by Stephen King
Garraty opened his mouth to reply when a hollow, poom-poom sound echoed back from far ahead. It was rifle fire. The word came back. Harkness had burnt out.
There was an odd, elevatorish sensation in Garraty’s stomach as he passed the word on back. The magic circle was broken. Harkness would never write his book about the Long Walk. Harkness was being dragged off the road someplace up ahead like a grain bag or was being tossed into a truck, wrapped securely in a canvas bodybag. For Harkness, the Long Walk was over.
“Harkness,” McVries said. “Ol’ Harkness bought a ticket to see the farm.”
“Why don’t you write him a poime?” Barkovitch called over.
“Shut up, killer,” McVries answered absently. He shook his head. “Ol’ Harkness, sonofabitch.”
“I ain’t no killer!” Barkovitch screamed. “I’ll dance on your grave, scarface! I’ll—”
A chorus of angry shouts silenced him. Muttering, Barkovitch glared at McVries. Then he began to stalk on a little faster, not looking around.
“You know what my uncle did?” Baker said suddenly. They were passing through a shady tunnel of overleafing trees, and Garraty was trying to forget about Harkness and Gribble and think only of the coolness.
“What?” Abraham asked.
“He was an undertaker,” Baker said.
“Good deal,” Abraham said disinterestedly.
“When I was a kid, I always used to wonder,” Baker said vaguely. He seemed to lose track of his thought, then glanced at Garraty and smiled. It was a peculiar smile. “Who’d embalm him, I mean. Like you wonder who cuts the barber’s hair or who operates on the doctor for gallstones. See?”
“It takes a lot of gall to be a doctor,” McVries said solemnly.
“You know what I mean.”
“So who got the call when the time came?” Abraham asked.
“Yeah,” Scramm added. “Who did?”
Baker looked up at the twining, heavy branches under which they were passing, and Garraty noticed again that Baker now looked exhausted. Not that we don’t all look that way, he added to himself.
“Come on,” McVries said. “Don’t keep us hanging. Who buried him?”
“This is the oldest joke in the world,” Abraham said. “Baker says, whatever made you think he was dead?”
“He is, though,” Baker said. “Lung cancer. Six years ago.”
“Did he smoke?” Abraham asked, waving at a family of four and their cat. The cat was on a leash. It was a Persian cat. It looked mean and pissed off.
“No, not even a pipe,” Baker said. “He was afraid it would give him cancer.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” McVries said, “who buried him? Tell us so we can discuss world problems, or baseball, or birth control or something.”
“I think birth control is a world problem,” Garraty said seriously. “My girlfriend is a Catholic and—”
“Come on!” McVries bellowed. “Who the fuck buried your grandfather, Baker?”
“My uncle. He was my uncle. My grandfather was a lawyer in Shreveport. He—”
“I don’t give a shit,” McVries said. “I don’t give a shit if the old gentleman had three cocks, I just want to know who buried him so we can get on.”
“Actually, nobody buried him. He wanted to be cremated.”
“Oh my aching balls,” Abraham said, and then laughed a little.
“My aunt’s got his ashes in a ceramic vase. At her house in Baton Rouge. She tried to keep the business going—the undertaking business—but nobody much seemed to cotton to a lady undertaker.”
“I doubt if that was it,” McVries said.
“No?”
“No. I think your uncle jinxed her.”
“Jinx? How do you mean?” Baker was interested.
“Well, you have to admit it wasn’t a very good advertisement for the business.”
“What, dying?”
“No,” McVries said. “Getting cremated.”
Scramm chuckled stuffily through his plugged nose. “He’s got you there, old buddy.”
“I expect he might,” Baker said. He and McVries beamed at each other.
“Your uncle,” Abraham said heavily, “bores the tits off me. And might I also add that he—”
At that moment, Olson began begging one of the guards to let him rest.
He did not stop walking, or slow down enough to be warned, but his voice rose and fell in a begging, pleading, totally craven monotone that made Garraty crawl with embarrassment for him. Conversation lagged. Spectators watched Olson with horrified fascination. Garraty wished Olson would shut up before he gave the rest of them a black eye. He didn’t want to die either, but if he had to he wanted to go out without people thinking he was a coward. The soldiers stared over Olson, through him, around him, wooden-faced, deaf and dumb. They gave an occasional warning, though, so Garraty supposed you couldn’t call them dumb.
It got to be quarter to eight, and the word came back that they were just six miles short of one hundred miles. Garraty could remember reading that the largest number to ever complete the first hundred miles of a Long Walk was sixty-three. They looked a sure bet to crack that record; there were still sixty-nine in this group. Not that it mattered, one way or the other.
Olson’s pleas rose in a constant, garbled litany to Garraty’s left, somehow seeming to make the day hotter and more uncomfortable than it was. Several of the boys had shouted at Olson, but he seemed either not to hear or not to care.
They passed through a wooden covered bridge, the planks rumbling and bumping under their feet. Garraty could hear the secretive flap and swoop of the barn swallows that had made their homes among the rafters. It was refreshingly cool, and the sun seemed to drill down even hotter when they reached the other side. Wait till later if you think it’s hot now, he told himself. Wait until you get back into open country. Boy howdy.
He yelled for a canteen, and a soldier trotted over with one. He handed it to Garraty wordlessly, then trotted back. Garraty’s stomach was also growling for food. At nine o’clock, he thought. Have to keep walking until then. Be damned if I’m going to die on an empty stomach.
Baker cut past him suddenly, looked around for spectators, saw none, dropped his britches and squatted. He was warned. Garraty passed him, but heard the soldier warn him again. About twenty seconds after that he caught up with Garraty and McVries again, badly out of breath. He was cinching his pants.
“Fastest crap I evah took!” he said, badly out of breath.
“You should have brought a catalogue along,” McVries said.
“I never could go very long without a crap,” Baker said. “Some guys, hell, they crap once a week. I’m a once-a-day man. If I don’t crap once a day, I take a laxative.”
“Those laxatives will ruin your intestines,” Pearson said.
“Oh, shit,” Baker scoffed.
McVries threw back his head and laughed.
Abraham twisted his head around to join the conversation. “My grandfather never used a laxative in his life and he lived to be—”
“You kept records, I presume,” Pearson said.
“You wouldn’t be doubting my grandfather’s word, would you?”
“Heaven forbid.” Pearson rolled his eyes.
“Okay. My grandfather—”
“Look,” Garraty said softly. Not interested in either side of the laxative argument, he had been idly watching Percy What’s-His-Name. Now he was watching him closely, hardly believing what his eyes were seeing. Percy had been edging closer and closer to the side of the road. Now he was walking on the sandy shoulder. Every now and then he snapped a tight, frightened glance at the soldiers on top of the halftrack, then to his right, at the thick screen of trees less than seven feet away.
“I think he’s going to break for it,” Garraty said.
“They’ll shoot him sure as hell,” Baker said. His voice had dropped to a whisper.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s watching him,” Pearson repli
ed.
“Then for God’s sake, don’t tip them!” McVries said angrily. “You bunch of dummies! Christ!”
For the next ten minutes none of them said anything sensible. They aped conversation and watched Percy watching the soldiers, watching and mentally gauging the short distance to the thick woods.
“He hasn’t got the guts,” Pearson muttered finally, and before any of them could answer, Percy began walking, slowly and unhurriedly, toward the woods. Two steps, then three. One more, two at the most, and he would be there. His jeans-clad legs moved unhurriedly. His sun-bleached blond hair ruffled just a little in a light puff of breeze. He might have been an Explorer Scout out for a day of bird-watching.
There were no warnings. Percy had forfeited his right to them when his right foot passed over the verge of the shoulder. Percy had left the road, and the soldiers had known all along. Old Percy What’s-His-Name hadn’t been fooling anybody. There was one sharp, clean report, and Garraty jerked his eyes from Percy to the soldier standing on the back deck of the halftrack. The soldier was a sculpture in clean, angular lines, the rifle nestled into the hollow of his shoulder, his head half-cocked along the barrel.
Then his head swiveled back to Percy again. Percy was the real show, wasn’t he? Percy was standing with both his feet on the weedy border of the pine forest now. He was as frozen and as sculpted as the man who had shot him. The two of them together would have been a subject for Michelangelo, Garraty thought. Percy stood utterly still under a blue springtime sky. One hand was pressed to his chest, like a poet about to speak. His eyes were wide, and somehow ecstatic.
A bright seepage of blood ran through his fingers, shining in the sunlight. Old Percy What’s-Your-Name. Hey Percy, your mother’s calling. Hey Percy, does your mother know you’re out? Hey Percy, what kind of silly sissy name is that, Percy, Percy, aren’t you cute? Percy transformed into a bright, sunlit Adonis counterpointed by the savage, dun-colored huntsman. And one, two, three coin-shaped splatters of blood fell on Percy’s travel-dusty black shoes, and all of it happened in a space of only three seconds. Garraty did not take even two full steps and he was not warned, and oh Percy, what is your mother going to say? Do you, tell me, do you really have the nerve to die?
Percy did. He pitched forward, struck a small, crooked sapling, rolled through a half-turn, and landed face-up to the sky. The grace, the frozen symmetry, they were gone now. Percy was just dead.
“Let this ground be seeded with salt,” McVries said suddenly, very rapidly. “So that no stalk of corn or stalk of wheat shall ever grow. Cursed be the children of this ground and cursed be their loins. Also cursed be their hams and hocks. Hail Mary full of grace, let us blow this goddam place.”
McVries began to laugh.
“Shut up,” Abraham said hoarsely. “Stop talking like that.”
“All the world is God,” McVries said, and giggled hysterically. “We’re walking on the Lord, and back there the flies are crawling on the Lord, in fact the flies are also the Lord, so blessed be the fruit of thy womb Percy. Amen, hallelujah, chunky peanut butter. Our father, which art in tinfoil, hallow’d be thy name.”
“I’ll hit you!” Abraham warned. His face was very pale. “I will, Pete!”
“A praaayin’ man!” McVries gibed, and he giggled again. “Oh my suds and body! Oh my sainted hat!”
“I’ll hit you if you don’t shut up!” Abraham bellowed.
“Don’t,” Garraty said, frightened. “Please don’t fight. Let’s . . . be nice.”
“Want a party favor?” Baker asked crazily.
“Who asked you, you goddam redneck?”
“He was awful young to be on this hike,” Baker said sadly. “If he was fourteen, I’ll smile ’n’ kiss a pig.”
“Mother spoiled him,” Abraham said in a trembling voice. “You could tell.” He looked around at Garraty and Pearson pleadingly. “You could tell, couldn’t you?”
“She won’t spoil him anymore,” McVries said.
Olson suddenly began babbling at the soldiers again. The one who had shot Percy was now sitting down and eating a sandwich. They walked past eight o’clock. They passed a sunny gas station where a mechanic in greasy coveralls was hosing off the tarmac.
“Wish he’d spray us with some of that,” Scramm said. “I’m as hot as a poker.”
“We’re all hot,” Garraty said.
“I thought it never got hot in Maine,” Pearson said. He sounded more tired than ever. “I thought Maine was s’posed to be cool.”
“Well then, now you know different,” Garraty said shortly.
“You’re a lot of fun, Garraty,” Pearson said. “You know that? You’re really a lot of fun. Gee, I’m glad I met you.”
McVries laughed.
“You know what?” Garraty replied.
“What?”
“You got skidmarks in your underwear,” Garraty said. It was the wittiest thing he could think of at short notice.
They passed another truck stop. Two or three big rigs were pulled in, hauled off the highway no doubt to make room for the Long Walkers. One of the drivers was standing anxiously by his rig, a huge refrigerator truck, and feeling the side. Feeling the cold that was slipping away in the morning sun. Several of the waitresses cheered as the Walkers trudged by, and the trucker who had been feeling the side of his refrigerator compartment turned and gave them the finger. He was a huge man with a red neck bulling its way out of a dirty T-shirt.
“Now why’d he wanna do that?” Scramm cried. “Just a rotten old sport!”
McVries laughed. “That’s the first honest citizen we’ve seen since this clambake got started, Scramm. Man, do I love him!”
“Probably he’s loaded up with perishables headed for Montreal,” Garraty said. “All the way from Boston. We forced him off the road. He’s probably afraid he’ll lose his job—or his rig, if he’s an independent.”
“Isn’t that tough?” Collie Parker brayed. “Isn’t that too goddam tough? They only been tellin’ people what the route was gonna be for two months or more. Just another goddam hick, that’s all!”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Abraham said to Garraty.
“A little,” Garraty said, staring at Parker. “My father drove a rig before he got . . . before he went away. It’s a hard job to make a buck in. Probably that guy back there thought he had time to make it to the next cutoff. He wouldn’t have come this way if there was a shorter route.”
“He didn’t have to give us the finger,” Scramm insisted. “He didn’t have to do that. By God, his rotten old tomatoes ain’t life and death, like this is.”
“Your father took off on your mother?” McVries asked Garraty.
“My dad was Squaded,” Garraty said shortly. Silently he dared Parker—or anyone else—to open his mouth, but no one said anything.
Stebbins was still walking last. He had no more than passed the truck stop before the burly driver was swinging back up into the cab of his jimmy. Up ahead, the guns cracked out their single word. A body spun, flipped over, and lay still. Two soldiers dragged it over to the side of the road. A third tossed them a bodybag from the halftrack.
“I had an uncle that was Squaded,” Wyman said hesitantly. Garraty noticed that the tongue of Wyman’s left shoe had worked out from beneath the lacings and was flapping obscenely.
“No one but goddam fools get Squaded,” Collie Parker said clearly.
Garraty looked at him and wanted to feel angry, but he dropped his head and stared at the road. His father had been a goddam fool, all right. A goddam drunkard who could not keep two cents together in the same place for long no matter what he tried his hand at, a man without the sense to keep his political opinions to himself. Garraty felt old and sick.
“Shut your stinking trap,” McVries said coldly.
“You want to try and make m—”
“No, I don’t want to try and make you. Just shut up, you sonofabitch.”
Collie Parker dropped back between Garrat
y and McVries. Pearson and Abraham moved away a little. Even the soldiers straightened, ready for trouble. Parker studied Garraty for a long moment. His face was broad and beaded with sweat, his eyes still arrogant. Then he clapped Garraty briefly on the arm.
“I got a loose lip sometimes. I didn’t mean nothing by it. Okay?” Garraty nodded wearily, and Parker shifted his glance to McVries. “Piss on you, Jack,” he said, and moved up again toward the vanguard.
“What an unreal bastard,” McVries said glumly.
“No worse than Barkovitch,” Abraham said. “Maybe even a little better.”
“Besides,” Pearson added, “what’s getting Squaded? It beats the hell out of getting dead, am I right?”
“How would you know?” Garraty asked. “How would any of us know?”
His father had been a sandy-haired giant with a booming voice and a bellowing laugh that had sounded to Garraty’s small ears like mountains cracking open. After he lost his own rig, he made a living driving Government trucks out of Bruns wick. It would have been a good living if Jim Garraty could have kept his politics to himself. But when you work for the Government, the Government is twice as aware that you’re alive, twice as ready to call in a Squad if things seem a little dicky around the edges. And Jim Garraty had not been much of a Long Walk booster. So one day he got a telegram and the next day two soldiers turned up on the doorstep and Jim Garraty had gone with them, blustering, and his wife had closed the door and her cheeks had been pale as milk and when Garraty asked his mother where Daddy was going with the soldier mens, she had slapped him hard enough to make his mouth bleed and told him to shut up, shut up. Garraty had never seen his father since. It had been eleven years. It had been a neat removal. Odorless, sanitized, pasteurized, sanforized, and dandruff-free.
“I had a brother that was in law trouble,” Baker said. “Not the Government, just the law. He stole himself a car and drove all the way from our town to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He got two years’ suspended sentence. He’s dead now.”
“Dead?” The voice was a dried husk, wraithlike. Olson had joined them. His haggard face seemed to stick out a mile from his body.
“He had a heart attack,” Baker said. “He was only three years older than me. Ma used to say he was her cross, but he only got into bad trouble that once. I did worse. I was a night rider for three years.”