"Put your thumb up your ass**le and investigate that," the third replied, and that was the end of it. They sat by the fire again, and Tom began to creep along, feeling for each step, watching as their campfire receded with agonizing slowness. An hour and it was only a spark on the slope below him. Finally it was gone and a great weight seemed to slip off his shoulders. He began to feel safe. He was still in the West and he knew enough to be careful - laws, yes - but the danger no longer seemed as thick, as if there were Indians or outlaws all around.
And now, with the sun coming up, he rolled into a tight ball in the low thicket of bushes and prepared to go to sleep. Got to get some blankets, he thought. It's getting cold. Then sleep took him, suddenly and completely, as it always did.
He dreamed of Nick.
BOOK III THE STAND Chapter 70-71
Chapter 70
Trashcan Man had found what he wanted.
He came along a hallway deep underground, a hallway as dark as a mine pit. In his left hand he held a flashlight. In his right hand he held a gun, because it was spooky down here. He was riding an electric tram that rolled almost silently along the wide corridor. The only sound it made was a low, almost subaural hum.
The tram consisted of a seat for the driver and a large carry space. Resting in the carry space was an atomic warhead.
It was heavy.
Trash could not make an intelligent guess as to just how heavy it was, because he hadn't even been able to budge it by hand. It was long and cylindrical. It was cold. Running his hand over its curved surface, he had found it hard to believe that such a cold dead lump of metal could have the potential for so much heat.
He had found it at four in the morning. He had gone back to the motor pool and had gotten a chainfall. He had brought the chainfall back down and had rigged it over the warhead. Ninety minutes later, it was nestled cozily into the electric tram, nose up. Stamped on the nose was A161410USAF. The hard rubber tires of the tram had settled appreciably when he put it in.
Now he was coming to the end of the hallway. Straight ahead was the large freight elevator with its doors standing invitingly open. It was plenty big enough to take the tram, but of course there was no electricity. Trash had gotten down by the stairs. He had brought the chainfall down the same way. The chainfall was light compared to the warhead. It only weighed a hundred and fifty pounds or so. And still it had been a major chore getting it down five courses of stairs.
How was he going to get the warhead up those stairs?
Power-driver winch, his mind whispered.
Sitting on the driver's seat and shining his flash randomly around, Trash nodded to himself. Sure, that was the ticket. Winch it up. Set a motor topside and pull it up, stair-riser by stair-riser, if he had to. But where was he going to find five hundred feet of chain all in one piece?
Well, he probably wasn't. But he could weld pieces of chain together. Would that work? Would the welds hold? It was hard to say. And even if they did, what about all the switchbacks the stairs made going up?
He hopped down and ran a caressing hand over the smooth, deadly surface of the warhead in the silent darkness.
Love would find a way.
Leaving the warhead in the tram, he began to climb the stairs again to see what he could find. A base like this, there would be a little of everything. He would find what he needed.
He climbed two flights and paused to catch his breath. He suddenly wondered: Have I been taking radiation? They shielded all that stuff, shielded it with lead. But in the movies you saw on TV, the men who handled radioactive stuff were always wearing those protective suits and film badges that turned color if you got a dose. Because it was silent. You couldn't see it. It just settled into your flesh and your bones. You didn't even know you were sick until you started puking and losing your hair and having to run to the bathroom every few minutes.
Was all that going to happen to him?
He discovered that he didn't care. He was going to get that bomb up. Somehow he was going to get it up. Somehow he was going to get it back to Las Vegas. He had to make up for the terrible thing he had done at Indian Springs. If he had to die to atone, then he would die.
"My life for you," he whispered in the darkness, and began to climb the stairs again.
Chapter 71
It was nearly midnight on the evening of September 17. Randall Flagg was in the desert, wrapped in three blankets, from toes to chin. A fourth blanket was swirled around his head in a kind of burnoose, so that only his eyes and the tip of his nose were visible.
Little by little, he let all thoughts slip away. He grew still. The stars were cold fire, witchlight.
He sent out the Eye.
He felt it separate from himself with a small and painless tug. It went flying away, silent as a hawk, rising on dark thermals. Now he had joined with the night. He was eye of crow, eye of wolf, eye of weasel, eye of cat. He was the scorpion, the strutting trapdoor spider. He was a deadly poison arrow slipping endlessly through the desert air. Whatever else might have happened, the Eye had not left him.
Flying effortlessly, the world of earthbound things spread out below him like a clockface.
They're coming... they're almost in Utah now...