Dreamcatcher(133)

Still no answer, and Jonesy realized Mr Gray was gone. He turned and hurried across to the window, aware of even more changes: a Currier and Ives woodcut on one wall, a Van Gogh print on another  -  Marigolds, a Christmas gift from Henry  -  and on this desk the Magic 8-Ball he kept on his desk at home. Jonesy barely noticed these things. He wanted to see what Mr Gray was up to, what had engaged his attention now.

4

For one thing, the interior of the truck had changed. Instead of the olive-drab plainness of Andy Janas's government-issue pickup (clipboard of papers and forms on the passenger side, squawking radio beneath the dash), he was now in a luxy Dodge Ram with a club cab, gray velour seats, and roughly as many controls as a Learjet. On the glove compartment was a sticker reading I ??my BORDER, COLLIE. The border collie in question was still present and accounted for, asleep in the passenger-side footwell with its tail curled neatly around it. It was a male named Lad. Jonesy sensed that he could access the name and the fate of Lad's master, but why would he want to? Somewhere north of their present position, Janas's Army truck was now off the road, and the driver of this one would be lying nearby. Jonesy had no idea why the dog had been spared.

Then Lad lifted his tail and farted, and Jonesy did.

5

He discovered that by looking out the Tracker Brothers' office window and concentrating, he could look out through his own eyes. The snow was coming down more heavily than ever, but like the Army truck, the Dodge was equipped with four-wheel drive, and it poked along steadily enough. Going the other way, north toward Jefferson Tract, was a chain of headlights set high off the road: Army convoy trucks. Then, ahead on this side, a reflectorized sign  -  white letters, green background  -  loomed out of the flying Snow. DERRY NEXT 5 EXITS.

The city plows had been out, and although there was hardly any traffic (there wouldn't have been much at this hour even on a clear night), the turnpike was in passable shape. Mr Gray increased the Ram's speed to forty miles an hour. They passed three exits Jonesy knew well from his childhood (KANSAS STREET, AIRPORT, UPMILE HILL/STRAWFORD PARK) then slowed.

Suddenly Jonesy thought he understood.

He looked at the boxes he'd dragged in here, most marked DUDDITS, a few marked DERRY. The latter ones he'd taken as an afterthought. Mr Gray thought he still had the memories he needed  -  the information he needed  -  but if Jonesy was right about where they were going (and it made perfect sense), Mr Gray was in for a surprise. Jonesy didn't know whether to be glad or afraid, and found he was both.  

Here was a green sign reading EXIT 25  -  WITCHAM STREET. His hand flicked on the Ram's turnsignal.

At the top of the ramp, he turned left onto Witcham, then left again, half a mile later, onto Carter Street. Carter went up at a steep angle, heading back toward Upmile Hill and Kansas Street on the other side of what had once been a high, wooded ridge and the site of a thriving Micmac Indian village. The street hadn't been plowed in several hours, but the four-wheel drive was up to the task. The Ram threaded its way among the snow-covered humps on either side  -  cars that had been street-parked in defiance of municipal snow-emergency regulations.

Halfway up Mr Gray turned again, this time onto an even narrower track called Carter Lookout. The Ram skidded, its rear end fishtailing. Lad looked up briefly, whined, then put his nose back down on the floormat as the tires took hold, biting into the snow and puffing the Ram the rest of the way up.

Jonesy stood at his window on the world, fascinated, waiting for Mr Gray to discover . . . well, to discover.

At first Mr Gray wasn't dismayed when the Ram's high beams showed nothing at the crest but more swirling snow. He was confident he'd see it in a few seconds, of course he would . . . just a few more seconds and he'd see the big white tower which stood here overlooking the drop to Kansas Street, the tower with the windows marching around it in a rising spiral. In just a few more seconds . . .

Except now there were no more seconds. The Ram had chewed its way to the top of what had once been called Standpipe Hill. Here Carter Lookout  -  and three or four other similar little lanes  -  ended in a large open circle. They had come to the highest, most open spot in Derry. The wind howled like a banshee, a steady fifty miles an hour with gusts up to seventy and even eighty. In the Ram's high beams, the snow flew horizontally, a storm of daggers.

Mr Gray sat motionless. Jonesy's hands slid off the wheel and clumped to either side of Jonesy's body like birds shot out of the sky. At last he muttered, 'Where is it?'

His left hand rose, fumbled at the doorhandle, and at last pulled it up. He swung a leg out, then fell to Jonesy's knees in a snowdrift as the howling wind snatched the door out of his hand. He got up again and floundered around to the front of the truck, his jacket rippling around him and the legs of his jeans snapping like sails in a gale. The wind-chill was well below zero (in the Tracker Brothers' office, the temperature went from cool to cold in the space of a few seconds), but the redblack cloud which now inhabited most of Jonesy's brain and drove Jonesy's body could not have cared less.

Where is it?' Mr Gray screamed into the howling mouth of the storm. Where's the f**king STANDPIPE?'

There was no need for Jonesy to shout; storm or no storm, Mr Gray would hear even a whisper.

'Ha-ha, Mr Gray,' he said. 'Hardy-f*cking-har. Looks like the joke's on you. The Standpipe's been gone since 1985.'