screamed. “Get the shotgun, shoot him, shoot him, lady, shoot him!”

“The shotgun, lady!” David screamed. “Get the shotgun, shoot him, shoot him, lady, shoot him!” The white-haired man finally looked up. His face was old and dark with desert tan; the deep bags beneath his watery ginhead eyes gave him a bloodhound look. “Get it!” the old man rasped. “For Christ’s sake, woman!” The woman in the jeans and the workshirt looked toward the sound of the boy’s voice, then back over her shoulder toward the stairs and the clump of heavy approaching footfalls. “Do it!” Ellie chimed in from beside Ralph. “He killed our daughter, he’ll kill all of us, do it!” The woman in the jeans and workshirt grabbed for the gun.

Until Nevada, things had been fine.

Until Nevada, things had been fine. They had started out as four happy wanderers from Ohio, destination Lake Tahoe. There Ellie Carver and the kids would swim and hike and sightsee for ten days and Ralph Carver would gamble—slowly, pleasurably, and with tremendous concentration. This would be their fourth visit to Nevada, their second to Tahoe, and Ralph would continue to follow his ironclad gambling rule: he would quit when he had either (a) lost a thousand dollars, or (b) won ten thousand. In their three previous trips, he had reached neither of these markers. Once he had gone back to Columbus with five hundred dollars of his stake intact, once with two hundred, and last year he had driven them back with over three thousand dollars in the inner lefthand pocket of his lucky safari jacket. On that trip they had stayed at Hiltons and Sheratons instead of in the RV at camping areas, and the elder Carvers had gotten themselves laid every damned night. Ralph considered that pretty phenomenal for people pushing forty.

The two of them sitting in the kitchen of their suburban home in Wentworth, not far from Columbus, sitting next to the bronze Frigidaire with the magnetic stick-on daisies scattered across it, travel-folders on the counter in front of them, neither aware that the gambling had already started and the first loss would be their daughter.

“What about Texas? We could take the kids to see the Alamo.” “Too hot, too historic. Tahoe will be cool, even in July. The kids love it. I do, too. And as long as you don’t come asking for any of my money when yours is gone—” “You know I’d never do that,” he had said, sounding shocked. Feeling a little shocked, actually. The two of them sitting in the kitchen of their suburban home in Wentworth, not far from Columbus, sitting next to the bronze Frigidaire with the magnetic stick-on daisies scattered across it, travel-folders on the counter in front of them, neither aware that the gambling had already started and the first loss would be their daughter. “You know what I told you—”

So he had made the reservations, and today—if it still was today—they had been on U.S. 50, the so-called loneliest highway in America, headed west across Nevada toward the High Sierra.

Mary stepped back, away from him and toward the big empty cell at the rear of the room, pulling back both of the shotgun’s hammers with the side of her thumb as she retreated. Then she raised it to her shoulder. She had no intention of warning him. He had just killed her husband in cold blood, and she had no intention of warning him.

Ralph had pumped the brakes and held the wheel with his elbows locked, letting it work back and forth a little in his hands but not too much.

I can tell you that because I’m a wolf and we get a circular every month from the National Safety Council.

“What are you doing out here, Mr. Marinville? Gosh! I thought you lived back East!” “Well, I do, but—” “And this is no kind of transportation for a . . . a . . . well, I’ve got to say it: for a national resource. Why, do you realize what the ratio of drivers-to-accidents on motorcycles is? Computed on a road-hours basis? I can tell you that because I’m a wolf and we get a circular every month from the National Safety Council. It’s one accident per four hundred and sixty drivers per day. That sounds good, I know, until you consider the ratio of drivers-to-accidents on passenger vehicles. That’s one in twenty-seven thousand per day. That’s some big difference. It makes you think, doesn’t it?” “Yes.” Thinking, Did he say something about being a wolf, did I hear that? “Those statistics are pretty . . . pretty . . .” Pretty what? Come on, Marinville, get it together. If you can spend an hour with a hostile bitch from Ms. magazine and still not take a drink, surely you can deal with this guy. He’s only trying to show his concern for you, after all. “They’re pretty impressive,” he finished.

“So what are you doing out here? And on such an unsafe mode of transportation?”

“So what are you doing out here? And on such an unsafe mode of transportation?” “Gathering material.” Johnny found his eyes dropping to the cop’s blood-stiffened right sleeve and forcibly dragged them back up to his sunburned face. He doubted if many of the people on this guy’s beat gave him a hard time; he looked like he could eat nails and spit razor-wire, even though he really didn’t have the right skin for this climate. “For a new novel?” The cop was excited. Johnny looked briefly at the man’s chest, hunting for a name-tag, but there was none. “Well, a new book, anyway. Can I ask you something, Officer?” “Sure, yeah, but I ought to be asking you the questions, I got about a gajillion of em. I never thought . . . out in the middle of nowhere and I meet . . . ho-lee shit!” Johnny grinned. It was hotter than hell out here and he wanted to get moving before Steve was on his ass—he hated looking into the rearview and seeing that big yellow truck back there, it broke the mood, somehow—but it was hard not to be moved by the man’s artless enthusiasm, especially when it was directed at a subject which Johnny himself regarded with respect, wonder, and yes, awe. “Well, since you’re obviously familiar with my work, what would you think of a book of essays about life in contemporary America?” “By you?” “By me. A kind of loose travelogue called”—he took a deep breath—“Travels with Harley”? He was prepared for the cop to look puzzled, or to guffaw the way people did at the punchline of a joke. The cop did neither. He simply looked back down at the tail-light of Johnny’s bike, one hand rubbing his chin (it was the chin of a Bernie Wrightson comic-book hero, square and cleft), brow furrowed, considering carefully. Johnny took the opportunity to peek surreptitiously at his own hand. There was blood on it, all right, quite a lot. Mostly on the back and smeared across the fingernails. Uck. Then the cop looked up and stunned him by saying exactly what Johnny himself had been thinking over the last two days of monotonous desert driving. “It could work,” he said, “but the cover ought to be a photo of you on your drag, here. A serious picture, so folks’d know you weren’t trying to make fun of John Steinbeck . . . or your own self, for that matter.”

“That’s the great danger, that people should go in thinking it’s some kind of . . . of weird joke. The cover should convey seriousness of purpose . . . maybe even a certain grimness . . .

“That’s it!” Johnny cried, barely restraining himself from clapping the big cop on the back. “That’s the great danger, that people should go in thinking it’s some kind of . . . of weird joke. The cover should convey seriousness of purpose . . . maybe even a certain grimness . . . what would you think of just the bike? A photo of the bike, maybe sepia-toned? Sitting in the middle of some country highway . . . or even out here in the desert, on the centerline of Highway 50 . . . shadow stretching off to the side . . .” The absurdity of having this discussion out here, with a towering cop who had been about to issue him a warning for pissing on the tumbleweeds, wasn’t lost on him, but it didn’t cut into his excitement, either. And once again the cop told him exactly what he wanted to hear. “No! Good gosh, no. It’s got to be you.” “Actually, I think so, too,” Johnny said. “Sitting on the bike . . . maybe with the kickstand down and my feet up on the pegs . . . casual, you know . . . casual, but . . .” “. . . but real,” the cop said. He looked up at Johnny, his gray eyes forbidding, then back down at the bike again. “Casual but real. No smile. Don’t you dare smile, Mr. Marinville.” “No smile,” Johnny agreed, thinking, This guy is a genius. “And a little distant,” the cop said. “Looking off. Like you were thinking of all the miles you’d been—”

Johnny looked up at the horizon to get a feel for that look—the old warrior gazing west, a Cormac McCarthy kind of deal—and again saw the vehicle parked off the road a mile or two up.

What fascinated him was the creature’s muzzle, which seemed to be grinning, and its yellow eyes, which looked both stupid and cunning.

He was interrupted by a long, trembling howl that chilled his blood . . . not just because it was clearly the sound of a wild animal but because it was close. The notepad dropped from his hand and he turned on his heels so quickly that he staggered. Standing just off the south edge of the road, not fifty yards away, was a mangy canine with thin legs and scanty, starved-looking sides. Its gray pelt was tangled with burdocks and there was an ugly red sore on its foreleg, but Johnny barely noticed these things. What fascinated him was the creature’s muzzle, which seemed to be grinning, and its yellow eyes, which looked both stupid and cunning.

When the cop took a fourth step toward it, the coyote raised its scuffed muzzle and howled again, a long, ululating sound

The cop ignored him. He was looking at the coyote, which was now looking intently back at him with its yellow gaze. “Tak,” the cop said. “Tak ah lah.”

“Hey, don’t get it going,” he said to the cop. “That’s très creepy.” The cop ignored him. He was looking at the coyote, which was now looking intently back at him with its yellow gaze. “Tak,” the cop said. “Tak ah lah.” The wolf went on staring at him, as if it understood this Indian-sounding gibberish, and the goosebumps on Johnny’s arms stayed up. The wind gusted again, blowing his dropped notepad over onto the shoulder of the road, where it came to rest against a jutting chunk of rock. Johnny didn’t notice. His pad and the autograph he’d intended to give the cop were, for the moment, the furthest things from his mind. This goes in the book, he thought. Everything else I’ve seen is still up for grabs, but this goes in. Rock solid. Rock goddam solid.

“I stole its eyes, that’s all. The holes of its eyes. I suppose most of that animal-tamer stuff is for the birds, but when it comes to slinkers like desert wolves . . . well, if you steal their eyes, it doesn’t matter what you say.

“What did you say to it?” Johnny asked. “That was amazing. Was it Indian? Some Indian dialect?” The big cop laughed. “Don’t know any Indian dialect,” he said. “Hell, don’t know any Indians. That was just baby-talk, like oogie-woogie, snookie-wookums.” “But it was listening to you!” “No, it was looking at me,” the cop said, and gave Johnny a rather forbidding frown, as if he were daring the other man to contradict him. “I stole its eyes, that’s all. The holes of its eyes. I suppose most of that animal-tamer stuff is for the birds, but when it comes to slinkers like desert wolves . . . well, if you steal their eyes, it doesn’t matter what you say. They’re usually not dangerous unless they’re rabid, anyway. You just don’t want them to smell fear on you. Or blood.”

Take it easy, he’s still a hundred yards away, you’ve got plenty of time. For the love of God, just do what comes naturally—do what they pay you for, do what you’ve been doing all your life. Communicate, for Christ’s sake!

She walked into the RV’s cabin. Steve went the other way, into the driver’s area, ducking his head so as not to bump it.

“There was a boy, too,” Cynthia called. “Unless the girl was into G.I. Joe and Judge Dredd and the MotoKops as well as dollies in blue dresses. One of the side-carriers back here is full of comic books.”

I SURVIVED HIGHWAY 50, THE LONELIEST HIGHWAY IN AMERICA!

I’m too spooked to want to piss in the catbox.”

“I just remembered the name of the little town that’s close to here,” she said, and pointed east. “It’s up that way, south of the highway. Cute name. You’re gonna love it, Lubbock.” “What?” “Desperation.” She grinned and climbed up into the cab of the truck.

It blew against a big rock and then sand covered the bottom half. Like with the doll. If he’d dropped it six inches to the right or left, it’d prob’ly be halfway to Mexico by now.”

He jogged to where she was standing. “What? What is it?” “Little notebook,” she said, and held it out. “I guess he was here, all right. J. Marinville, printed right on the front. See?” He took the small wirebound notepad with the bent cover and paged through it quickly. Directions, maps Steve had drawn himself, and jotted notes in the boss’s topheavy scrawl, most of them about the scheduled receptions. Under the heading St. Louis, Marinville had scribbled, Patricia Franklin. Redhead, big boobs. Don’t CALL HER PAT OR PATTY! Name of org. is FRIENDS OF OPEN LIBES. Bill sez P.F. also active in animal-rights stuff. Veggie.” On the last page which had been used, a single word had been scrawled in an even more flamboyant version of the boss’s handwriting: For That was all. As if he had started to write an autograph for someone and then never finished. He looked up at Cynthia and saw her cross her arms beneath her scant bosom and begin rubbing the points of her elbows. “Bruh,” she said. “It’s impossible to be cold out here, but I am just the same. This keeps getting spookier and spookier.” “How come this didn’t just fly away in the breeze?” “Pure luck. It blew against a big rock and then sand covered the bottom half. Like with the doll. If he’d dropped it six inches to the right or left, it’d prob’ly be halfway to Mexico by now.”

He was running out into the desert, running toward the glint, before he was even aware he meant to do it.

“What’s that?” she whimpered. “Oh my God, what is it?” “Coyote,” he said. “Just like in the Western movies. They won’t hurt us. Let up a little, Cynthia, you’re killin me.”

“That feeling of being watched . . . probably it was the coyotes,” she said. “You think?”

Instead of yelling at the woman who had tried her very best to blow his head off, or maybe hurting her for it, the cop gave her a brief one-armed hug. A pal’s hug. In a way, David found this seemingly sincere little gesture of affection more unsettling than all the violence which had gone before it. “I’m not going to kill you, Mare!”