Dreamcatcher(194)

How human he's becoming, he thought. How curiously human.

'When you say he's there,' Owen asked, 'just how there do you mean?'

'I don't know. He's closed down again, at least pretty much. Duddits, do you hear Jonesy?'

Duddits looked at Henry wearily, then shook his head. 'Isser Ay ookar cards,' he said  -  Mr Gray took our cards  -  but that was like a literal translation of a slang phrase. Duddits hadn't the vocabulary to express what had actually happened, but Henry could read it in his mind. Mr Gray was unable to enter Jonesy's office stronghold and take the playing cards, but he had somehow turned them all blank.

'Duddits, how are you making out?' Owen said, looking into the rearview mirror.

'I o-ay,' Duddits said, and immediately began to shiver. On his lap was his yellow lunchbox and the brown bag with his medicines in it . . . his medicines and that odd little string thing. Surrounding him was the voluminous blue duffel coat, yet inside it, he still shivered.

He's going fast, Owen thought, as Henry began to swab his old friend's face again.

The Humvee skidded on a slick patch, danced on the edge of disaster  -  a crash at seventy miles an hour would probably kill them all, and even if it didn't, it would put paid to any final thin chance they might have of stopping Mr Gray  -  and then came back under control again.

Owen found his eyes drifting back to the paper bag, his mind going again to that string-thing. Beaver sent to me. For my Christmas last week.

Trying to communicate now by telepathy was, Owen thought, like putting a message into a bottle and then tossing the bottle into the ocean. But he did it anyway, sending out a thought in what he hoped was Duddits's direction: What do you call it, son?

Suddenly and unexpectedly, he saw a large space, combination living room, dining room, and kitchen. The mellow pine boards glowed with varnish. There was a Navajo rug on the floor and a tapestry on one wall  -  tiny Indian hunters surrounding a gray figure, the archetypal alien of a thousand supermarket tabloids. There was a fireplace, a stone chimney, an oak dining table. But what riveted Owen's attention (it had to; it was at the center of the picture Duddits had sent him, and glowed with its own special light) was the string creation which hung from the center rafter. It was the Cadillac version of the one in Duddits's medicine bag, woven in bright colors instead of drab white string, but otherwise the same. Owen's eyes filled with tears. It was the most beautiful room in the world. He felt that way because Duddits felt that way. And Duddits felt that way because it was where his friends went, and he loved them.

'Dreamcatcher,' said the dying man in the back seat, and he pronounced the word perfectly.

Owen nodded. Dreamcatcher, yes.

It's you, he sent, supposing that Henry was overhearing but not caring one way or the other. This message was for Duddits, strictly for Duddits. You're the dreamcatcher, aren't you? Their dreamcatcher. You always were.

In the mirror, Duddits smiled.

23

They passed a sign which read QUABBIN RESERVOIR 8 MILES   NO FISHING   NO SERVICES   PICNIC AREA OPEN   HIKING TRAILS OPEN   PASS AT OWN RISK. There was more, but at eighty miles an hour, Henry had no time to read it.

'Any chance he'll park and walk in?' Owen asked.

'Don't even hope for it,' Henry said. 'He'll drive as far as he can. Maybe he'll get stuck. That's what you want to hope for. There's a good chance it might happen. And he's weak. He won't be able to move fast.'

'What about you, Henry? Will you be able to move fast?'

Considering how stiff he was and how badly his legs ached, that was a fair question. 'If there's a chance,' he said, 'I'll go as hard as I can. In any case, there's Duddits. I don't think he's going to be capable of a very strenuous hike.'

Any hike at all, he didn't add.

'Kurtz and Freddy and Perlmutter, Henry. How far back are they?'

Henry considered this. He could feel Perlmutter clearly enough . . . and he could touch the ravening cannibal inside him, as well. It was like Mr Gray, only the weasel was living in a world made of bacon. The bacon was Archibald Perlmutter, once a captain in the United States Army. Henry didn't like to go there. Too much pain. Too much hunger.

'Fifteen miles,' he said. 'Maybe only twelve. But it doesn't matter, Owen. We're going to beat them. The only question is whether or not we're going to catch Mr Gray. We'll need some luck. Or some help.'

'And if we catch him, Henry. Are we still going to be heroes?'

Henry gave him a tired smile. 'I guess we'll have to try.'

PART THREE QUABBIN CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SHAFT 12

1

Mr Gray drove the Subaru nearly three miles up East Street  -  muddy, rutted, and now covered with three inches of fresh snow  -  before crashing into a fault caused by a plugged culvert. The Subaru had fought its way gamely through several mires north of the Goodnough Dike, and had bottomed out in one place hard enough to tear off the muffler and most of the exhaust pipe, but this latest break in the road was too much. The car went forward nose-first into the crack and lodged on the pipe, unmuffled engine blatting stridently. Jonesy's body was thrown forward and the seatbelt locked. His diaphragm clenched and he vomited helplessly onto the dashboard: nothing solid now, only bilious strings of saliva. For a moment the color ran out of the world and the rackety roar of the engine faded. He fought viciously for consciousness, afraid that if he passed out for even a moment, Jonesy might somehow be able to take control again.