Chapter 3

" You will have thirty seconds, and please remember that your answer must be in the form of a question."

Art Fleming

Jeopardy

It was three o'clock when the first drops of rain fell on the road, big and dark and round. The sky overhead was tattered and black, wild and fascinating. Thunder clapped hands somewhere above the clouds. A blue fork of lightning went to earth somewhere up ahead.

Garraty had donned his coat shortly after Ewing had gotten his ticket, and now he zipped it and turned up his collar. Harkness, the potential author, had carefully stowed his notebook in a Baggie. Barkovitch had put on a yellow vinyl rainhat. There was something incredible about what it did to his face, but you would have been hard put to say just what. He peered out from beneath it like a truculent light­house keeper.

There was a stupendous crack of thunder. " Here it comes! " Olson cried.

The rain came pouring down. For a few moments it was so heavy that Garraty found himself totally isolated inside an undulating shower curtain. He was im­mediately soaked to the skin. His hair became a dripping pelt. He turned his face up into the rain, grinning. He wondered if the soldiers could see them. He won­dered if a person might conceivably‑

While he was still wondering, the first vicious onslaught let up a little and he could see again. He looked over his shoulder at Stebbins. Stebbins was walking hunched over, his hands hooked against his belly, and at first Garraty thought he had a cramp. For a moment Garraty was in the grip of a strong panicky feeling. nothing at all like he had felt when Curley and Ewing bought it. He didn't wane Stebbins to fold up early anymore.

Then he saw Stebbins was only protecting the last half of his jelly sandwich. and he faced forward again, feeling relieved. He decided Stebbins must have a pretty stupid mother not to wrap his goddam sandwiches in foil, just in case of rain.

Thunder cracked stridently, artillery practice in the sky. Garraty felt exhila­rated, and some of his tiredness seemed to wash away with the sweat from his body. The rain came again, hard and pelting, and finally let off into a steady driz­zle. Overhead, the clouds began to tatter.

Pearson was now walking beside him. He hitched up his pants. He was wearing jeans that were too big for him and he hitched up his pants often. He wore horn-­rimmed glasses with lenses like the bottoms of Coke bottles, and now he whipped them off and began to clean them on the tail of his shirt. He goggled in that myopic, defenseless way that people with very poor eyesight have when their glasses are off. " Enjoy your shower, Garraty? "

Garraty nodded. Up ahead, McVries was urinating. He was walking backward while he did it, spraying the shoulder considerately away from the others.

Garraty looked up at the soldiers. They were wet, too, of course, but if they were uncomfortable, they didn't show it. Their faces were perfectly wooden. I wonder what it feels like, he thought, just to shoot someone down. I wonder if it makes them feel powerful. He remembered the girl with the sign, kissing her, feel­ing her ass. Feeling her smooth underpants under her pedal pushers. That had made him feel powerful.

" That guy back there sure doesn't say much, does he? " Baker said suddenly. He jerked a thumb at Stebbins. Stebbins's purple pants were almost black now that they were soaked through.

" No. No, he doesn't."

McVries pulled a warning for slowing down too much to zip up his fly. They pulled even with him, and Baker repeated what he had said about Stebbins.

" He's a loner, so what? " McVries said, and shrugged. " I think‑ "

" Hey, " Olson broke in. It was the first thing he had said in some time, and he sounded queer. " My legs feel funny."

Garraty looked at Olson closely and saw the seedling panic in his eyes already. The look of bravado was gone. " How funny? " he asked.

" Like the muscles are all turning... baggy."

" Relax, " McVries said. " It happened to me a couple of hours ago. It passes off."

Relief showed in Olson's eyes. " Does it? "

" Yeah, sure it does."

Olson didn't say anything, but his lips moved. Garraty thought for a moment he was praying, but then he realized he was just counting his paces.

Two shots rang out suddenly. There was a cry, then a third shot.

They looked and saw a boy in a blue sweater and dirty white clamdiggers lying facedown in a puddle of water. One of his shoes had come off. Garraty saw he had been wearing white athletic socks. Hint 12 recommended them.

Garraty stepped over him, not looking too closely for holes. The word came back that this boy had died of slowing down. Not blisters or a charley horse, he had just slowed down once too often and got a ticket.

Garraty didn't know his name or number. He thought the word would come back on that, but it never did. Maybe nobody knew. Maybe he had been a loner like Stebbins.

Now they were twenty‑ five miles into the Long Walk. The scenery blended into a continuous mural of woods and fields, broken by an occasional house or a crossroadswhere waving, cheering people stood in spite of the dying drizzle. One old lady stood frozenly beneath a black umbrella, neither waving nor speaking nor smiling. She watched them go by with gimlet eyes. There was not a sign of life or movement about her except for the wind‑ twitched hem of her black dress. On the middle finger of her right hand she wore a large ring with a purple stone. There was a tarnished cameo at her throat.

They crossed a railroad track that had been abandoned long ago‑ the rails were rusty and witch‑ grass was growing in the cinders between the ties. Somebody stumbled and fell and was warned and got up and went on walking with a bleeding knee.

It was only nineteen miles to Caribou, but dark would come before that. No rest for the wicked, Garraty thought, and that struck him funny. He laughed.

McVries looked at him closely. " Getting tired? "

" No, " Garraty said. " I've been tired for quite a while now." He looked at McVries with something like animosity. " You mean you're not? "

McVries said, " Just go on dancing with me like this forever, Garraty, and I'll never tire. We'll scrape our shoes on the stars and hang upside down from the moon. "

He blew Garraty a kiss and walked away.

Garraty looked after him. He didn't know what to make of McVries.

By quarter of four the sky had cleared and there was a rainbow in the west, where the sun was sitting below gold‑ edged clouds. Slanting rays of the late afternoon sunlight colored the newly turned fields they were passing, making the furrows sharp and black where they contoured around the long, sloping hills.

The sound of the halftrack was quiet, almost soothing. Garraty let his head drop forward and semi‑ dozed as he walked. Somewhere up ahead was Freeport. Not tonight or tomorrow, though. Lot of steps. Long way to go. He found himself still with too many questions and not enough answers. The whole Walk seemed noth­ing but one looming question mark. He told himself that a thing like this must have some deep meaning. Surely it was so. A thing like this must provide an answer to every question; it was just a matter of keeping your foot on the throttle. Now if he could only‑

He put his foot down in a puddle of water and started fully awake again. Pearson looked at him quizzically and pushed his glasses up on his nose. " You know that guy that fell down and cut himself when we were crossing the tracks? "

" Yeah. It was Zuck, wasn't it? "

" Yeah. I just heard he's still bleeding. "

" How far to Caribou, Maniac? " somebody asked him. Garraty looked around. It was Barkovitch. He had tucked his rainhat into his back pocket where it flapped obscenely.

" How the hell should I know? "

" You live here, don't you? "

" It's about seventeen miles, " McVries told him. " Now go peddle your papers, little man."

Barkovitch put on his insulted look and moved away.

" He's some hot ticket, " Garraty said.

" Don't let him get under your skin, " McVries replied. " Just concentrate on walking him into the ground."

" Okay, coach."

McVries patted Garraty on the shoulder. " You're going to win this one for the Gipper, my boy."

" It seems like we've been walking forever, doesn't it? "

" Yeah. "

Garraty licked his lips, wanting to express himself and not knowing just how. " Did you ever hear that bit about a drowning man's life passing before his eyes? "

" I think I read it once. Or heard someone say it in a movie."

" Have you ever thought that might happen to us? On the Walk? "

McVries pretended to shudder. " Christ, I hope not."

Garraty was silent for a moment and then said, " Do you think.. never mind. The hell with it."

" No, go on. Do I think what? "

" Do you think we could live the rest of our lives on this road? That's what I meant. The part we would have had if we hadn't... you know."

McVries fumbled in his pocket and came up with a package of Mellow ciga­rettes. " Smoke? "

" I don't. "

" Neither do I, " McVries said, and then put a cigarette into his mouth. He found a book of matches with a tomato sauce recipe on it. He lit the cigarette, drew smoke in, and coughed it out. Garraty thought of Hint 10: Save your wind. If you smoke ordinarily, try not to smoke on the Long Walk.

" I thought I'd learn, " McVries said defiantly.

" It's crap, isn't it? " Garraty said sadly.

McVries looked at him, surprised, and then threw the cigarette away. " Yeah, " he said. " I think it is. "

The rainbow was gone by four o'clock. Davidson, 8, dropped back with them. He was a good‑ looking boy except for the rash of acne on his forehead. " That guy Zuck's really hurting, " Davidson said. He had had a packsack the last time Gar­raty saw him, but he noticed that at some point Davidson had cast it away.

" Still bleeding? " McVries asked.

" Like a stuck pig." Davidson shook his head. " It's funny the way things turn out, isn't it? You fall down any other time, you get a little scrape. He needs stitches." He pointed to the road. " Look at that."

Garraty looked and saw tiny dark spots on the drying hardtop. " Blood? "

" It ain't molasses, " Davidson said grimly.

" Is he scared? " Olson asked in a dry voice.

" He says he doesn't give a damn, " Davidson said. " But I'm scared. " His eyes were wide and gray. " I'm scared for all of us."

They kept on walking. Baker pointed out another Garraty sign.

" Hot shit, " Garraty said without looking up. He was following the trail of Zuck's blood, like Dan'1 Boone tracking a wounded Indian. It weaved slowly back and forth across the white line.

" McVries, " Olson said. His voice had gotten softer in the last couple of hours. Garraty had decided he liked Olson in spite of Olson's brass‑ balls outer face. He didn't like to see Olson getting scared, but there could be no doubt that he was.

" What? " McVries said.

" It isn't going away. That baggy feeling I told you about. It isn't going away."

McVries didn't say anything. The scar on his face looked very white in the light of the setting sun.

" It feels like my legs could just collapse. Like a bad foundation. That won't happen, will it? Will it? " Olson's voice had gotten a little shrill.

McVries didn't say anything.

" Could I have a cigarette? " Olson asked. His voice was low again.

" Yeah. You can keep the pack."

Olson lit one of the Mellows with practiced ease, cupping the match, and thumbed his nose at one of the soldiers watching him from the halftrack. " They've been giving me the old hairy eyeball for the last hour or so. They've got a sixth sense about it." He raised his voice again. " You like it, don't you, fellas? You like it, right? That goddam right, is it? "

Several of the Walkers looked around at him and then looked away quickly. Garraty wanted to look away too. There was hysteria in Olson's voice. The sol­diers looked at Olson impassively. Garraty wondered if the word would go back on Olson pretty quick, and couldn't repress a shudder.

By four‑ thirty they had covered thirty miles. The sun was half‑ gone, and it had turned blood red on the horizon. The thunderheads had moved east, and overhead the sky was a darkening blue. Garraty thought about his hypothetical drowning man again. Not so hypothetical at that. The coming night was like water that would soon cover them.

A feeling of panic rose in his gullet. He was suddenly and terribly sure that he was looking at the last daylight in his life. He wanted it to stretch out. He wanted it to last. He wanted the dusk to go on for hours.

" Warning! Warning 100! Your third warning, 100! "

Zuck looked around. There was a dazed, uncomprehending look in his eyes. His right pants leg was caked with dried blood. And then, suddenly, he began to sprint. He weaved through the Walkers like a broken‑ field runner carrying a foot­ball. He ran with that same dazed expression on his face.

The halftrack picked up speed. Zuck heard it coming and ran faster. It was a queer, shambling, limping run. The wound on his knee broke open again, and as he burst into the open ahead of the main pack, Garraty could see the drops of fresh blood splashing and flying from the cuff of his pants. Zuck ran up the next rise, and for a moment he was starkly silhouetted against the red sky, a galvanic black shape, frozen for a moment in midstride like a scarecrow in full flight. Then he was gone and the halftrack followed. The two soldiers that had dropped off it trudged along with the boys, their faces empty.

Nobody said a word. They only listened. There was no sound for a long time. An incredibly, unbelievably long time. Only a bird, and a few early May crickets, and somewhere behind them, the drone of a plane.

Then there was a single sharp report, a pause, then a second.

" Making sure, " someone said sickly.

When they got up over the rise they saw the halftrack sitting on the shoulder half a mile away. Blue smoke was coming from its dual exhaust pipes. Of Zuck there was no sign. No sign at all.

" Where's the Major? " someone screamed. The voice was on the raw edge of panic. It belonged to a bulletheaded boy named Gribble, number 48. " I want to see the Major, goddammit! Where is he? "

The soldiers walking along the verge of the road did not answer. No one an­swered.

" Is he making another speech? " Gribble stormed. " Is that what he's doing? Well, he's a murderer! That's what he is, a murderer! I... I'll tell him! You think I won't? I'll tell him to his face! I'll tell him right to his face! " In his ex­citement he had fallen below the pace, almost stopping, and the soldiers became interested for the first time.

" Warning! Warning 48! "

Gribble faltered to a stop, and then his legs picked up speed. He looked down at his feet as he walked. Soon they were up to where the halftrack waited. It began to crawl along beside them again.

At about 4: 45, Garraty had supper‑ a tube of processed tuna fish, a few Snappy Crackers with cheese spread, and a lot of water. He had to force himself to stop there. You could get a canteen anytime, but there would be no fresh concentrates until tomorrow morning at nine o'clock... and he might want a midnight snack. Hell, he might need a midnight snack.

" It may be a matter of life and death, " Baker said, " but it sure isn't hurtin' your appetite any. "

" Can't afford to let it, " Garraty answered. " I don't like the idea of fainting about two o'clock tomorrow morning."

Now there was a genuinely unpleasant thought. You wouldn't know anything, probably. Wouldn't feel anything. You'd just wake up in eternity.

" Makes you think, doesn't it? " Baker said softly.

Garraty looked at him. In the fading daylight, Baker's face was soft and young and beautiful. " Yeah. I've been thinking about a whole hell of a lot of things. "

" Such as? "

" Him, for one, " Garraty said, and jerked his head toward Stebbins, who was still walking along at the same pace he had been walking at when they started out. His pants were drying on him. His face was shadowy. He was still saving his last half‑ sandwich.

" What about him? "

" I wonder why he's here, why he doesn't say anything. And whether he'll live or die. "

" Garraty, we're all going to die."

" But hopefully not tonight, " Garraty said. He kept his voice light, but a shud­der suddenly wracked him. He didn't know if Baker saw it or not. His kidneys contracted. He turned around, unzipped his fly, and began walking backward.

" What do you think about the Prize? " Baker asked.

" I don't see much sense thinking about it, " Garraty said, and began to urinate. He finished, zipped his fly, and turned around again, mildly pleased that he had accomplished the operation without drawing a warning.

" I think about it, " Baker said dreamily. " Not so much the Prize itself as the money. All that money."

" Rich men don't enter the Kingdom of Heaven, " Garraty said. He watched his feet, the only things that were keeping him from finding out if there really was a Kingdom of Heaven or not.

" Hallelujah, " Olson said. " There'll be refreshments after the meetin'."

" You a religious fella? " Baker asked Garraty.

" No, not particularly. But I'm no money freak."

" You might be if you grew up on potato soup and collards, " Baker said. " Sidemeat only when your daddy could afford the ammunition."

" Might make a difference, " Garraty agreed, and then paused, wondering whether to say anything else. " But it's never really the important thing." He saw Baker looking at him uncomprehendingly and a little scornfully.

" You can't take it with you, that's your next line, " McVries said.

Garraty glanced at him. McVries was wearing that irritating, slanted smile again. " It's true, isn't it? " he said. " We don't bring anything into the world and we sure as shit don't take anything out. "

" Yes, but the period in between those two events is more pleasant in comfort, don't you think? " McVries said.

" Oh, comfort, shit, " Garraty said. " If one of those goons riding that over­grown Tonka toy over there shot you, no doctor in the world could revive you with a transfusion of twenties or fifties. "

" I ain't dead, " Baker said softly.

" Yeah, but you could be. " Suddenly it was very important to Garraty that he put this across. " What if you won? What if you spent the next six weeks planning what you were going to do with the cash‑ never mind the Prize, just the cash ­and what if the first time you went out to buy something, you got flattened by a taxicab? "

Harkness had come over and was now walking beside Olson. " Not me, babe, " he said. " First thing I'd do is buy a whole fleet of Checkers. If I win this, I may never walk again. "

" You don't understand, " Garraty said, more exasperated than ever. " Potato soup or sirloin tips, a mansion or a hovel, once you're dead that's it, they put you on a cooling board like Zuck or Ewing and that's it. You're better to take it a day at a time, is all I'm saying. If people just took it a day at a time, they'd be a lot happier. "

" Oh, such a golden flood of bullshit, " McVries said.

" Is that so? " Garraty cried. " How much planning are you doing? "

" Well, right now I've sort of adjusted my horizons, that's true‑ "

" You bet it is, " Garraty said grimly. " The only difference is we're involved in dying right now."

Total silence followed that. Harkness took off his glasses and began to polish them. Olson looked a shade paler. Garraty wished he hadn't said it; he had gone too far.

Then someone in back said quite clearly: " Hear, hear! "

Garraty looked around, sure it was Stebbins even though he had never heard Stebbins's voice. But Stebbins gave no sign. He was looking down at the road.

" I guess I got carried away, " Garraty muttered, even though he wasn't the one who had gotten carried away. That had been Zuck. " Anyone want a cookie? "

He handed the cookies around, and it got to be five o'clock. The sun seemed to hang suspended halfway over the horizon. The earth might have stopped turning. The three or four eager beavers who were still ahead of the pack had dropped back until they were less than fifty yards ahead of the main group.

It seemed to Garraty that the road had become a sly combination of upgrades with no corresponding downs. He was thinking that if that were true they'd all end up breathing through oxygen faceplates before long when his foot came down on a discarded belt of food concentrates. Surprised, he looked up. It had been Ol­son's. His hands were twitching at his waist. There was a look of frowning surprise on his face.

" I dropped it, " he said. " I wanted something to eat and I dropped it." He laughed, as if to show what a silly thing that had been. The laugh stopped abruptly. " I'm hungry, " he said.

No one answered. By that time everyone had gone by and there was no chance to pick it up. Garraty looked back and saw Olson's food belt lying across the bro­ken white passing line.

" I'm hungry, " Olson repeated patiently.

The Major likes to see someone who's raring to rip, wasn't that what Olson had said when he came back from getting his number? Olson didn't look quite so raring to rip anymore. Garraty looked at the pockets of his own belt. He had three tubes of concentrate left, plus the Snappy Crackers and the cheese. The cheese was pretty cruddy, though.

" Here, " he said, and gave Olson the cheese.

Olson didn't say anything, but he ate the cheese.

" Musketeer, " McVries said, with that same slanted grin.

By five‑ thirty the air was smoky with twilight. A few early lightning bugs flitted aimlessly through the air. A groundfog had curdled milkily in the ditches and lower gullies of the fields. Up ahead someone asked what happened if it got so foggy you walked off the road by mistake.

Barkovitch's unmistakable voice came back quickly and nastily: " What do you think, Dumbo? "

Four gone, Garraty thought. Eight and a half hours on the road and only four gone. There was a small, pinched feeling in his stomach. I'll never outlast all of them, he thought. Not all of them. But on the other hand, why not? Someone had to.

Talk had faded with the daylight. The silence that set in was oppressive. The encroaching dark, the groundmist collecting into small, curdled pools... for the first time it seemed perfectly real and totally unnatural, and he wanted either Jan or his mother, some woman, and he wondered what in the hell he was doing and how he ever could have gotten involved. He could not even kid himself that everything had not been up front, because it had been. And he hadn't even done it alone. There were currently ninety‑ five other fools in this parade.

The mucus ball was in his throat again, making it hard to swallow. He realized that someone up ahead was sobbing softly. He had not heard the sound begin, and no one had called his attention to it; it was as if it had been there all along.

Ten miles to Caribou now, and at least there would be lights. The thought cheered Garraty a little. It was okay after all, wasn't it? He was alive, and there was no sense thinking ahead to a time when he might not be. As McVries had said, it was all a matter of adjusting your horizons.

At quarter of six the word came back on a boy named Travin, one of the early leaders who was now falling slowly back through the main group. Travin had diar­rhea. Garraty heard it and couldn't believe it was true, but when he saw Travin he knew that it was. The boy was walking and holding his pants up at the same time. Every time he squatted he picked up a warning, and Garraty wondered sickly why Travin didn't just let it roll down his legs. Better to be dirty than dead.

Travin was bent over, walking like Stebbins with his sandwich, and every time he shuddered Garraty knew that another stomach cramp was ripping through him. Garraty felt disgusted. There was no fascination in this, no mystery. It was a boy with a bellyache, that was all, and it was impossible to feel anything but disgust and a kind of animal terror. His own stomach rolled queasily.

The soldiers were watching Travin very carefully. Watching and waiting. Fi­nally Travin half‑ squatted, half‑ fell, and the soldiers shot him with his pants down. Travin rolled over and grimaced at the sky, ugly and pitiful. Someone retched noisily and was warned. It sounded to Garraty as if he was spewing his belly up whole.

" He'll go next, " Harkness said in a businesslike way.

" Shut up, " Garraty choked thickly. " Can't you just shut up? "

No one replied. Harkness looked ashamed and began to polish his glasses again. The boy who vomited was not shot.

They passed a group of cheering teenagers sitting on a blanket and drinking Cokes. They recognized Garraty and gave him a standing ovation. It made him feel uncomfortable. One of the girls had very large breasts. Her boyfriend was watching them jiggle as she jumped up and down. Garraty decided that he was turning in to a sex maniac.

" Look at them jahoobies, " Pearson said. " Dear, dear me.

Garraty wondered if she was a virgin, like he was.

They passed by a still, almost perfectly circular pond, faintly misted over. It looked like a gently clouded mirror, and in the mysterious tangle of water plants growing around the edge, a bullfrog croaked hoarsely. Garraty thought the pond was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

" This is one hell of a big state, " Barkovitch said someplace up ahead.

" That guy gives me a royal pain in the ass, " McVries said solemnly. " Right now my one goal in life is to outlast him."

Olson was saying a Hail Mary.

Garraty looked at him, alarmed.

" How many warnings has he got? " Pearson asked.

" None that I know of, " Baker said.

" Yeah, but he don't look so good."

" At this point, none of us do, " McVries said.

Another silence fell. Garraty was aware for the first time that his feet hurt. Not just his legs, which had been troubling him for some time, but his feet. He noticed that he had been unconsciously walking on the outside of the soles, but every now and then he put a foot down flat and winced. He zipped his jacket all the way up and turned the collar against his neck. The air was still damp and raw.

" Hey! Over there! " McVries said cheerfully.

Garraty and the others looked to the left. They were passing a graveyard situated atop a small grassy knoll. A fieldstone wall surrounded it, and now the mist was creeping slowly around the leaning gravestones. An angel with a broken wing stared at them with empty eyes. A nuthatch perched atop a rust flaking flagholder left over from some patriotic holiday and looked them over perkily.

" Our first boneyard, " McVries said. " It's on your side, Ray, you lose all your points. Remember that game? "

" You talk too goddam much, " Olson said suddenly.

" What's wrong with graveyards, Henry, old buddy? A fine and private place, as the poet said. A nice watertight casket‑ "

" Just shut up! "

" Oh, pickles, " McVries said. His scar flashed very white in the dying daylight. " You don't really mind the thought of dying, do you, Olson? Like the poet also said, it ain't the dying, it's laying in the grave so long. Is that what's bugging you, booby? " McVries began to trumpet. " Well, cheer up, Charlie! There's a brighter day com‑ "

" Leave him alone, " Baker said quietly.

" Why should I? He's busy convincing himself he can crap out any time he feels like it. That if he just lays down and dies, it won't be as bad as everyone makes out. Well, I'm not going to let him get away with it."

" If he doesn't die, you will, " Garraty said.

" Yeah, I'm remembering, " McVries said, and gave Garraty his tight, slanted smile... only this time there was absolutely no humor in it at all. Suddenly McVries looked furious, and Garraty was almost afraid of him. " He's the one that's forgetting. This turkey here."

" I don't want to do it anymore, " Olson said hollowly. " I'm sick of it."

" Raring to rip, " McVries said, turning on him. " Isn't that what you said? Fuck it, then. Why don't you just fall down and die then? "

" Leave him alone, " Garraty said.

" Listen, Ray‑ "

" No, you listen. One Barkovitch is enough. Let him do it his own way. No musketeers, remember."

McVries smiled again. " Okay, Garraty. You win."

Olson didn't say anything. He just kept picking them up and laying them down.

Full dark had come by six‑ thirty. Caribou, now only six miles away, could be seen on the horizon as a dim glow. There were few people along the road to see them into town. They seemed to have all gone home to supper. The mist was chilly around Ray Garraty's feet. It hung over the hills in ghostly limp banners. The stars were coming brighter overhead, Venus glowing steadily, the Dipper in its accus­tomed place. He had always been good at the constellations. He pointed out Cas­siopeia to Pear‑ son, who only grunted.

He thought about Jan, his girl, and felt a twinge of guilt about the girl he had kissed earlier. He couldn't remember exactly what that girl had looked like any­more, but she had excited him. Putting his hand on her ass like that had excited him‑ what would have happened if he had tried to put his hand between her legs? He felt a clockspring of pressure in his groin that made him wince a little as he walked.

Jan had long hair, almost to her waist. She was sixteen. Her breasts were not as big as those of the girl who had kissed him. He had played with her breasts a lot. It drove him crazy. She wouldn't let him make love to her, and he didn't know how to make her. She wanted to, but she wouldn't. Garraty knew that some boys could do that, could get a girl to go along, but he didn't seem to have quite enough personality‑ or maybe not quite enough will‑ to convince her. He wondered how many of the others here were virgins. Gribble had called the Major a murderer. He wondered if Gribble was a virgin. He decided Gribble probably was.

They passed the Caribou city limits. There was a large crowd there, and a news snick from one of the networks. A battery of lights bathed the road in a warm white glare. It was like walking into a sudden warm lagoon of sunlight, wading through it, and then emerging again.

A fat newspaperman in a three‑ piece suit trotted along with them, poking his long‑ reach microphone at different Walkers. Behind him, two technicians busily unreeled a drum of electric cable.

" How do you feel? "

" Okay. I guess I feel okay."

" Feeling tired? "

" Yeah, well, you know. Yeah. But I'm still okay."

" What do you think your chances are now? "

" I dunno... okay, I guess. I still feel pretty strong."

He asked a big bull of a fellow, Scramm, what he thought of the Long Walk. Scramm grinned, said he thought it was the biggest fucking thing he'd ever seen, and the reporter made snipping motions with his fingers at the two technicians. One of them nodded back wearily.

Shortly afterward he ran out of microphone cable and began wending his way back toward the mobile unit, trying to avoid the tangles of unreeled cord. The crowd, drawn as much by the TV crew as by the Long Walkers themselves, cheered enthusiastically. Posters of the Major were raised and lowered rhythmically on sticks so raw and new they were still bleeding sap. When the cameras panned over them, they cheered more frantically than ever and waved to Aunt Betty and Uncle Fred.

They rounded a bend and passed a small shop where the owner, a little man wearing stained whites, had set up a soft drink cooler with a sign over it which read: ON THE HOUSE FOR THE LONG WALKERS!! COURTESY OF " EV'S" MARKET! A police cruiser was parked close by, and two policemen were patiently explaining to Ev, as they undoubtedly did every year, that it was against the rules for spectators to offer any kind of aid or assistance‑ including soft drinks‑ to the Walkers.

They passed by the Caribou Paper Mills, Inc., a huge, soot‑ blackened building on a dirty river. The workers were lined up against the cyclone fences, cheering good‑ naturedly and waving. A whistle blew as the last of the Walkers‑ Stebbins­ passed by, and Garraty, looking back over his shoulder, saw them trooping inside again.

" Did he ask you? " a strident voice inquired of Garraty. With a feeling of great weariness, Garraty looked down at Gary Barkovitch.

" Did who ask me what? "

" The reporter, Dumbo. Did he ask you how you felt? "

" No, he didn't get to me." He wished Barkovitch would go away. He wished the throbbing pain in the soles of his feet would go away.

" They asked me, " Barkovitch said. " You know what I told them? "

" Huh‑ uh. "

" I told them I felt great, " Barkovitch said aggressively. The rainhat was still flopping in his back pocket. " I told them I felt real strong. I told them I felt pre­pared to go on forever. And do you know what else I told them? "

" Oh, shut up, " Pearson said.

" Who asked you, long, tall and ugly? " Barkovitch said.

" Go away, " McVries said. " You give me a headache."

Insulted once more, Barkovitch moved on up the line and grabbed Collie Par­ker. " Did he ask you what‑ "

" Get out of here before I pull your fucking nose off and make you eat it, " Collie Parker snarled. Barkovitch moved on quickly. The word on Collie Parker was that he was one mean son of a bitch.

" That guy drives me up the wall, " Pearson said.

" He'd be glad to hear it, " McVries said. " He likes it. He also told that reporter that he planned to dance on a lot of graves. He means it, too. That's what keeps him going. "

" Next time he comes around I think I'll trip him, " Olson said. His voice sounded dull and drained.

" Tut‑ tut, " McVries said. " Rule 8, no interference with your fellow Walkers."

" You know what you can do with Rule 8, " Olson said with a pallid smile.

" Watch out, " McVries grinned, " you're starting to sound pretty lively again. "

By 7 PM the pace, which had been lagging very close to the minimum limit, began to pick up a little. It was cool and if you walked faster you kept warmer. They passed beneath a turnpike overpass, and several people cheered them around mouthfuls of Dunkin' Donuts from the glass‑ walled shop situated near the base of the exit ramp.

" We join up with the turnpike someplace, don't we? " Baker asked.

" In Oldtown, " Garraty said. " Approximately one hundred and twenty miles."

Harkness whistled through his teeth.

Not long after that, they walked into downtown Caribou. They were forty‑ four miles from their starting point.