The Totem

Some who were against him said his eyes were bright like that because of all the speed and acid he was popping. Others, more inclined toward him, maintained that they were bright like that because he was so god-damned smart, his I.Q. close to genius, up there near one hundred and eighty.

All that Dunlap had already checked on, going through old Newsworld files back in New York at his office. There were photographs of Quiller talking to reporters, of the conference that he had called, using all the power of his wealth, to tell them what he pla

It was a media-created happening. Later, many would maintain that nothing would have taken place if reporters had been silent. But the media said that it would happen, and of course it did. Five thousand freaks of all descriptions, half as many vehicles. It wasn't just a traffic jam. It amounted almost to a riot, police attacking the freaks, claiming the assembly was unlawful, dragging hippies off. Quiller put a stop to that. He'd used his money there as well, buying various permits from officials.

And they started away, Quiller at the lead in a bright red classic 1959 Corvette, heading across the country. They went through Nevada and then Utah, others joining in along the way, a five-mile caravan of cars and trucks and bikes and buses, straight or twisted, some plain, others Day-Gloed, orange and green and purple, every color you could think of. It was something else, they said. It was also Quiller's last cooperation with reporters. He had broken his first rule-don't let people know what you're doing. He'd been forced to. Without newsmen, he had no publicity. But now he had no need for them, and he ignored them all along the way. He reached Wyoming, moving close to home. He crossed the rangeland, worked up through the mountains, crossed more rangeland, then more mountains. Then he reached the valley, coming through the western pass, never getting close to town, simply heading north within the valley until he reached the loggers' road and going up, and that was where the story ended. No reporter ever saw the compound. Lord knows, many tried. Quiller, though, was adamant. Echoing a famous Kesey slogan that a person's either on or off the bus, he said that newsmen too were free to join. The catch was, they would have to stay. 'You're either in or out of the compound. There's no in-between." Many newsmen tried to fake it, but he wouldn't have them. He wouldn't accept a lot of freaks who'd come with him as well. He wanted only those who sensed a mission. Those who wanted nothing but parties he ordered to leave. There were thugs he had hired who took care of forcing them to leave and many of the chosen who took care of forcing them as well. At last he had a thousand. Then he cut them down to half, and all the gates were closed.

From all accounts, there wasn't much to see, regardless: just an open space within the trees, wooden buildings set out into streets and sections, not like houses, more like barracks, just as if this were the Army. That had turned a lot of people off, helping to thin the ranks. The place itself was far off in the forest. Quiller hadn't bought land near the highway. He had bought it away up in the mountains, also buying a strip of land to get to it. That was why you couldn't see the compound. Walking up the loggers' road, you came to where a gate was closed and members of the commune watched it. You could work across and come in from the side. That took several hours, though. The woods were thick and slashed with ravines. But the borders there were guarded too, and anyway the woods were still so thick you couldn't see the commune. For a picture of it, you would have to walk right to the forest's edge, and someone surely would have spotted you. There were rumors that one man had gone there, been discovered, had his camera taken from him, and been chased. But no one ever found the man to talk to him, and no one ever knew.

And anyway, so what? The story by then wasn't at the compound. It was in the town. All the freaks who'd been rejected or had lost their interest showed up in Potter's Field. That was when the trouble started, when the town rejected all those crazy perverts, wouldn't sell them food or even gasoline, and called in the state police to have them sent away. There were fights and broken windows, shattered heads, Day-Gloed buildings, litter, obscene gestures, and a lot of dope. It was two weeks that the town wished hadn't been. In the end, the freaks were all evicted, but the town looked on the compound as the cause of all the trouble. Indeed the town drew no distinction between Quiller's people and those others, and it wouldn't sell the compound food.

Dunlap knew that from the files in New York too. He had seen the photos of the San Francisco riot, policemen dragging hippies off, kicking, swinging clubs and pushing, a great mass of pained and twisted faces, bodies trampled underfoot-photos that reminded him of others like them from the previous decade, especially the march on the Pentagon and the Chicago Democratic convention. He had read about the sudden permits that came through, suspecting that Quiller could have had them sooner but that Quiller held off until he made a point, binding all those people to him. Dunlap saw photos of the Corvette heading out of San Francisco, the long procession following; of locals by the road who even in still pictures seemed to shake their heads and turn and frown and ask each other what the hell was going on. State patrol cars waiting for a traffic violation. Restaurants that wouldn't serve them. By the time they got to Utah, the photos began to seem ordinary. Editors enlivened them, juxtaposing Brigham Young, the Mormon trek, and Quiller's ragged motorcade. The point was obvious, Day-Gloed buses against covered wagons, this new trek a parody of what had once been dignified and meaningful. Even layouts like that soon lost their effectiveness, however, so that by the time the column reached Wyoming, there was little new to show. Oh, sure, there were the mountains and the valley, the road up to the compound, and the gate. But all those pictures didn't have much drama to them. Editors rejected them in favor of what was happening in town.