Dreamcatcher(91)

'HALT!' a terrifying, amplified voice commanded. It could have been the voice of God. 'HALT OR WE'LL FIRE!'

Henry went down hard and awkwardly. His skis shot off his feet. One ankle bent painfully enough to make him cry out. He lost one skipole; the other snapped off halfway up its shaft. The wind was knocked out of him in a large, frosty whoop of breath.

He slid, snowplowing with his wide-open crotch, then came to rest, bent limbs forming a shape something like a swastika.

His vision began to come back, and he heard feet crunching in the snow. He flailed and managed to sit up, not able to tell if anything was broken or not.

Six men were standing about ten feet down the hill from him, their shadows impossibly long and crisp on the diamond-dusted new snow. They were all wearing parkas. They all had clear plastic masks over their mouths and noses  -  these looked more efficient than the painters' masks Henry had found in the snowmobile shed, but Henry had an idea that the basic purpose was the same.

The men also had automatic weapons, all of them pointed at him. It now seemed rather lucky to Henry that he had left Jonesy's Garand and his own Winchester back at the Scout. If he'd had a gun, he might have a dozen or more holes in him by now.

'I don't think I've got it,' he croaked. 'Whatever it is you're worried about, I don't think - '

'ON YOUR, FEET!' God's voice again. Corning from the truck. The men standing in front of him blocked out at least some of the glare and Henry could see more men at the foot of the hill where the roads met. All of them had weapons, too, except for the one holding the bullhorn.

'I don't know if I can g - '

'ON YOUR FEET NOW!' God commanded, and one of the men in front of him made an expressive little erking motion with the barrel of his gun.

Henry got shakily to his feet. His legs were trembling and the ankle he'd bent was outraged, but everything was holding together, at least for the time being. Thus ends the eggman's journey, he thought, and began to laugh. The men in front of him looked at each other uneasily, and although they pointed their rifles at him again, he was comforted to see even that small demonstration of human emotion.

In the brilliant glow of the lights mounted on the pulper's flatbed, Henry saw something lying in the snow  -  it had fallen from his pocket when he wiped out. Slowly, knowing they might shoot him anyway, he bent down.

'DON'T TOUCH THAT!' God cried from His loudspeaker atop the cab of the pulp-truck, and now the men down there also raised their weapons, a little hello darkness my old friend peeping from the muzzle of each.

'Bite shit and die,' Henry said  -  one of the Beav's better efforts  -  and picked up the package. He held it out to the armed and masked men in front of him, smiling. 'I come in peace for all mankind,' he said. 'Who wants a hot dog?'

PART TWO GRAYBOYS CHAPTER TWELVE

JONESY IN THE HOSPITAL

1

This was a dream.

It didn't feel like one, but it had to be. For one thing, he'd already been through March fifteenth once, and it seemed monstrously unfair to have to go through it again. For another, he could remember all sorts of things from the eight months between mid-March and mid-November  -  helping the kids with their homework, Carla on the phone with her friends (many from the Narcotics Anonymous program), giving a lecture at Harvard . . . and the months of physical rehab, of course. All the endless bends, all the tiresome screaming as his joints stretched themselves out again, oh so reluctantly. He telling Jeannie Morin, his therapist, that he couldn't. She telling him that he could. Tears on his face, big smile on hers (that hateful undeniable junior-miss-smile), and in the end she had turned out to be right. He could, he was the little engine that could, but what a price the little engine had paid.

He could remember all those things and more: getting out of bed for the first time, wiping his ass for the first time, the night in early May when he'd gone to bed thinking I'm going to get through this for the first time, the night in late May when he and Carla had made love for the first time since the accident, and afterward he'd told her an old joke: How do porcupines f**k? Very carefully. He could remember watching fireworks on Memorial Day, his hip and upper thigh aching like a bastard; he could remember eating watermelon on the Fourth of July, spitting seeds into the grass and watching Carla and her sisters play badminton, his hip and upper leg still aching but not so fiercely; he could remember Henry calling in September  -  'Just to check in,' he'd said  -  and talking about all sorts of things, including the annual hunting trip to Hole in the Wall come November. 'Sure I'm coming,' Jonesy had said, not knowing then how little he would like the feel of the Garand in his hands. They had talked about their work (Jonesy had taught the final three weeks of summer session, hopping around pretty spryly on one crutch by then), about their families, about the books they had read and the movies they had seen; Henry had mentioned again, as he had in January, that Pete was drinking too much. Jonesy, having already been through one substance - abuse war with his wife, hadn't wanted to talk about that, but when Henry passed along Beaver's suggestion that they stop in Derry and see Duddits Cavell when their week of hunting was over, Jonesy had agreed enthusiastically. It had been too long, and there was nothing like a shot of Duddits to cheer a person up. Also . . .

'Henry?' he had asked. 'We made plans to go see Duddits, didn't we? We were going on St Patrick's Day. I don't remember it, but it's written on my office calendar.'