had triggered off his psychic alarm, but it was definitely not Rogan going
berserk or McCandless cutting loose just for the hell of it.
McCandless was a psychopath, almost totally unstable. Already he’d gunned down
Denning, a man of some education who’d suggested there might be a way into the
mountains other than the road, and if there was it might be the wiser route to
take. Denning’s view, mildly expressed, was that the obvious course of action
could often lead to needless danger. The road, he’d said, was too open; cover
was negligible. Who knew what dangers lurked hidden, out of sight? Muties,
mannies—anything could be up there. On the road you were an easy target. Maybe
that was why no one had ever returned from the Dark Hills, though many had set
out. Try some other route, Denning had advised; and if there wasn’t one, then
okay—the road.
It was a reasonable argument, put in a reasonable manner. It made sense. But not
to McCandless, who’d not even bothered to debate it. He’d simply pulled out his
dented, much used .45 automatic and put a softnose into Denning’s face, blowing
the rear of his skull out in a spray of blood and pinkish-gray matter. End of
argument. McCandless and Rogan had divided up the contents of Denning’s
backpack, taking gun, ammo, food, other essentials. Then the party had moved on.
No one had argued. Rogan hadn’t argued because he knew he’d be sharing the
spoils. Wise man. Offing Denning meant at the end of the day that there was one
less mouth to feed, one less person to share in the possible treasure at the end
of the trail. The fact that it also meant they had one less gun to blow away
attackers with did not necessarily occur to him.
Kurt had not argued because he was phlegmatic by nature. He knew he would not
get a share of Denning’s leavings because he was a hired gun, a blaster pure and
simple. Sure, he’d get a share of whatever they found, if anything, up in the
hills. But other than that, forget it. He just took orders from McCandless, kept
his eyes open for danger, hoped for the best.
Reacher certainly had not argued. He was a survivor. The main reason he’d
survived to the age of thirty, give or take a year or three, was that he never
argued. With anyone. Especially not with guys who held guns and called the
shots.
In any case, his peculiar talent—born out of a blind stew of scrambled genes
somewhere back along a kin line a century before—was invaluable to McCandless,
however much the bulky man might rage and fume, and unless he went stark out of
his mind Reacher would survive yet.
On the other hand, thought Reacher suddenly, the way things were going, the way
madness seemed to be encroaching on them all, there was a damned good chance the
guy would go stark out of his mind.
McCandless said, “So I ain’t got me a doomie, I got me a senser. Why did I get
me a senser? To sniff out trouble.” His voice dropped menacingly. “And what was
the deal? The deal was this senser’d get food and a share of the good stuff when
we hit it. That was the bargain. Just so long as he worked his passage.” He
suddenly screamed, “So what did you see, Reacher?”
Reacher was on the verge of repeating that he hadn’t seen anything, that he’d
made it perfectly clear to McCandless right at the start that he couldn’t see
anything, that he never would see anything, that it was a sheer physical
impossibility for him to see anything. And then he thought, split-second
swiftly, the hell with it: a quibble like that will get me a slug in the skull.
Right now McCandless was not interested in word play.
He gestured up the road. “There. Somewhere up there. Waiting for us.”
McCandless let his breath out in an exploding snort.
“Right! What?”
“Dunno.” Reacher spoke carefully, choosing words that would not touch the bulky
man off. “All I get’s an impression.” He tapped his forehead lightly, not
looking at McCandless or the other two.