There were a few trucks and a car or two on the access road, but it looked good to him, as it ran parallel to the blue feature, and was country enough to do the trick.
He stopped and phoned a taxi from the nearest pay telephone, at a small auto repair place near the road. Found his voice and told them when and where to pick him up. Gave the motel as his destination. His name was Conway Woodruff. The salesman's keys and an appropriate ID were in his pocket.
Luck, or the power of evil, led him directly to a suitable bluff. His weapons cases and duffel bag were safely ensconced in the trunk of that big, beautiful Buick back at the Big 7.
He took pliers and wire and made certain the Toyota's crew were in for the duration, battened down the hatches, wiped prints out of force of habit, and ran the vehicle off the low bluff into the river. Nobody but the fish heard it sink.
By the time he waddled back down the road, he saw his taxi about to pull out and stopped it with a shout like a cannon shot, waving at the driver, who started down the road to meet him.
“Howdy, I got to sightseein’ out here and—"
“I just about drove off without ya,” the driver snarled.
That was all he needed to launch into a tirade about the cheap Detroit garbage the auto industry was cranking off the assembly lines these days, immediately finding a kindred soul. The two of them cussed and fussed, and by the time the cab driver deposited his heavy load back at the motel, they both agreed that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
When the taxi pulled away, Chaingang unlocked his Buick Regal and went in search of some fast food, and then—secure lodging. He thought about checking in at a motel somewhere. After all, he had enough credit cards in his pocket. They identified him as Gordon Truett, Walter Smith, and Conway Woodruff, none of whom could put up an argument.
In the creek he could see a ribbon of scum along the edge by the nearest bank. Floating in the slime, a white plastic jug, part of a dead perch, and small twigs were discernible. Up on the bank he noticed pieces of rotting tackle and the brightness of expended shotgun shells. He registered these things subconsciously as he flipped through the pages of UTILITY ESCAPES, daydreaming, glancing back and forth at the map for inspiration.
He'd driven to the bridge, crossed it, followed a small service road on the other side, finally stopping after a few miles near a deep, unmarked creek. He sorted options. Eyes scanning. Registering. Open to the inner sensors that directed his movements much of the time.
Mr. Woodruff, as he'd signed the register, had spent a pleasant night and day in the VACANCY Motorlodge, the only name remaining on the chipped, painted billboard adjacent to the neon sign. The tab was a reasonable $31.90. The real Mr. Woodruff had paid.
There would be a need to dump the vehicle. If he'd gleaned sufficient data about the salesman's itinerary, people would be asking questions about his absence very soon. One option was painting the car. Changing tags. He decided he'd prepare for that contingency and started the car, driving to a nearby hardware store and picking up the necessary items. Rather than shoplift the items—which he ordinarily would have done—he bought a few large spray cans of Krylon acrylic, plenty of masking tape, scissors, and a big roll of brown paper, which he preferred to newsprint. He'd work something out. He wanted to keep those wheels as legal as possible.
He left the store and crossed the bridge to the Missouri side, moving toward Waterton on Maple, right on Park Street, turning back left around the small park, crossing South Main, turning due east on Oak Street. He kept going until he reached the boonies. A small county sign indicated a road number. He turned. Farmland. Another sip: BRIARWOOD.
He saw woods, took a tractor turnrow access road, and cut down off the blacktop, killing the engine.
In his duffel was a compact kerosene space heater and a one-man poncho hootch—but he was not about to spend another night outside on the ground. October had turned frigid.
He sensed a rumbling and watched a big, loaded eighteen-wheeler thunder by, a real blacktop-buster, probably too heavy for the scales and staying on the back roads away from the ICC. Something—the trucker perhaps—galvanized him into action. The access road was not safe. He started the car and pulled back onto the road, heading deeper into the boonies.
In his mind he replayed the look of the gravel road where he stepped down into a ditch and found the dry culvert. The markings of the handy grain silos and the dump sites stirred another vista. He visualized the hidden pond. Reached for the remembered off-kilter hints of unseen observers.
It would be wrong to say that he felt the eyes of watchers the way he had in the hole at Marion. He perceived premonitions with his “sixth sense"; received inexplicable sensations; was attuned to warning vibes. Precognated.
Never had he felt a stronger indication of hidden manipulators. They were everywhere, and yet he could not see them, and he was THE VERY BEST AT SPOTTING WATCHERS. Why hadn't he seen them? They couldn't be present in such numbers and all be that good.
In that flash of understanding, he knew why. He knew. He floored the accelerator and sped down the blacktop, determined, with every ounce of his powerful mind on full, focused concentration. Inside his head he was analyzing possibilities, painting the Buick, substituting plates with the tags from a junkyard rust-bucket whose plates would allow him a bit of prefix-coded poetic license. Threat assessment and tin snips, evasion techniques and application of masking tape—dozens of disparate thoughts passed through his mind.
He pulled off the blacktop onto another access road, but this time it was near a wooded area that began with a grove of small trees, and became a thick, overgrown tree line. More dense woods appeared to border the back of the field, which was visible in the distance.
From the second he pulled onto the road, he felt safer, and he eased up on the gas pedal. They were up there. That's why he'd not scoped them out—the watchers. A sky eye of some kind. They were probably keeping track of him via aerial photography—he imagined what the state-of-the-art capabilities probably were. They'd known exactly where he was from the moment they shoved him off that truck in a deserted bean field, and they gave him weapons!
He had been placed here for a reason, of course. But what? Would the key be in the ones who had been cruel to animals? Hardly. Was he a lab experiment? They were cold enough. No. What, then? He wished for the presence of his sissy friend, Dr. Norman. Oh, the pleasant time Daniel would have had, extracting the man's knowledge and heart, in that order.
It was of no consequence. First things first, he thought, bringing the sharpness of his mind back to the matters at hand. He must find shelter and concealment.
He swung around the tree line, driving through an overgrown lane of mud ruts, and bounced along through open pasture, going much slower now, as he kept to the extreme right and the overhanging protection of the big trees.
Finally he reached the end of the path. He was almost at the far end of a second field, this one in obvious disuse. He could take the vehicle no farther—not without tearing out the bottom of it. He pulled off the pathway sharply, a ridiculous thing to do, surely, driving into tall weeds at the edge of the woods.
But whatever it was that guided him had served him well again. He stopped the car and got out. He was bracketed on all sides by thick woods, and could see almost no sky overhead because of the limbs of the huge oaks around the car. He'd sensed the one place there was a small opening in the trees and driven through it.
He could hear traffic noises in the distance and knew precisely where he was, as always, in relation to his map and the steps of his journey to this point. He was due east of Waterton, and quite close to Briarwood's main drag, but in woods that were inaccessible from any direction other than the one he'd just come.