He yelled for a canteen, and a soldier trotted over with one. He handed it to Garraty wordlessly, then trotted back. Garraty’s stomach was also growling for food. At nine o’clock, he thought. Have to keep walking until then. Be damned if I’m going to die on an empty stomach.
Baker cut past him suddenly, looked around for spectators, saw none, dropped his britches and squatted. He was warned. Garraty passed him, but heard the soldier warn him again. About twenty seconds after that he caught up with Garraty and McVries again, badly out of breath. He was cinching his pants.
“Fastest crap I evah took!” he said, badly out of breath.
“You should have brought a catalogue along,” McVries said.
“I never could go very long without a crap,” Baker said. “Some guys, hell, they crap once a week. I’m a once-a-day man. If I don’t crap once a day, I take a laxative.”
“Those laxatives will ruin your intestines,” Pearson said.
“Oh, shit,” Baker scoffed.
McVries threw back his head and laughed.
Abraham twisted his head around to join the conversation. “My grandfather never used a laxative in his life and he lived to be-”
“You kept records, I presume,” Pearson said.
“You wouldn’t be doubting my grandfather’s word, would you?”
“Heaven forbid.” Pearson rolled his eyes.
“Okay. My grandfather-”
“Look,” Garraty said softly. Not interested in either side of the laxative argument, he had been idly watching Percy What’s-His-Name. Now he was watching him closely, hardly believing what his eyes were seeing. Percy had been edging closer and closer to the side of the road. Now he was walking on the sandy shoulder. Every now and then he snapped a tight, frightened glance at the soldiers on top of the halftrack, then to his right, at the thick screen of trees less than seven feet away.
“I think he’s going to break for it,” Garraty said.
“They’ll shoot him sure as hell,” Baker said. His voice had dropped to a whisper.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s watching him,” Pearson replied.
“Then for God’s sake, don’t tip them!” McVries said angrily. “You bunch of dummies! Christ!”
For the next ten minutes none of them said anything sensible. They aped conversation and watched Percy watching the soldiers, watching and mentally gauging the short distance to the thick woods.
“He hasn’t got the guts,” Pearson muttered finally, and before any of them could answer, Percy began walking, slowly and unhurriedly, toward the woods. Two steps, then three. One more, two at the most, and he would be there. His jeans-clad legs moved unhurriedly. His sun-bleached blond hair ruffled just a little in a light puff of breeze. He might have been an Explorer Scout out for a day of bird-watching.
There were no warnings. Percy had forfeited his right to them when his right foot passed over the verge of the shoulder. Percy had left the road, and the soldiers had known all along. Old Percy What’s-His-Name hadn’t been fooling anybody. There was one sharp, clean report, and Garraty jerked his eyes from Percy to the soldier standing on the back deck of the halftrack. The soldier was a sculpture in clean, angular lines, the rifle nestled into the hollow of his shoulder, his head halfcocked along the barrel.
Then his head swiveled back to Percy again. Percy was the real show, wasn’t he? Percy was standing with both his feet on the weedy border of the pine forest now. He was as frozen and as sculpted as the man who had shot him. The two of them together would have been a subject for Michelangelo, Garraty thought. Percy stood utterly still under a blue springtime sky. One hand was pressed to his chest, like a poet about to speak. His eyes were wide, and somehow ecstatic.
A bright seepage of blood ran through his fingers, shining in the sunlight. Old Percy What’s-Your-Name. Hey Percy, your mother’s calling. Hey Percy, does your mother know you’re out? Hey Percy, what kind of silly sissy name is that,
Percy, Percy, aren’t you cute? Percy transformed into a bright, sunlit Adonis counterpointed by the savage, duncolored huntsman. And one, two, three coin shaped splatters of blood fell on Percy’s travel-dusty black shoes, and all of it happened in a space of only three seconds. Garraty did not take even two full steps and he was not warned, and oh Percy, what is your mother going to say? Do you, tell me, do you really have the nerve to die?
Percy did. He pitched forward, struck a small, crooked sapling, rolled through a half-turn, and landed face-up to the sky. The grace, the frozen symmetry, they were gone now. Perry was just dead.
“Let this ground be seeded with salt,” McVries said suddenly, very rapidly. “So that no stalk of corn or stalk of wheat shall ever grow. Cursed be the children of this ground and cursed be their loins. Also cursed be their hams and hocks. Hail Mary full of grace, let us blow this goddam place.”
McVries began to laugh.
“Shut up,” Abraham said hoarsely. “Stop talking like that.”
“All the world is God,” McVries said, and giggled hysterically. “We’re walking on the Lord, and back there the flies are crawling on the Lord, in fact the flies are also the Lord, so blessed be the fruit of thy womb Percy. Amen, hallelujah, chunky peanut butter. Our father, which art in tinfoil, hallow’d be thy name.”
“I’ll hit you!” Abraham warned. His face was very pale. “I will, Pete!”
“A praaayin’ man!” McVries gibed, and he giggled again. “Oh my suds and body! Oh my sainted hat!”
“I’ll hit you if you don’t shut up!” Abraham bellowed.
“Don’t,” Garraty said, frightened. “Please don’t fight. Let’s… be nice.”
“Want a party favor?” Baker asked crazily.
“Who asked you, you goddam redneck?”
“He was awful young to be on this hike,” Baker said sadly. “If he was fourteen, I’ll smile ’n’ kiss a pig.”
“Mother spoiled him,” Abraham said in a trembling voice. “You could tell.”
He looked around at Garraty and Pearson pleadingly. “You could tell,, couldn’t you?”
“She won’t spoil him anymore,” McVries said.
Olson suddenly began babbling at the soldiers again. The one who had shot Percy was now sitting down and eating a sandwich. They walked past eight o’clock. They passed a sunny gas station where a mechanic in greasy coveralls was hosing off the tarmac.
“Wish he’d spray us with some of that,” Scratnm said. “I’m as hot as a poker.”
“We’re all hot,” Garraty said.
“I thought it never got hot in Maine,” Pearson said. He sounded more tired than ever. “I thought Maine was s'posed to be cool.”
“Well then, now you know different,” Garraty said shortly.
“You’re a lot of fun, Garraty,” Pearson said. “You know that? You’re really a lot of fun. Gee, I’m glad I met you.”
McVries laughed.
“You know what?” Garraty replied.
“What'!”
“You got skidmarks in your underwear,” Garraty said. It was the wittiest thing he could think of at short notice.
They passed another truck stop. Two or three big rigs were pulled in, hauled off the highway no doubt to make room for the Long Walkers. One of the drivers was standing anxiously by his rig, a huge refrigerator truck, and feeling the side. Feeling the cold that was slipping away in the morning sun. Several of the waitresses cheered as the Walkers trudged by, and the trucker who had been feeling the side of his refrigerator compartment turned and gave them the finger. He was a huge man with a red neck bulling its way out of a dirty T-shirt.
“Now why’d he wanna do that?” Scramm cried. “Just a rotten old sport!”