The Long Walk(77)

"Hey, Baker," Garraty said.

Baker started, then seemed to shake himself all over, like a dog. "Garraty," he said. "You."

"Yea, me."

"I was having a dream-an awful real one. What time?"

Garraty checked. "Almost twenty to seven."

"Will it rain all day, you think?"

"I... uh!" Garraty lurched forward, momentarily off balance. "My damn shoe-heel came off," he said.

"Get rid of 'em both," Baker advised. "The nails will get to pokin' through. And you have to work harder when you're off balance."

Garraty kicked off one shoe and it went end over end almost to the edge of the crowd, where it lay like a small crippled puppy. The hands of Crowd groped for it eagerly. One snared it, another took it away, and there was a violent, knotted struggle over it. His other shoe would not kick off; his foot had swelled tight inside it. He knelt, took his warning, untied it, and took it off. He considered throwing it to the crowd and then left it lying on the road instead. A great and irrational wave of despair suddenly washed over him and he thought: I have lost my shoes. I have lost my shoes.

The pavement was cold against his feet. The ripped remains of his stockings were soon soaked. Both feet looked strange, oddly lumpish. Garraty felt despair turn to pity for his feet. He caught up quickly with Baker, who was also walking shoeless. "I'm about done in," Baker said simply.

"We all are."

"I get to remembering all the nice things that ever happened to me. The first time I took a girl to a dance and there was this big ole drunk fella that kep tryin' to cut in and I took him outside and whipped his ass for him. I was only able to because he was so drunk. And that girl looked at me like I was the greatest thing since the internal combustion engine. My first bike. The first time I read The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins... that's my favorite book, Garraty, should anyone ever ask you. Sittin' half asleep by some mudhole with a fishin' line and catchin' crawdaddies by the thousands. Layin' in the backyard and sleepin' with a Popeye funnybook over my face. I think about those things, Garraty. Just lately. Like I was old and gettin' senile."

The early morning rain fell silverly around them. Even the crowd seemed quieter, more withdrawn. Faces could be seen again, blurrily, like faces behind rainy panes of glass. They were pale, sloe-eyed faces with brooding expressions under dripping hats and umbrellas and spread newspaper tents. Garraty felt a deep ache inside him and it seemed it would be better if he could cry out, but he could not, any more than he could comfort Baker and tell him it was all right to die. It might be, but then again, it might not.

"I hope it won't be dark," Baker said. "That's all I hope. If there is an... an after, I hope it's not dark. And I hope you can remember. I'd hate to wander around in the dark forever, not knowing who I was or what I was doin' there, or not even knowing that I'd ever had anything different."

Garraty began to speak, and then the gunshots silenced him. Business was picking up again. The hiatus Parker had so accurately predicted was almost over. Baker's lips drew up in a grimace.

"That's what I'm most afraid of. That sound. Why did we do it, Garraty? We must have been insane."

"I don't think there was any good reason."

"All we are is mice in a trap."

The Walk went on. Rain fell. They walked past the places that Garraty knew-tumbledown shanties where no one lived, an abandoned one-room schoolhouse that had been replaced by the new Consolidated building, chicken houses, old trucks up on blocks, newly harrowed fields. He seemed to remember each field, each house. Now he tingled with excitement. The road seemed to fly by. His legs seemed to gain a new and spurious springiness. But maybe Stebbins was right-maybe she wouldn't be there. It had to be considered and prepared for, at least.

The word came back through the thinned ranks that there was a boy near the front who believed he had appendicitis.

Garraty would have boggled at this earlier, but now he couldn't seem to care about anything except Jan and Freeport. The hands on his watch were racing along with a devilish life of their own. Only five miles out now. They had passed the Freeport town line. Somewhere up ahead Jan and his mother were already standing in front of Woolman's Free Trade Center Market, as they had arranged it.

The sky brightened somewhat but remained overcast. The rain turned to a stubborn drizzle. The road was now a dark mirror, black ice in which Garraty could almost see the twisted reflection of his own face. He passed a hand across his forehead. It felt hot and feverish. Jan, oh Jan. You must know I-

The boy with the hurting side was 59, Klingerman. He began to scream. His screams quickly became monotonous. Garraty thought back to the one Long Walk he had seen-also in Freeport-and the boy who had been monotonously chanting I can't. I can't. I can't.

Klingerman, he thought, shut ya trap.

But Klingerman kept on walking, and he kept on screaming, hands laced over his side, and Garraty's watch hands kept on racing. It was eight-fifteen now. You'll be there, Jan, right? Right. Okay. I don't know what you mean anymore, but I know I'm still alive and that I need you to be there, to give me a sign, maybe. Just be there. Be there.

Eight-thirty.

"We gettin' close to this goddam town, Garraty?" Parker hollered.

"What do you care?" McVries jeered. "You sure don't have a girl waiting for you."