Nick pedaled out of town at about quarter past one on the afternoon of July 3. He packed a knapsack in the morning, putting in some more of the penicillin pills in case he needed them, and some canned goods. He went heavy on the Campbell's tomato soup and the Chef Boy-ar-dee ravioli, two of his favorites. He put in several boxes of bullets for the pistol and took a canteen.
He walked up the street, looking in garages until he found what he wanted: a ten-speed bike that was just about right for his height. He pedaled carefully down Main Street, in a low gear, his hurt leg slowly warming to the work. He was moving west and his shadow followed him, riding its own black bike. He went past the gracious, cool-looking houses on the outskirts of town, standing in the shade with their curtains drawn for all time.
He camped that night in a farmhouse ten miles west of Shoyo. By nightfall on July 4 he was nearly to Oklahoma. That evening before he went to sleep he stood in another farmyard, his face turned up to the sky, watching a meteor shower scratch the night with cold white fire. He thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. Whatever lay ahead, he was glad to be alive.
BOOK I CAPTAIN TRIPS Chapter 41
Larry woke up at half past eight to sunlight and the sound of birds. They both freaked him out. Every morning since they had left New York City, sunlight and the sound of birds. And as an extra added attraction, a Bonus Free Gift, if you like, the air smelled clean and fresh. Even Rita had noticed it. He kept thinking: Well, that's as good as it's going to get. But it kept getting better. It got better until you wondered what they had been doing to the planet. And it made you wonder if this was the way the air had always smelled in places like upstate Minnesota and in Oregon and on the western slope of the Rockies.
Lying in his half of the double sleeping bag under the low canvas roof of the two-man tent they had added to their traveling kit in Passaic on the morning of July 2, Larry remembered when Al Spellman, one of the Tattered Remnants, had tried to persuade Larry to go on a camping trip with him and two or three other guys. They were going to go east, stop in Vegas for a night, then go on to a place called Loveland, Colorado. They were going to camp out in the mountains above Loveland for five days or so.
"You can leave all that 'Rocky Mountain High' shit for John Denver," Larry had scoffed. "You'll all come back with mosquito bites and probably with a good case of poison ivy up the kazoo from shitting in the woods. Now, if you change your mind and decide to camp out at the Dunes in Vegas for five days, give me a jingle."
But maybe it had been like this. On your own, with nobody hassling you (except for Rita, and he guessed he could put up with her hassle), breathing good air and sleeping at night with no tossing and turning, just bang, fast asleep, like somebody had hit you on the head with a hammer. No problems, except which way you were going tomorrow and how much time you could make. It was pretty wonderful.
And this morning in Bennington, Vermont, now headed due east along Highway 9, this morning was something special. It was the by-God Fourth of July, Independence Day.
He sat up in the sleeping bag and looked over at Rita, but she was still out like a light, nothing showing but the lines of her body under the bag's quilted fabric and a fluff of her hair. Well, he would wake her up in style this morning.
Larry unzipped his side of the bag and got out, buck naked. For a moment his flesh marbled into goosebumps and then the air felt naturally warm, probably seventy already. It was going to be another peach of a day. He crawled out of the tent and stood up.