The Search

CHAPTER NINE

Sweetwater was a dismal town. Walker stayed there only long enough to discover that Carver was heading for Eagle City. He was numb from driving but had to keep going, had to keep Carver in range or run the risk of losing track of him for good. It was a long haul and by the outskirts of Attica, a vast sprawling city, barely a hundred miles from Sweetwater, both Walker and the car were coming apart under the strain. Second gear was only intermittently available; fourth had given up completely so he whined along in third, keeping to sixty despite the roar of complaints from the engine. Walker was exhausted. He missed the turn-off for the Attica orbital and was being sucked into the city. One highway fed into another until he found himself on a six-lane freeway that curved and arched, dipped over other larger freeways. The volume of traffic, the speed and the size of the roads, all filled him with a surge of indifferent excitement: just keeping up with the flow of traffic made you feel like you were racing ahead. Cars slipped back and forth between lanes, moving over all six lanes in the space of half a mile and then making their way back. The road signs — bright blue, huge white letters inscribed on an idl sky — showed no destinations, only the names of other smaller or larger freeways which in turn led to other freeways. To Walker, frazzled by tiredness, caught up in this relentless flow, the idea of houses began to seem quaint, ridiculous. He passed over another coil of roads and felt as if he and the other drivers were electrons in a huge laboratory model, flying particles of energy. Arrival or departure meant nothing, all that mattered was to keep hurtling along with everyone else. Even the idea of pulling off for gas contradicted the fundamental principle at work here: keep moving.

The freeway had now increased to eight lanes which were splitting in two like a long grey zipper coming undone. Walker kept his foot planted to the floor and pulled away to the left, the car shaking and buffeting around him. Soon the freeway fed into another even faster one. Cars swerved and slalomed across the road. Ten lanes of traffic howled and roared along.

Initially Walker had intended keeping to the left, but two and then three lanes of traffic had somehow squeezed between him and the hard shoulder and now he was engulfed in a white-water torrent of cars. He caught glimpses of other drivers, ashen and pale as if they had surrendered themselves to an activity over which they had no control. Nose to tail at sixty miles an hour. Walker’s engine was screaming and rattling; he was sure he could smell burning. He tried fourth gear, thought for a moment he had it and then realized he was freewheeling. Tried to slip the stick back into third but third had locked like a gate. Feeling the first surges of panic he allowed the gearstick to float into the free space of neutral and then tried to ease it as gently as possible into fourth, hoping to take the gearbox by surprise. When that failed he grabbed the stick with his left hand and wrenched it hard. A shriek from the gearbox. He was losing speed. Cars were flashing lights in his mirror. He tried fourth, third again, second — nothing. As he slowed he saw angry faces in the cars lashing by his window. To stop here was a crime. It went against the fundamental reason for being on the road, contravened something so basic as to horrify and frighten those who witnessed it.

As a last attempt he switched the engine off, waited a few seconds, switched on again and tried second gear — nothing. Fourth — nothing. He was down to twenty miles an hour, three lanes from the left, four from the right, cars rushing by on either side. Only now that he was coming to a halt did he fully appreciate the speed of traffic all around. Cars were flashing blurs of metal. He flicked on the hazard lights but nothing happened: it was as if the car had experienced a massive coronary and died instantaneously. He tightened the seat belt as the car drifted to a halt. Cars were swerving to avoid him, bearing down and then indicating frantically and pulling out into another lane. He saw a truck moving towards him, heard the squeal of brakes, saw it filling the rear window. Braced himself for the impact, raised his legs clear of the steering wheel and at the last second the truck veered, screeching to the left. It was like being a coconut in a shy. All he could do was wait for the smash of impact. Huge seconds passed. Already thirty cars had zoomed by and narrowly missed. Swerving clear, a car clipped his trunk and nudged the Ford around so that it was now at a slight angle to the flow and presented a bigger target. A van grazed the back bumper and tugged Walker round until he was at right angles to the traffic. A third car ploughed into the front left fender. A rending sound of metal, a drizzle of glass and then still another crash as something thundered into the back. A blur of movement. The seat belt bit into him as the car, entangled with another, was shunted forward. He looked up and saw that the Ford had been completely turned around and was now facing into the oncoming traffic.

He flicked open his seat belt and clambered into the back. There was another crunch and the whole of the front seat was a jagged concertina of metal. The car had caved in around him as if it were being scrapped. Another vehicle piled into the one that had hit him, and then another until Walker was protected from the impact by the buffer of vehicles joining the pile-up. Oil began spurting from a ruptured pipe. The smell of petrol.

By now knowledge of the crash had filtered back along the freeway, traffic all around had come to a halt. There was hardly room for Walker to move but, incredibly, he was unhurt. He looked through the spider-web cracks of the window and saw a snake of petrol coiling around the car. The door was jammed but one kick and the window disappeared. He clambered through the gap, the wail of sirens already approaching.

Four or five cars were tangled together. A young woman pulled herself clear of her wrecked car. Together she and Walker checked the other drivers. Two were trapped in the wreckage of their cars but even they shouted with shocked exuberance that they were OK, they were OK.

Cops arrived. Nobody was sure what had happened. There was talk of a car breaking down, stalling. Walker joined in, explaining he had slowed to avoid a car in front of him that had practically stopped in the middle of the highway.

Patrol cars and ambulances kept arriving. The wreckage was slashed by blue lights. Walker grabbed his hold-all from the back seat and limped — despite an abundance of stretchers — to an ambulance which began squeezing its way along the hard shoulder.

At the hospital the sense of unity which bound together the survivors of the crash was dispersed among the chaos of pain and injury that waited and hurried all around. Cops and hospital staff began taking details of who was driving which vehicle, trying to discover exactly what had happened. Knowing that he couldn’t explain how he came by his car, Walker took advantage of the white bustle of activity to move away in the direction of the toilets. Once out of sight he ducked down another corridor and disappeared into a labyrinth of wards and specialist departments. It was a large hospital and when he emerged from the lemon-scented fluorescence it was into a tree-lined street that contrasted sharply with the swarming forecourt where the ambulances arrived.

He had ended up in Attica literally by accident and wanted to get out of town as quickly as possible. He flagged down a cab which took him to the bus terminal. The bus to Eagle City had already left so he bought a ticket as far as Odessa. He was so tired it took an effort of will just to make his way to his seat. Getting out of Attica, negotiating the tangled ribbon of freeways would take hours. It didn’t matter. By the time the bus pulled clear of the terminal he was asleep.

He was shaken awake by the driver saying, ‘We’re here, buddy.’

‘Where’s here?’ Walker had slept so deeply it took him a few moments to remember he was on a coach. His knee ached, memories, dreams, thoughts began to untangle.

‘Odessa,’ said the driver.

‘And what time is it?’

‘Time for breakfast, buddy. You look like you could use some.’

Walker limped along the aisle after the driver, stepped down into the blue hunger of morning. He walked through a diner and dunked his head under the washroom tap. His face was there waiting in the mirror when he looked up.

He ordered coffee, cereal, pancakes, eggs, more coffee. Sitting a couple of places along the counter was a red-faced guy, wading through a breakfast of comparable size. Nodded at Walker between chews.

‘Some breakfast, ain’t it?’

Walker nodded back, holding up his fork to indicate his mouth was too full to speak.

‘Just off the bus?’

‘Yeah. From Attica.’

‘Where you heading?’

‘Eagle City. You know about buses there?’

‘There’s one late this afternoon. Used to be one in the morning as well but they stopped that.’

They went back to eating, ordered more coffee. The guy was called Ray and he was on his way to Crowville. He had a few things to do first here in Odessa, he said, but Walker could come with him as far as Crowville halfway to Eagle City. From there he could get a train or a bus easy. Walker agreed immediately and they shook hands as if clinching a deal.

An hour later they were sitting in the front of Ray’s pick-up, nosing their way out of town. For the first twenty miles they chatted and then fell into an easy silence, broken only when one of them said ‘Look’ and pointed to a black flop of buzzards up ahead, a rabbit streaking across the highway. They had been travelling for just over two hours when Ray got a call on shortwave telling him he had to go to New Bedford, a hundred miles away to the north, to pick up a crate of spares. Urgent. There was a brief argument and then Ray hung up.

‘Shit.’

‘It’s no problem,’ said Walker. ‘I can hitch.’ There was little traffic but anyone who passed by would pick him up.

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Ray.

They continued for ten minutes and then turned down an unsurfaced road, little more than a track, the kind of road you drove down when you wanted to dispose of a body. After a couple of miles he stopped and they both got out of the car.

Warm, blue skies, only a breeze moving. Ray pointed off into the distance and said, ‘Walk due south, where I’m pointing. After an hour, hour and a half, you’ll come to some railroad tracks. I’d take you myself but the terrain’s too rough for the pick-up. Follow the track west and you’ll see it start climbing. After about half an hour the gradient is enough to slow the freights right down. You can hop one no problem. It’s a busy piece of track. Anything going west will be heading to Eagle City.’

Walker nodded and looked in the direction indicated. Ray hunted around in the back of the pick-up and handed him a gallon container of water, a bottle of Pepsi, bread, fruit, biscuits. Walker stuffed everything except the water into his rucksack and slipped his arms through the straps. He was touched by Ray’s efficient concern and when they shook hands and said goodbye he felt like he was parting from a friend he had known for ten years.

‘Don’t forget,’ said Ray as he climbed back in the car. ‘Head straight south. It won’t matter if you veer a bit to one side — it’ll just mean a longer or shorter walk once you hit the rails.’

With that he twisted the key in the ignition and turned the pick-up round. Waved and headed back up the road, leaving Walker in the dust-settling emptiness.

After walking for half an hour the landscape became fertile and wild, twitching with butterflies. He passed through knee-length grass and a field so dense with strawberries that their juice stained his shoes. Buffalo clouds roamed the sky. Then, in the distance, he saw the river-glint of the railroad tracks and quickened his pace, smiling.

When he got to the railroad he looked back at the wavering track he had cut through the grass and began following the rails west, the gradient steepening all the time. After a couple of miles he stretched out by them and waited for the train, drowsy from the walk and heat. He shaded his face with a shirt and dozed.

He woke and gulped some water, ate the last of the strawberries he had picked on the way. The light was softening, his shadow reaching out along the track. Three geese angled towards the horizon: everything straining into the distance.

Waiting.

It was almost sundown when the rails began to sing. The noise got louder and soon he could see the train pulling slowly towards him.

The train was so long that three minutes after the engine had passed there was still no sign of the rear coach. Then, seeing an open boxcar approaching, he ran alongside, tossing in his bag. The length of the train made its speed deceptive. He had to sprint to keep up with the boxcar and when he reached up to haul himself aboard the momentum jolted his arms and tugged him off his feet. Dangling from the train he touched the ground again before swinging his feet up and into the car.

Once it had pulled up the incline the train began moving faster. Hanging slightly from the door he could see the long line of freights stretching away in both directions as the rails began curving slightly to the south. Mostly, he lay on the jolting floor, head propped on his rucksack, watching the sun smoulder over the horizon and the fields blazing fire-red. For a while the sky was streaked with purple and then, as the blue blackened, the first stars blinked on.

It was a warm night. He sipped water and chewed hunks of bread, wished he had saved some of the strawberries. Later the momentum of the train lulled him to sleep. He dreamed of Rachel doing ordinary things, things he had never seen: cleaning her teeth, deciding which clothes to wear, reading, drying herself after a bath. He dreamed of her sleeping, dreaming of him.

Throughout the night he woke uncomfortably on the hard boards, looked out at the star-clogged sky until the clack of wheels tugged him asleep again.