The other wagons were crammed, too. Stu hadn't seen all the people in them, but he had seen all five of the Hodges family, and Chris Ortega, brother of Carlos, the volunteer ambulance driver. Chris was the bartender down at the Indian Head. He had seen Parker Nason and his wife, the elderly people from the trailer park near Stu's house. Stu guessed that they had netted up everyone who had been in the gas station and everyone that the people from the gas station said they'd talked to since Campion crashed into the pumps.
At the town limits there had been two olive-green trucks blocking the road. Stu guessed the other roads going into Arnette were most likely blocked off, too. They were stringing barbed wire, and when they had the town fenced off they would probably post sentries.
So it was serious. Deadly serious.
He sat patiently in the chair by the hospital bed he hadn't had to use, waiting for the nurse to bring someone. The first someone would most likely be no one. Maybe by morning they would finally send in a someone who would have enough authority to tell him the things he needed to know. He could wait. Patience had always been Stuart Redman's strong suit.
For something to do, he began to tick over the conditions of the people who had ridden to the airstrip with him. Norm had been the only obvious sick one. Coughing, bringing up phlegm, feverish. The rest seemed to be suffering to a greater or lesser degree from the common cold. Luke Bruett was sneezing. Lila Bruett and Vic Palfrey had mild coughs. Hap had the sniffles and kept blowing his nose. They hadn't sounded much different from the first- and second-grade classes Stu remembered attending as a little boy, when at least two thirds of the kids present seemed to have some kind of a bug.
But the thing that scared him most of all - and maybe it was only coincidence - was what had happened just as they were turning onto the airstrip. The army driver had let out three sudden bellowing sneezes. Probably just coincidence. June was a bad time in east-central Texas for people with allergies. Or maybe the driver was just coming down with a common, garden-variety cold instead of the weird shit the rest of them had. Stu wanted to believe that. Because something that could jump from one person to another that quickly...
Their army escort had boarded the plane with them. They rode stolidly, refusing to answer any questions except as to their destination. They were going to Atlanta. They would be told more there (a bald-faced lie). Beyond that, the army men refused to say.
Hap had been sitting next to Stu on the flight, and he was pretty well sloshed. The plane was army too, strictly functional, but the booze and the food had been first-class airline stuff. Of course, instead of being served by a pretty stewardess, a plank-faced sergeant took your order, but if you could overlook that, you could get along pretty well. Even Lila Bruett had calmed down with a couple of grasshoppers in her.
Hap leaned close, bathing Stu in a warm mist of Scotch fumes. "This is a pretty funny bunch of ole boys, Stuart. Ain't one of em under fifty, nor one with a weddin ring. Career boys, low rank."
About half an hour before they touched down, Norm Bruett had some kind of a fainting spell and Lila began to scream. Two of the hard-faced stewards bundled Norm into a blanket and brought him around in fairly short order. Lila, no longer calm, continued to scream. After a while she threw up her grasshoppers and the chicken salad sandwich she had eaten. Two of the good ole boys went expressionlessly about the job of cleaning it up.
"What is all this?" Lila screamed. "What's wrong with my man? Are we going to die? Are my babies going to die?" She had one "baby" in a headlock under each arm, their heads digging into her plentiful br**sts. Luke and Bobby looked frightened and uncomfortable and rather embarrassed at the fuss she was making. "Why won't somebody answer me? Isn't this America?"
"Can't somebody shut her up?" Chris Ortega had grumbled from the back of the plane. "Christly woman's worse'n a jukebox with a broken record inside it."
One of the army men had forced a glass of milk on her and Lila did shut up. She spent the rest of the ride looking out the window at the countryside passing far below and humming. Stu guessed there had been more than milk in that glass.
When they touched down, there had been four Cadillac limousines waiting for them. The Arnette folks got into three of them. Their army escort had gotten into the fourth. Stu guessed that those good old boys with no wedding rings - or close relatives, probably - were now somewhere right in this building.
The red light went on over his door. When the compressor or pump or whatever it was had stopped, a man in one of the white spacesuits stepped through. Dr. Denninger. He was young. He had black hair, olive skin, sharp features, and a mealy mouth.