Don't know nothin bout dat . . . All I know is you seem to have this idear of 'moider' a little broad
Walking down to the rest area - now he really did have to urinate - Jack sneezed three times, quickly. He swallowed and winced at the hot prickle in his throat. Getting sick, oh yeah. Great. Not even into Indiana yet, fifty degrees, rain in the forecast, no ride, and now I'm -
The thought broke off cleanly. He stared at the parking lot, his mouth falling wide open. For one awful moment he thought he was going to wet his pants as everything below his breastbone seemed to cramp and squeeze.
Sitting in one of the twenty or so slant parking spaces, its deep green surface now dulled with road-dirt, was Uncle Morgan's BMW. No chance of a mistake; no chance at all. California vanity plates MLS, standing for Morgan Luther Sloat. It looked as if it had been driven fast and hard.
But if he flew to New Hampshire, how can his car be here? Jack's mind yammered. It's a coincidence, Jack, just a -
Then he saw the man standing with his back to him at the pay telephone and knew it was no coincidence. He was wearing a bulky Army-style anorak, fur-lined, a garment more suited to five below than to fifty degrees. Back-to or not, there was no mistaking those broad shoulders and that big, loose, hulking frame.
The man at the phone started to turn around, crooking the phone between his ear and shoulder.
Jack drew back against the brick side of the men's toilet.
Did he see me?
No, he answered himself. No, I don't think so. But -
But Captain Farren had said that Morgan - that other Morgan - would smell him like a cat smells a rat, and so he had. From his hiding place in that dangerous forest, Jack had seen the hideous white face in the window of the diligence change.
This Morgan would smell him, too. If given the time.
Footfalls around the corner, approaching.
Face numb and twisted with fear, Jack fumbled off his pack and then dropped it, knowing he was too late, too slow, that Morgan would come around the corner and seize him by the neck, smiling. Hi, Jacky! Allee-allee-in-free! Game's over now, isn't it, you little prick?
A tall man in a houndstooth-check jacket passed the corner of the rest-room, gave Jack a disinterested glance, and went to the drinking fountain.
Going back. He was going back. There was no guilt, at least not now; only that terrible trapped fear mingling oddly with feelings of relief and pleasure. Jack fumbled his pack open. Here was Speedy's bottle, with less than an inch of the purple liquid now left
(no boy needs dat poison to travel with but I do Speedy I do!)
sloshing around in the bottom. No matter. He was going back. His heart leaped at the thought. A big Saturday-night grin dawned on his face, denying both the gray day and the fear in his heart. Going back, oh yeah, dig it.
More footsteps approaching, and this was Uncle Morgan, no doubt about that heavy yet somehow mincing step. But the fear was gone. Uncle Morgan had smelled something, but when he turned the corner he would see nothing but empty Dorito bags and crimped beercans.
Jack pulled in breath - pulled in the greasy stink of diesel fumes and car exhausts and cold autumn air. Tipped the bottle up to his lips. Took one of the two swallows left. And even with his eyes shut he squinted as -
CHAPTER 16 Wolf
1
- the strong sunlight struck his closed lids.
Through the gagging-sweet odor of the magic juice he could smell something else . . . the warm smell of animals. He could hear them, too, moving all about him.
Frightened, Jack opened his eyes but at first could see nothing - the difference in the light was so sudden and abrupt that it was as if someone had suddenly turned on a cluster of two-hundred-watt bulbs in a black room.
A warm, hide-covered flank brushed him, not in a threatening way (or so Jack hoped), but most definitely in an I'm-in-a-hurry-to-be-gone-thank-you-very-much way. Jack, who had been getting up, thumped back to the ground again.
'Hey! Hey! Get away from im! Right here and right now!' A loud, healthy whack followed by a disgruntled animal sound somewhere between a moo and a baa. 'God's nails! Got no sense! Get away from im fore I bite your God-pounding eyes out!'
Now his eyes had adjusted enough to the brightness of this almost flawless Territories autumn day to make out a young giant standing in the middle of a herd of milling animals, whacking their sides and slightly humped backs with what appeared to be great gusto and very little real force. Jack sat up, automatically finding Speedy's bottle with its one precious swallow left and putting it away. He never took his eyes from the young man who stood with his back to him.