Random Walk: A Novel for a New Age
- Автор: Блок Лоуренс
- Год: 1988
- Язык: английский
- Год: A Tor Book
- ISBN: 978-0-312-93092-9
- Жанр: Фэнтези
Электронная книга - «Random Walk: A Novel for a New Age». Краткое содержание книги:
“What’s he care about a car? He can buy another one if he wants. And he seemed real intrigued with everything we were saying. So did she, even more than he did. I thought she’d want to stay with us, and then he’d decide to stay, too.”
Somebody said he could buy another wife as easily as he could buy another car. Jody said he was just as glad they’d gone their separate ways. “They’re not exactly the type for this hike of ours,” he told Guthrie.
“Oh? What type is that?”
“You know what I mean. She’s not a whole lot more than a tough little hooker, and how he got to be so tall is by standing on his money. I don’t figure they’d be a whole lot of fun to be around.”
“That’s not who they are. That’s just the package they’re wrapped in.”
“Maybe.”
“Remember the fellow in the Datsun pickup?”
“Fellow in a Datsun? No, when was that?”
“Oh, about ten days ago on Route 95. He wanted to give me a ride when I wasn’t even looking for one.”
“Oh, that guy,” Jody said. “Oh, come on, hoss. I wasn’t all that bad.”
“Never said you were.”
“But I do get your drift.”
“I thought you would.”
To Sara, Guthrie confided a certain amount of surprise that the Burdines had turned back. “There’s always a fair amount of traffic on this road,” he said. “At least there is since 395 came in. It’s not a parade, but you see a car every few minutes. But the traffic shut down the minute they needed help, and it didn’t start to flow again until they’d joined up with us.”
“And you don’t think that could be coincidental?”
“No more than you do. Anyway, coincidence is just God’s way of remaining anonymous. No, they were supposed to meet up with us. And while I agree with Jody that they’re an unlikely pair of pilgrims, at least on the surface of it, I thought they’d get caught up in the flow of whatever it is that’s happening.” He hesitated. “I thought we were irresistible, I guess. That once you walked a mile or so with us you were hooked.”
For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to respond. Then, her hand light in his, she said, “The path is not for everyone, Guthrie.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is.”
“And that’s very sad, because there are people who ought to be here and they never will. But I think it’s partly true, what you suggested. Once you start on the path, I don’t think you can really stop. You can slow down, you can get sidetracked, you can drag your feet, but I don’t think you can turn your back on it completely. I’m not absolutely positive about this, but I don’t think you can.”
Les and Georgia Burdine couldn’t. A few miles down the road the tow truck caught up with them, the Caddy’s back end winched up and the big car rolling on its front wheels. The truck stopped, the door opened, and Les and Georgia stepped down. Les said something to the driver, and the truck pulled away, towing the Caddy in its wake.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Les announced. “The fool brought the wrong size tire. I told him what size tire to bring and he brought one that won’t fit on the goddamned automobile. Can you believe that?”
“Easily,” Martha told him.
“You can? I have to tell you I couldn’t. So he’s hauling the car back to his garage in Burns, where he’s got a whole pile of tires the right size, and he’s going to see if he can’t put one of them on for me.”
“How come you didn’t ride there with him?”
“Well, there’s not a great deal to do in Burns. There’s an Indian reservation, and there’s a whole lot of places selling supplies to ranchers, but if you’ve been to Burns once you wouldn’t call life a failure if it never brought you back there again.”
“And we liked you folks,” Georgia put in, “and we thought we’d walk with you a little while, and then when we get to Burns our car’ll be ready and we can go.”
“We might not even get all the way to Burns tonight,” Martha said. “I think Guthrie was saying something about stopping within the next hour. Gary knows whose land this is, and he says there’d be no objection to our camping out on it, so that’s probably what we’ll do.”
“Well, we’d probably wind up staying in Burns otherwise,” Les said, “and the Best Western’s as good as they got there, and it’s no great shakes from what I hear. I can’t remember the last time I slept out under the stars. You think you can manage with the ground for a mattress, little lady?”
Georgia muttered something. “I’ve had worse” is what it sounded like to Martha.
“Then tomorrow we’ll go on to Burns with the rest of you,” he went on, “and I guess you’ll stay on 20 going east, while we collect the car and drive north to Pendleton.”
Jody went around offering five to one that they’d stay with the group after Burns. He couldn’t find anyone who would bet with him.
A couple of things happened that night.
First of all, Martha blew up at Guthrie. He said something innocuous that she took the wrong way, and she had a fit. She told him that he had no right to control her, that no one had elected him God, that she’d been putting up with his crap all her life and she didn’t want to take it anymore. She kept working herself up, and ultimately she began hyperventilating. Jody and Sara got her to lie down and made her keep breathing until her body was vibrating with energy. Then, abruptly, she got up on her knees, laid her head back and roared. Loud wordless cries came one after another from her mouth, rending the night air. She howled for five full minutes, and then her voice cracked in the middle of a howl and she rolled onto her side and curled up in a ball and began to weep quietly. Jody covered one of her hands with his, and Sara laid a hand on her shoulder. After a little while the weeping stopped and she appeared to be asleep.
Not long after that, Richard was formally introduced to his grandfather. This was a neat trick, because the man had died before Richard was born.
What happened is this: Ellie had walked off twenty yards or so in order to nurse Richard without being obvious about it. Just as she was switching the baby from the right to the left breast, she was undeniably aware of her father’s presence. She had been his only child, and Richard was thus his only grandchild, and her father, dying with cancer, had fought to hang onto life until the completion of her pregnancy. He had lasted longer than his doctors thought he would, but still took his last breath a month and three days before Richard was born.
Now, suddenly, he was here in the high desert of western Oregon. She could feel him there with her, she thought she ought to be able to look around and see him. She felt his mind lock onto hers, and she got that he longed to know his grandson.
She looked down at the baby sucking lustily at her breast. Aloud she said, “Richard, I want you to meet your grandfather. His name is Andrew McLeod. Daddy, this is your grandson, his name is Richard Andrew Wilkes. Isn’t he beautiful, Daddy?”
And then Richard’s mouth opened to release her nipple. He turned his head. His eyes held hers but only momentarily, and then they swung around to lock on something Ellie couldn’t see. The baby smiled hugely, and gurgled with pleasure; whatever he saw, it was clearly something that he liked.
For a long moment they stayed like that, the two of them or the three of them. Then Richard sighed and rolled over to seek her breast again, and Ellie felt something relax and let go and leave them.
“Oh, Richard,” she said.
When he finished nursing she carried him back to the group. Before she could ask, Georgia Burdine offered to hold him for her, and Richard accepted the transfer without a murmur. Ellie found Bud and told him what had just happened to her, and in the course of telling him she started to cry, and he held her while she wept. Then the two of them walked slowly off into the night.