But he felt without knowing why that such things were side issues; this was important.
In any case, he decided fiercely, this doesn’t change one thing: Chief Dreiser isn’t going to get another crack at him!
He searched the sky through the branches and wondered if they could be spotted. “Lum. . .”
“Yes, Johnnie?”
“Haul in your legs. It’s time to play like a rock.”
“Aw, let’s go for a walk, Johnnie.”
“We’ll go for a walk tonight. But until it gets dark I want you to stay put and hold still.”
“Aw, Johnnie!”
“Look, you don’t want to go downtown again, do you? All right, then, quit arguing.”
“Well, if you feel that way about it.” Lummox settled to the ground. John Thomas sat down, leaned against him, and thought.
Maybe there was a way in this for Lummie and him to make a living. . . in a carnival or something. E.-t.s were big stuff in carnivals; they couldn’t run without them-even though half of them were fakes-and Lummie wasn’t a fake. Probably he could learn to do tricks with his hands, play something or something. Maybe a circus was still better.
No, that wasn’t the thing for Lummie; crowds made him nervous. Uh, what could the two of them do to make a living?. . . after this, mess with the authorities was straightened out, of course. A farm, maybe? Lummie would be better than a tractor and with hands he would be a farm hand, too. Maybe that was the ticket, even though he had never thought about farming.
In his mind’s eye he saw himself and Lummox growing great fields of grain. . . and hay. . . and vegetables and. . . unaware that he had fallen asleep.
He was awakened by a cracking noise and knew vaguely that he had heard several of them. He opened his eyes, looked around and found that he was lying beside Lummox. The creature had not left the spot. . . but he was moving his arms. One arm flailed past Lummox’s head, there was a blur and another crack. . . and a small aspen some distance away suddenly came down. Several others were down near it.
John Thomas scrambled to his feet. “Hey, stop that!”
Lummox stopped. “What’s the matter, Johnriie?” he asked in a hurt voice. There was a pile of rocks in front of him; he was just reaching for one.
“Don’t throw rocks at trees.”
“But you do, Johnnie.”
“Yes, but I don’t ruin them. It’s all right to eat trees, but don’t just spoil them.”
“I’ll eat them. I was going to.”
“All right.” Johnnie looked around. It was dusk, they could start again in a few minutes. “Go ahead and have them for supper. Here, wait a minute.” He examined Lummox’s arms. They were the same color as the rest of him, and beginning to get armor hard. But the most striking change was that they were twice as thick as they had been at first-as big around as Johnnie’s thighs. Most of the loose hide had sloughed off; Jobnnie found that he could tear off the rest. “Okay. Chow time.”
Lummox finished the aspens in the time it took John Thomas to prepare and eat his simple meal, and was ready to eat the empty container as a sweet. It was dark by then; they took to the road.
The second night was even less eventful than the first. It grew steadily colder as they wound even higher; presently Johnnie plugged the power pack of his sleeping bag into his suit. Shortly he was warm and drowsy. “Lum-if I go to sleep, call me when it starts to get light.”
“Okay, Johnnie.” Lummox stored the order in his after brain, just in case. Cold did not bother him, he was not conscious of it, as his body thermostat was more efficient than was Johnnie’s-even more efficient than the one controlling the power pack.
John Thomas dozed and woke up and dozed. He was dozing when Lummox called him, just as the first rays brushed distant peaks. Johnnie sat up and began watching for a place to pull out and hide. Luck was against him; it was straight up on one side and the other side swung over a deep, dismal drop. As minutes wore away and it turned broad daylight he began to get panicky.