"Sure," Larry said, and handed it over.

At the top of the sheet Larry had printed: Boulder to Vegas: 771 miles. Boulder to Vegas: 771 miles. Below that: Below that:

Stu took a scrap of paper from his wallet and did some subtraction. "Well, we're makin better time than when we started out, but we've still got over four hundred miles to go. Shit, we ain't halfway yet."

Larry nodded. "Better time is right. We're going downhill. And Glen's right, you know. Why do we want to hurry? Guy's just gonna wipe us out when we get over there."

"You know, I just don't believe that," Ralph said. "We may die, sure, but it isn't going to be anything simple, anything cut and dried. Mother Abagail wouldn't send us off if we was to be just murdered and nothing more come of it. She just wouldn't."

"I don't believe she was the one who sent us," Stu said quietly.

Larry's mileometer made four distinct little clicks as he set it for the day: 000.0. Stu doused what remained of the campfire with dirt. The little rituals of the morning went on. They had been twelve days on the road. It seemed to Stu that the days would go on forever like this: Glen bitching goodnaturedly about the food, Larry noting their mileage on his dog-eared cheat sheet, the two cups of coffee, someone burying yesterday's scut, someone else burying the fire. It was routine, good routine. You forgot what it was all leading to, and that was good. In the mornings Fran seemed very distant to him-very clear, but very distant, like a photograph kept in a locket. But in the evenings, when the dark had come and the moon sailed the night, she seemed very close. Almost close enough to touch ... and that, of course, was where the ache lay. At times like those his faith in Mother Abagail turned to bitter doubt and he wanted to wake them all up and tell them it was a fool's errand, that they had taken up rubber lances to tilt at a lethal windmill, that they had better stop at the next town, get motorcycles, and go back. That they had better grab a little light and a little love while they still could-because a little was all Flagg was going to allow them.

But that was at night. In the mornings it still seemed right to go on. He looked speculatively at Larry, and wondered if Larry thought about his Lucy late at night. Dreamed about her and wished ...

Glen came back into camp with Kojak at his heel, wincing a little as he walked. "Let's go get em," he said. "Right, Kojak?"

Kojak wagged his tail.

"He says Las Vegas or bust," Glen said. "Come on."

They climbed the embankment to 1-70, now descending toward Grand Junction, and began their day's walk.

Late that afternoon, a cold rain began to fall, chilling them all and damping conversation. Larry walked by himself, hands shoved in his pockets. At first he thought about Harold Lauder, whose corpse they had found two days ago-there seemed to be an unspoken conspiracy among them not to talk about Harold-but eventually his thoughts turned to the person he had dubbed the Wolfman.

They had found the Wolfman just east of the Eisenhower Tunnel. The traffic was badly jammed up there, and the stink of death had been sickly potent. The Wolfman had been half in and half out of an Austin. He was wearing pegged jeans and a silk sequined Western shirt. The corpses of several wolves lay around the Austin. The Wolfman himself was half in and half out of the Austin's passenger seat, and a dead wolf lay on his chest. The Wolfman's hands were wrapped around the wolf's neck, and the wolf's bloody muzzle was angled up to the Wolfman's neck. Reconstructing, it seemed to all of them that a pack of wolves had come down out of the higher mountains, had spotted this lone man, and had attacked. The Wolfman had had a gun. He had dropped several of them before retreating to the Austin.

How long before hunger had forced him from his refuge?

Larry didn't know, didn't want to know. But he had seen how terribly thin the Wolfman had been. A week, maybe. He had been going west, whoever he was, going to join the dark man, but Larry would not have wished such a dreadful fate on anyone. He had spoken of it once to Stu, two days after they had emerged from the tunnel, with the Wolfman safely behind them.

"Why would a bunch of wolves hang around so long, Stu?"

"I don't know."

"I mean, if they wanted something to eat, couldn't they find it?"

"I'd think so, yeah."

It was a dreadful mystery to him, and he kept working it over in his mind, knowing he would never find the solution. Whoever the Wolfman had been, he hadn't been lacking in the balls department. Finally driven by hunger and thirst, he had opened the passenger door. One of the wolves had jumped him and torn his throat out. But the Wolfman had throttled it to death even as he himself died.

The four of them had gone through the Eisenhower Tunnel roped together, and in that horrible blackness, Larry's mind had turned to the trip he had made through the Lincoln Tunnel. Only now it was not images of Rita Blakemoor that haunted him but the face of the Wolfman, frozen in its final snarl as he and the wolf had killed each other.

Were the wolves sent to kill that man?

But that thought was too unsettling to even consider. He tried to push the whole thing out of his mind and just keep walking, but that was a hard thing to do.

They made their camp that night beyond Loma, quite close to the Utah state line. Supper consisted of forage and boiled water, as all their meals did-they were following Mother Abagail's instructions to the letter: Go in the clothes that you stand up in. Carry nothing.

"It's going to get bad in Utah," Ralph remarked. "I guess that's where we're going to find out if God really is watchin over us. There's one stretch, better than a hundred miles, without a town or even a gas station and a cafe." He didn't seem particularly disturbed by the prospect.

"Water?" Stu asked.

Ralph shrugged. "Not much of that, either. Guess I'll turn in."

Larry followed suit. Glen stayed up to smoke a pipe. Stu had a few cigarettes and decided to have one. They smoked in silence for a while.

"Long way from New Hampshire, baldy," Stu said at last.

"It isn't exactly shouting distance from here to Texas."

Stu smiled. "No. No, it ain't."

"You miss Fran a lot, I guess."

"Yeah. Miss her, worry about her. Worry about the baby. It's worse after it gets dark."

Glen puffed. "That's nothing you can change, Stuart."

"I know. But I worry."

"Sure." Glen knocked out his pipe on a rock. "Something funny happened last night, Stu. I've been trying to figure out all day if it was real, or a dream, or what."

"What was it?"

"Well, I woke up in the night and Kojak was growling at something. Must have been past midnight, because the fire had burned way down. Kojak was on the other side of it with his hackles standing up. I told him to shut up and he never even looked at me. He was looking over to my right. And I thought, What if it's wolves? What if it's wolves? Ever since we saw that guy Larry calls the Wolfman- " Ever since we saw that guy Larry calls the Wolfman- "

"Yeah, that was bad."

"But there was nothing. I had a clear view. He was growling at nothing. nothing. " "

"He had a scent, that's all."

"Yeah, but the crazy part is still to come. After a couple of minutes I started to feel ... well, decidedly weird. I felt like there was something right over by the turnpike embankment, and that it was watching me. Watching all of us. I felt like I could almost see it, that if I squinted my eyes the right way, I would would see it. But I didn't want to. Because it felt like see it. But I didn't want to. Because it felt like him him.

"It felt like Flagg, Flagg, Stuart." Stuart."

"Probably nothing," Stu said after a moment.

"It sure felt like something. It felt like something to Kojak, too."

"Well, suppose he was was watching somehow? What could we do about it?" watching somehow? What could we do about it?"

"Nothing. But I don't like it. I don't like it that he's able to watch us ... if that's what it is. It scares me shitless."

Stu finished his cigarette, stubbed it out carefully on the side of a rock, but made no move toward his sleeping bag just yet. He looked at Kojak, who was lying by the campfire with his nose on his paws and watching them.

"So Harold's dead," Stu said at last.

"Yes."

"And it was just a goddam waste. A waste of Sue and Nick. A waste of himself, too, I reckon."

"I agree."

There was nothing more to say. They had come upon Harold and his pitiful dying declaration the day after they had done the Eisenhower Tunnel. He and Nadine must have gone over Loveland Pass, because Harold still had his Triumph cycle-the remains of it, anyway-and as Ralph had said, it would have been impossible to get anything bigger than a kid's little red wagon through the Eisenhower. The buzzards had worked him over pretty well, but Harold still clutched the Permacover notebook in one stiffening hand. The .38 was jammed in his mouth like a grotesque lollipop, and although they hadn't buried Harold, Stu had removed the pistol. He had done it gently. Seeing how efficiently the dark man had destroyed Harold and how carelessly he had thrown him aside when his part was played out had made Stu hate Flagg all the more. It made him feel that they were throwing themselves away in a witless sort of children's crusade, and while he felt that they had to press on, Harold's corpse with the shattered leg haunted him the way the frozen grimace of the Wolfman haunted Larry. He had discovered he wanted to pay Flagg back for Harold as well as Nick and Susan ... but he felt more and more sure that he would never get that chance.

But you want to watch out, he thought grimly. he thought grimly. You want to look out if I get within choking distance of you, you freak. You want to look out if I get within choking distance of you, you freak.

Glen got up with a little wince. "I'm going to turn in, East Texas. Don't beg me to stay. It really is a dull party."

"How's that arthritis?"

Glen smiled and said, "Not too bad," but as he crossed to his bedroll he was limping.

Stu thought he should not have another cigarette-only smoking two or three a day would exhaust his supply by the end of the week- and then he lit one anyway. This evening it was not so cold, but for all that, there could be no doubt that in this high country, at least, summer was done. It made him feel sad, because he felt very strongly that he would never see another summer. When this one had begun, he had been an on-again, off-again worker at a factory that made pocket calculators. He had been living in a small town called Arnette, and he had spent a lot of his spare time hanging around Bill Hapscomb's Texaco station, listening to the other guys shoot the shit about the economy, the government, hard times. Stu guessed that none of them had known what real hard times were. He finished his cigarette and tossed it into the campfire.

"Keep well, Frannie, old kid," he said, and got into his sleeping bag. And in his dreams he thought that Something had come near their camp, Something that was keeping malevolent watch over them. It might have been a wolf with human understanding. Or a crow. Or a weasel, creeping bellydown through the scrub. Or it might have been some disembodied presence, a watching Eye.

I will fear no evil will fear no evil, he muttered in his dream. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. No evil. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. No evil.

At last the dream faded and he slept soundly.

The next morning they were on the road again early, Larry's gadget clicking off the miles as the highway switched lazily back and forth down the gentling Western Slope toward Utah. Shortly after noon they left Colorado behind them. That evening they camped west of Harley Dome, Utah. For the first time the great silence impressed them as being oppressive and malefic. Ralph Brentner went to sleep that night thinking: We're in the West now. We're out of our ballpark and into his. We're in the West now. We're out of our ballpark and into his.

And that night Ralph dreamed of a wolf with a single red eye that had come out of the badlands to watch them. Go away, Go away, Ralph told it. Ralph told it. Go away, we're not afraid. Not afraid of you. Go away, we're not afraid. Not afraid of you.

By 2 P.M. P.M. on the afternoon of September 21, they were past Sego. The next large town, according to Stu's pocket map, was Green River. There were no more towns after that for a long, long time. Then, as Ralph had said, they would probably find out if God was with them or not. on the afternoon of September 21, they were past Sego. The next large town, according to Stu's pocket map, was Green River. There were no more towns after that for a long, long time. Then, as Ralph had said, they would probably find out if God was with them or not.

"Actually," Larry said to Glen, "I'm not as worried about food as I am water. Most everyone who's on a trip keeps a few munchies in their car, Oreos or Fig Newtons or something like that."

Glen smiled. "Maybe the Lord will send us showers of blessing."

Larry looked up at the cloudless blue sky and grimaced at the idea. "I sometimes think she was right off her block at the end of it."

"Maybe she was," Glen said mildly. "If you read your theology, you'll find that God often chooses to speak through the dying and the insane. It even seems to me-here's the closet Jesuit coming out-that there are good psychological reasons for it. A madman or a person on her deathbed is a human being with a drastically changed psyche. A healthy person might be apt to filter the divine message, to alter it with his or her own personality. In other words, a healthy person might make a shitty prophet."

"The ways of God," Larry said. "I know. We see through a glass darkly. It's a pretty dark glass to me, all right. Why we're walking all this way when we could have driven it in a week is beyond me. But since we're doing a nutty thing, I guess it's okay to do it in a nutty way."

"What we're doing has all sorts of historical precedent," Glen said, "and I see some perfectly sound psychological and sociological reasons for this walk. I don't know if they're God's reasons or not, but they make good sense to me."

"Such as what?" Stu and Ralph had walked over to hear this, too.

"There were several American Indian tribes that used to make 'having a vision' an integral part of their manhood rite. When it was your time to become a man, you were supposed to go out into the wilderness unarmed. You were supposed to make a kill, and two songs-one about the Great Spirit and one about your own prowess as a hunter and a rider and a warrior and a fucker-and have that vision. You weren't supposed to eat. You were supposed to get up high-mentally as well as physically-and wait for that vision to come. And eventually, of course, it would." He chuckled. "Starvation is a great hallucinogenic."

"You think Mother sent us out here to have visions?" Ralph asked.

"Maybe to gain strength and holiness by a purging process," Glen said. "The casting away of things things is symbolic, you know. Talismanic. When you cast away is symbolic, you know. Talismanic. When you cast away things, things, you're also casting away the self-related others that are symbolically related to those things. You start a cleaning-out process. You begin to empty the vessel." you're also casting away the self-related others that are symbolically related to those things. You start a cleaning-out process. You begin to empty the vessel."

Larry shook his head slowly. "I don't follow that."

"Well, take an intelligent pre-plague man. Break his TV, and what does he do at night?"

"Reads a book," Ralph said.

"Goes to see his friends," Stu said.

"Plays the stereo," Larry said, grinning.

"Sure, all those things," Glen said. "But he's also missing that TV. There's a hole in his life where that TV used to be. In the back of his mind he's still thinking, At nine o'clock I'm going to pull a few beers and watch the Sox on the tube. At nine o'clock I'm going to pull a few beers and watch the Sox on the tube. And when he goes in there and sees that empty cabinet, he feels as disappointed as hell. A part of his accustomed life has been poured out, is it not so?" And when he goes in there and sees that empty cabinet, he feels as disappointed as hell. A part of his accustomed life has been poured out, is it not so?"

"Yeah," Ralph said. "Our TV went on the fritz once for two weeks and I didn't feel right until it was back."

"It makes a bigger hole in his life if he watched a lot of TV, a smaller hole if he only used it a little bit. But something is gone. Now take away all his books, all his friends, and his stereo. Also remove all sustenance except what he can glean along the way. It's an emptying-out process and also a diminishing of the ego. Your selves selves, gentlemen-they are turning into a window-glass. Or better yet, empty tumblers."

"But what's the point?" Ralph asked. "Why go through all the rigmarole?"

Glen said, "If you read your Bible, you'll see that it was pretty traditional for these prophets to go out into the wilderness from time to time-Old Testament Magical Mystery Tours. The timespan given for these jaunts was usually forty days and forty nights, a Hebraic idiom that really means 'no one knows exactly how long he was gone, but it was quite a while.' Does that remind you of anyone?"

"Sure. Mother," Ralph said.

"Now think of yourself as a battery. You really are, you know. Your brain runs on chemically converted electrical current. For that matter, your muscles run on tiny charges, too-a chemical called acetylcholine allows the charge to pass when you need to move, and when you want to stop, another chemical, cholinesterase, is manufactured. Cholinesterase destroys acetylcholine, so your nerves become poor conductors again. Good thing, too. Otherwise, once you started scratching your nose, you'd never be able to stop. Okay, the point is this: Everything you think, everything you do, it all has to run off the battery. Like the accessories in a car."

They were all listening closely.

"Watching TV, reading books, talking with friends, eating a big dinner ... all of it runs off the battery. A normal life-at least in what used to be Western civilization-was like running a car with power windows, power brakes, power seats, all the goodies. But the more goodies you have, the less the battery can charge. True?"

"Yeah," Ralph said. "Even a big Delco won't ever overcharge when it's sitting in a Cadillac."

"Well, what we've done is to strip off the accessories. We're on charge."

Ralph said uneasily: "If you put a car battery on charge for too long, she'll explode."

"Yes," Glen agreed. "Same with people. The Bible tells us about Isaiah and Job and the others, but it doesn't say how many prophets came back from the wilderness with visions that had crisped their brains. I imagine there were some. But I have a healthy respect for human intelligence and the human psyche, in spite of an occasional throwback like East Texas here-"

"Off my case, baldy," Stu growled.