Dreamcatcher(198)

A phantom shape appeared ahead in the snow. Mr Gray paused, gasping and peering at it, and then fought his way forward again, holding the dog's limp paws and dragging Jonesy's right foot.

Here was a sign nailed to the trunk of a tree: ABSOLUTELY NO FISHING FROM SHAFT HOUSE. Fifty feet beyond it, stone steps rose up from the path. Six of them . . . no, eight. At the top was a stone building on a stone foundation that jutted out into the snowy gray nothing where the Reservoir lay  -  Jonesy's ears could hear water lapping against stone even over the rushing, labored beat of his heart.

He had come to the place.

Clutching the dog and using the last of Jonesy's depleted strength, Mr Gray began to totter up the snow-covered steps.

8

As they passed between the stone posts marking the entrance to the Reservoir, Kurtz said: 'Pull over, Freddy. Side of the road.'

Freddy did as he was asked without question.

'You got your auto, laddie?'

Freddy lifted it. The good old M-16, tried and true. Kurtz nodded.

'Sidearm?'

'.44 Magnum, boss.'

And Kurtz with the nine, which he liked for close work. He wanted this to be close work. He wanted to see the color of Owen Underhill's brains.

'Freddy?'

'Yes, boss.'

'I just wanted you to know that this is my final mission, and I couldn't have hoped for a finer companion.' He reached out and gave Freddy's shoulder a squeeze. Beside Freddy, Perlmutter snored with his Ma Joad face tipped up toward the roof Five minutes or so before reaching the stone pillars he had passed several long, spectacularly odoriferous farts. After that, Pearly's distended gut had gone down again. Probably for the last time, Kurtz thought.

Freddy's eyes, meanwhile, had grown gratifyingly bright. Kurtz was delighted. He had not entirely lost his touch even now, it seemed.

'All right, buck,' Kurtz said. 'Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. Right?'

'Right, sir.' Kurtz guessed sir was okay again now. They could pretty well put the protocols of the mission behind them. They were Quantrill's boys, now; two final jayhawkers riding the western Massachusetts range.

With an unmistakable little grimace of distaste, Freddy jerked a thumb at Perlmutter. 'Want me to try waking him up, sir? He may be too far gone, but - '

'Why bother?' Kurtz asked. Still gripping Freddy's shoulder, he pointed ahead, where the access road disappeared into a wall of white: the snow. The goddam snow that had chased them all his way, a grim f**king reaper dressed in white instead of black. The tracks of the Subaru were now entirely gone, but those of the Humvee Owen had stolen were still visible. If they moved along briskly, praise God, following these tracks would be a walk in the park. 'I don't think we need him anymore, which I personally find a great relief Go, Freddy. Go.'

The Humvee flirted her tail and then steadied. Kurtz drew his nine and held it against his leg. Coming for you, Owen. Coming for you, buck. And you better get your speech ready for God, because you're going to be making it just about an hour from now.

9

The office which he had furnished so beautifully  -  furnished out of his mind and his memories  -  was now falling apart.

Jonesy limped restlessly back and forth, looking around the room, lips pressed so tightly together they were white, forehead beaded with sweat even though it had gotten damned cold in here,

This was The Fall of the Office of Jonesy instead of the House of Usher. The furnace was howling and clanking beneath him, making the floor shake. White stuff  -  frost crystals, maybe  -  puffed in through the vent and left a powdery triangular shape on the wall. Where it touched it went to work on the wood paneling, simultaneously rotting it and warping it. The pictures fell one by one, tumbling to the floor like suicides. The Eames chair  -  the one he'd always wanted, the very one  -  split in two as if it had been hacked by an invisible axe. The mahogany panels on the walls began to split and peel free like dead skin. The drawers juddered out of their places in the desk and clattered one by one to the floor. The shutters Mr Gray had installed to block his view of the outside world were vibrating and shaking, producing a steady metallic squalling that set Jonesy's teeth on edge.

Crying out to Mr Gray, demanding to know what was going on, would be useless . . . and besides, Jonesy had all the information he needed. He had slowed Mr Gray down, but Mr Gray had first risen to the challenge and then above it. Viva Mr Gray, who had either reached his goal or almost reached it. As the paneling fell off the walls, he could see the dirty Sheetrock beneath: the walls of the Tracker Brothers office as four boys had seen it in 1978, lined up with their foreheads to the glass, their new chum standing behind them as bidden, waiting for them to be done with whatever it was they were doing, waiting for them to take him home. Now another wood panel tore loose, coming off the wall with a sound like tearing paper, and beneath it was a bulletin board with a single photo, a Polaroid, tacked to it. Not a beauty queen, not Tina Jean Schlossinger, but just some woman with her skirt hiked to the bottom of her panties, pretty stupid. The nice rug on the floor suddenly shrivelled like skin, revealing dirty Tracker Brothers tile beneath, and those white tadpoles, scumbags left by couples who came in here to screw beneath the disinterested gaze of the Polaroid woman who was no one, really, just an artifact of a hollow past.

He paced, lurching on his bad hip, which hadn't hurt this badly since just after the accident, and he understood all of this, oh yes indeed, you had better believe it. His hip was full of splinters and ground glass; his shoulders and neck ached with a fierce tiredness. Mr Gray was beating his body to death as he made his final charge and there was nothing Jonesy could do about it.