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They’d left San Jose not later than half past ten at night. They’d gone slowly for the next two hours or so—traveling back streets and country roads from the feel of it. Some time after midnight they’d entered a freeway; no telling which one—California was scarred everywhere with them.
And for the past twelve hours Duggai had been driving steadily except for the brief interval when he’d let them out of the truck one at a time.
Even assuming they’d been traveling no faster than fifty miles an hour on the freeways it meant Duggai had put at least 750 miles on the truck since he’d last refueled.
A three-quarter-ton truck of this kind couldn’t make better than eighteen or twenty miles to the gallon. It would need a forty-gallon tank to have gone that long without refilling. Mackenzie hadn’t heard of any pickup truck with a tank bigger than twenty-five gallons’ capacity.
There must be a reserve tank, something added to the truck’s normal capacity. Mackenzie had known a few ranchers who’d had reserve tanks installed under the passenger seats of their pickups. It made the vehicle into a death trap if there were an accident—the driver and his passengers rode directly on top of the added fuel—but it extended the range of the truck to as much as a thousand miles.
It meant Duggai could be taking them anywhere.
It was after dark when the truck left the freeway. Mackenzie had been asleep; the lurching brought him awake. Against his shoulder Jay Painter’s weight was tipped un-caringly; Jay was snoring softly against his gag; in his sleep his hatred had dissipated and he was leaning against Mackenzie as a welcome pillow. Mackenzie didn’t wake him. Jay was welcome to his resentment but there’d be little point compounding it now.
Mackenzie heard the roar of a souped-up car. Shortly afterward the truck eased to a stop, waited briefly and started moving again. Probably a traffic light: they were in a town. He heard more traffic intermittently. Streetlights briefly lit up the curtains and then faded behind.
Then they were out in empty darkness ru
He drowsed again, fighting his body’s agonies, but he was aware of it when the truck left the paved surface and went bucking across the expressively musical grid of a cattle-guard. For a crazy moment he wondered if they’d gone full circle and returned to the Sierras.
It was a dirt road with a good graded surface. The choking stink of fine alkali dust filled the compartment but the truck ran along at a good clip without jouncing much.
Beside him Jay came awake with a start and recoiled away from him. Mackenzie heard the sudden swift rush of Jay’s fast breathing when recollection brought terror back into his consciousness.
At his feet Earle Dana stirred and groaned. Mackenzie kept his raw eyes shut and tried to ignore everything: there was nothing to do but wait stoicly for this interval to pass; if he were still alive at the end of the journey he would think about things then.
Somewhere in the midst of the night Duggai stopped the truck and let them out again one by one. When it was Mackenzie’s turn he stood abaft the tailgate rubbing his wrists gingerly and watching Duggai.
Duggai indicated the canteen with his revolver and stepped back two paces. Mackenzie had trouble lifting the canteen: there was no strength at all in his hands. Finally by using his elbows to prop it he got it to his lips and drank slowly, forcing himself not to gorge. The tissues of his mouth had been eroded by the gag and the water stung ferociously as he ingested it.
Duggai watched him relieve himself at the side of the road. Mackenzie took the opportunity to survey the horizons. It was desert country—rocks and brush, the occasional spindle tracery of cactus. They were ringed by barren hills and mountains. More likely Arizona or Utah than California.
Duggai fed him a sandwich and another drink, then did his hands up again and replaced the gag. This time Mackenzie knew it was a method of torment rather than security; in this open empty wilderness there was no practical reason to keep the prisoners gagged. Duggai shoved him back into the truck and hauled Earle Dana out, the last of them. When the gag was removed from Earle’s mouth Mackenzie heard him try to speak; nothing came out but a dry wheezing cackle.
Finally Earle was back in place on the metal floor and the truck was moving again. Perhaps, Mackenzie thought, perhaps I have died and am in Hell because surely this is what Hell is all about.
Either the road petered out or Duggai left it deliberately; in either case the effect was the same—the ride became more violent, the truck bucked and pitched at decreasing road speed until after a while it was lurching along at a walking pace, the transmission singing in low gear. When the pitch bent uphill Mackenzie felt and heard the slap and whine of the four-wheel engage. Jay Painter was flung against him more frequently now and several times Mackenzie couldn’t prevent the back of his head from rapping the metal wall. Quite evidently Duggai was picking a path across rock-strewn country—certainly this was no road—and Mackenzie was certain Duggai was using starlight alone to see by; there wasn’t the faint reflection of red taillights at the back window that he’d grown used to.
It went on without relief and almost without end: there had never been a longer night in Mackenzie’s experience. But the mind’s instinct for self-protection cloaked him in a kind of withdrawn indifference so that experience and pain were distanced: he was not unaware of them but his awareness was abstract, dreamlike. Partly he knew it was the effect of trauma to the psyche: a kind of medical shock. Partly it was the cumulative result of thirst and hunger and fatigue and terror. Abruptly for the first time he was able to comprehend the bovine indifference of the Jews who had let themselves be marched into the gas ovens. Protective withdrawal.
They were going over mountains of substantial proportion; he guessed that much from the strain of the truck’s engine and the length of time during which they climbed. Then there was an even more painful hour or more of downslope maneuvering; Duggai was using the gears and perhaps occasionally the handbrake but never once did Mackenzie see the flash of the brakelights.
Abruptly and for no accountable reason he believed he saw the end intention of Duggai’s plan.
If he was correct then this was not Hell; this was mere Purgatory on a route charted toward Hell by the brown Charon at the wheel of the pickup.
The truck stopped; it was still dark; Mackenzie was wide awake now, hollow-hearted with anticipatory fear. He felt the truck relax on its springs when Duggai stepped out. The rear door opened. Duggai was a heavy silhouette against the night. Fragments of starlight glinted briefly on the barrel of the Magnum. Duggai climbed up into the camper bed and untied their feet quickly—almost carelessly because he knew no one had the strength or circulation to kick him.
Having untied all their feet Duggai backed out and jumped down and took Shirley by the arm because she was closest to him. Mackenzie saw her feet give way under her when she tried to get up. Duggai dragged her out bodily by the shoulder; she fell off the tailgate and Mackenzie heard her muffled outcry.
His feet free, Mackenzie moved them experimentally. They had no feeling in them. His right foot slid to one side and he remembered the folded plastic raincoat. In the spi-raling bleak chaos of his thoughts there was a pinprick of alertness to its potential importance.
Duggai was hauling Jay Painter off the bunk seat. Jay fell to his knees and crawled precariously toward the tailgate where Duggai reached up for his collar and dragged him out face down; Jay was rolling to one side when he fell out of Mackenzie’s sight and there was a terrible loud thud when he hit the ground but Mackenzie suspected he had been able to take the fall on his shoulder rather than his face.