Roland squatted beside the fire Susannah had built, produced his flint and steel, and began
to flash sparks into the kindling. Soon small flames were growing amid the twigs and dried
handfuls of grass. “I can’t answer those questions,” he said. “I wish I could.”
That, Eddie thought, was an exceedingly clever reply. Roland had said I can’t answer . . .
but that wasn•t the same thing as I don’t know. Far from it.
15
SUPPER CONSISTED OF WATER and greens. They were all still recovering from the
heavy meal they’d eaten in River Crossing; even Oy refused the scraps Jake offered him after the first one or two.
“How come you wouldn’t talk back there?” Jake scolded the bum-bier. “You made me
look like an idiot!”
“Id-yit!” Oy said, and put his muzzle on Jake’s ankle.
“He’s talking better all the time,” Roland remarked. “He’s even starting to sound like you, Jake.”
“Ake,” Oy agreed, not lifting his muzzle. Jake was fascinated by the gold rings in Oy’s eyes; in the flickering light of the fire, they seemed to revolve slowly.
“But he wouldn’t talk to the old people.”
“Bumblers are choosy about that sort of thing,” Roland said. “They’re odd creatures. If I had to guess, I’d say this one was driven away by its own pack.”
“Why do you think so?”
Roland pointed at Oy’s flank. Jake had cleaned off the blood (Oy hadn’t enjoyed this, but
had stood for it) and the bite was healing, although the bumbler still limped a little. “I’d bet an eagle that’s the bite of another bumbler.”
“But why would his own pack—”
“Maybe they got tired of his chatter,” Eddie said. He had lain down beside Susannah and put an arm about her shoulders.
“Maybe they did,” Roland said, “especially if he was the only one of them who was still trying to talk. The others might have decided he was too bright—or too uppity—for their
taste. Animals don’t know as much about jealousy as people, but they’re not ignorant of it,
either.”
The object of this discussion closed his eyes and appeared to go to sleep . . . but Jake
noticed his ears began twitching when the talk resumed.
“How bright are they?” Jake asked.
Roland shrugged. “The old groom I told you about—the one who said a good bumbler is
good luck—swore he had one in his youth that could add. He said it told sums either by
scratching on the stable floor or pushing stones together with its muzzle.” He grinned. It lit his whole face, chasing away the gloomy shadows which had lain there ever since they left
River Crossing. “Of course, grooms and fishermen are born to lie.”
A companionable silence fell among them, and Jake could feel drowsiness stealing over him. He thought he would sleep soon, and that was fine by him. Then the drums began,
coming out of the southeast in rhythmic pulses, and he sat back up. They listened without
speaking.
“That’s a rock and roll backbeat,” Eddie said suddenly. “I know it is. Take away the guitars and that’s what you’ve got left. In fact, it sounds quite a lot like Z.Z. Top.”
“Z.Z. who?” Susannah asked.
Eddie grinned. “They didn’t exist in your when,” he said. “I mean, they probably did, but in
’63 they would have been just a bunch of kids going to school down in Texas.” He listened.
“I’ll be goddamned if that doesn’t sound just like the backbeat to something like
‘Sharp-Dressed Man’ or ‘Velcro Fly.’ ”
” Velcro Fly’?” Jake said. “That’s a stupid name for a song.”
“Pretty funny, though,” Eddie said. “You missed it by ten years or so, sport.”
“We’d better roll over,” Roland said. “Morning comes early.”
“I can’t sleep with that shit going on,” Eddie said. He hesitated, then said something which had been on his mind ever since the morning when they had pulled Jake, whitefaced and
shrieking, through the door- way and into this world. “Don’t you think it’s about time we
exchanged stories, Roland? We might find out we know more than we think.”
“Yes, it’s almost time for that. But not in the dark.” Roland rolled onto his side, pulled up a blanket, and appeared to go to sleep.
“Jesus,” Eddie said. “Just like that.” He blew a disgusted little whistle between his teeth.
“He’s right,” Susannah said. “Come on, Eddie—go to sleep.”
He grinned and kissed the tip of her nose. “Yes, Mummy.”
Five minutes later he and Susannah were dead to the world, drums or no drums. Jake
found that his own sleepiness had stolen away, how- ever. He lay looking up at die strange
stars and listening to that steady, rhythmic throbbing coming out of the darkness. Maybe it
was the Pubes, boogying madly to a song called “Velcro Fly” while they worked
them- selves into a sacrificial killing frenzy.
He thought of Blaine the Mono, a train so fast that it travelled across the huge, haunted
world trailing a sonic boom behind it, and that led him naturally enough to thoughts of
Charlie the Choo-Choo, who had been retired to a forgotten siding when the new
Burlington Zephyr arrived, rendering him obsolete. He thought of the expression on
Char- lie’s face, the one that was supposed to be cheery and pleasant but somehow wasn’t.
He thought about The Mid-World Railway Company, and the empty lands between St.
Louis and Topeka. He thought about how Charlie had been all ready to go when Mr. Martin
needed him, and how Charlie could blow his own whistle and feed his own firebox. He
wondered again if Engineer Bob had sabotaged the Burlington Zephyr in order to give his
beloved Charlie a second chance.
At last—and as suddenly as it had begun—the rhythmic drumming stopped, and Jake
drifted off to sleep.
16
HE DREAMED, BUT NOT of the plaster-man.
He dreamed instead that he was standing on a stretch of blacktop highway somewhere in
the Big Empty of western Missouri. Oy was with him. Railroad warning signals—white
X-shapes with red lights in their centers—flanked the road. The lights were flashing and
bells were ringing.
Now a humming noise began to rise out of the southeast getting steadily louder. It sounded
like lightning in a bottle.
Here it comes, he told Oy.
Urns! Oy agreed.
And suddenly a vast pink shape two wheels long was slicing across the plain toward them.
It was low and bullet-shaped, and when Jake saw it, a terrible fear filled his heart. The two
big windows flashing in the sun at the front of the train looked like eyes.
Don’t ask it silly questions, Jake told Oy. It won’t play silly games. It’s just an awful
choo-choo train, and its name is Blaine the Pain.
Suddenly Oy leaped onto the tracks and crouched there with his ears flattened back. His
golden eyes were blazing. His teeth were bared in a desperate snarl.
No! Jake screamed. No, Oy!
But Oy paid no attention. The pink bullet was bearing down on the1 tiny, defiant shape of
the billy-bumbler now, and that humming seemed to be crawling all over Jake’s skin,
making his nose bleed and shattering the fillings in his teeth.
He leaped for Oy, Blaine the Mono (or was it Charlie the Choo-Choo?) bore down on them,
and he woke up suddenly, shivering, bathed in sweat. The night seemed to be pressing down upon him like a physical weight. He rolled over and felt frantically for Oy. For a
terrible moment he thought the bumbler was gone, and then his fingers found the silky fur.
Oy uttered a squeak and looked at him with sleepy curiosity.
“That’s all right,” Jake whispered in a dry voice. “There’s no train. It was just a dream. Go back to sleep, boy.”
“Oy,” the humbler agreed, and closed his eyes again.
Jake rolled over on his back and lay looking up at the stars. Blaine is more than a pain, he
thought. It’s dangerous. Very dangerous.
Yes, perhaps.
No perhaps about it! his mind insisted frantically.
All right, Blaine was a pain—given. But his Final Essay had had something else to say on
the subject of Blaine, hadn’t it?
Blaine is the truth. Blaine is the truth. Blaine is the truth.
“Oh Jeez, what a mess,” Jake whispered. He closed his eyes and was asleep again in
seconds. This time his sleep was dreamless.
17
AROUND NOON THE NEXT day they reached the top of another drumlin and saw the
bridge for the first time. It crossed the Send at a point where the river narrowed, bent due
south, and passed in front of the city.
“Holy Jesus,” Eddie said softly. “Does that look familiar to you, Suze?”
“Yes.”
“Jake?”
“Yes—it looks like the George Washington Bridge.”
“It sure does,” Eddie agreed.
“But what’s the GWB doing in Missouri?” Jake asked.
Eddie looked at him. “Say what, sport?”
Jake looked confused. “Mid-World, I mean. You know.”