Mrs. Tassenbaum pushed in the clutch and re-started the engine. This time she found Reverse on the first try and backed into the road almost smoothly. Her first effort at a forward gear netted her Second instead of First and the truck almost stalled when she eased the clutch out, but then the engine seemed to take pity on her. With a wheeze of loose pistons and a manic rapping from beneath the hood, they began rolling north toward the Stoneham-Lovell line.
"Do you know where Turtleback Lane is?" Roland asked her. Ahead of them, near a sign marked MILLION DOLLAR CAMPGROUND, a battered blue minivan swung out onto the road.
"Yes," she said.
"You're sure?" The last thing the gunslinger wanted was to waste precious time casting about for the back road where King lived.
"Yes. We have friends who live there. The Beckhardts."
For a moment Roland could only grope, knowing he'd heard the name but not where. Then he got it. Beckhardt was the name of the man who owned the cabin where he and Eddie had had their final palaver with John Cullum. He felt a fresh stab of grief in his heart at the thought of Eddie as he'd been on that thundery afternoon, still so strong and vital.
"All right," he said. "I believe you."
She glanced at him across the boy sitting between. 'You're in one hell of a hurry, mister-like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. What very important date are you almost too late for?"
Roland shook his head. "Never mind, just drive." He looked at the clock on the dashboard, but it didn't work, had stopped in the long-ago with the hands pointed at (of course) 9:19. "It may not be too late yet," he said, while ahead of them, unheeded, the blue van began to pull away. It strayed across the white line of Route 7 into the southbound lane and Mrs.
Tassenbaum almost committed a bon mot-something about people who started drinking before five-but then the blue van pulled back into the northbound lane, breasted the next hill, and was gone toward the town of Lovell.
Mrs. Tassenbaum forgot about it. She had more interesting things to think about. For instance-
"You don't have to answer what I'm going to ask now if you don't want to," she said, "but I admit that I'm curious: are you boys walk-ins?"
FIVE
Bryan Smith has spent the last couple of nights-along with his rottweilers, litter-twins he has named Bullet and Pistol-in the Million Dollar Campground, just over the Lovell-Stoneham line. It's nice there by the river (the locals call the rickety wooden structure spanning the water Million Dollar Bridge, which Bryan understands is a joke, and a pretty funny one, by God). Also, folks-hippie-types down from the woods in Sweden, Harrison, and Waterford, mostly-sometimes show up there with drugs to sell. Bryan likes to get mellow, likes to get down, may it doya, and he's down this Saturday afternoon... not a lot, not the way he likes, but enough to give him a good case of the munchies.
They have those Marses'Bars at the CenterLovell Store. Nothing better for the munchies than those.
He pulls out of the campground and onto Route 7 without so much as a glance in either direction, then says "Whoops, forgot again!"
No traffic, though. Later on-especially after the Fourth of July and until Labor Day-there'll be plenty of traffic to contend with, even out here in the boonies, and he'll probably stay closer to home. He knows he isn't much of a driver; one more speeding ticket or fender-bender and he'll probably lose his license for six months. Again.
No problem this time, though; nothing coming but an oldpick-emup, and that baby's almost half a mile back.
"Eat my dust, cowboy!" he says, and giggles. He doesn't know why he said cowboy when the word in his mind was muthafuckah, as in eat my dust muthafuckah, but it sounds good. It sounds right. He sees he's drifted into the other lane and corrects his course.
"Back on the road again!" he cries, and lets loose another highpitched giggle. Back on the road again is a good one, and he always uses it
°n girls. Another good one is when you twist the wheel from side to side, making your car loop back and forth, and you say Ahh jeez, musta had too much cough-syrup! He knows lots of lines like this, even once thought of writing a book called Crazy Road Jokes, wouldn't that be a sketch, Bryan Smith writing a book just like that guy King over in Lovell!
He turns on the radio (the van yawing onto the soft shoulder to the left of the tarvy, throwing up a rooster-tail of dust, but not quite running into the ditch) and gets Steely Dan, singing 'Hey Nineteen." Good one! Yassuh, wicked good one! He drives a little faster in response to the music. He looks into the rearview mirror and sees his dogs, Bullet and Pistol, looking over the rear seat, bright-eyed. For a moment Bryan thinks they 're looking at him, maybe thinking what a good guy he is, then wonders how he can be so stupid. There's a Styrofoam cooler behind the driver's seat, and a pound of fresh hamburger in it. He means to cook it later over a campfire back at Million Dollar. Yes, and a couple more Morses' Bars for dessert, by the hairy oldJesus! Marses"