Oh God, she thought; It means the killer, the Gestapo people—it’s telling me that Joe or someone like him, someone else, will get there and kill Abendsen. Quickly, she turned to Hexagram Forty-three. The judgment:
So it’s no use to go back to the hotel and make sure about him; it’s hopeless, because there will be others sent out. Again the oracle says, even more emphatically: Get up to Cheyenne and warn Abendsen, however dangerous it is to me. I must bring him the truth.
She shut the volume.
Getting back behind the wheel of the car, she backed out into traffic. In a short time she had found her way out of downtown Denver and onto the main autobahn going north; she drove as fast as the car would go, the engine making a strange throbbing noise that shook the wheel and the seat and made everything in the glove compartment rattle.
Thank God for Doctor Todt and his autobahns, she said to herself as she hurtled along through the darkness, seeing only her own headlights and the lines marking the lanes.
At ten o’clock that night because of tire trouble she had still not reached Cheyenne, so there was nothing to do but pull off the road and search for a place to spend the night.
An autobahn exit sign ahead of her read GREELEY FIVE MILES. I’ll start out again tomorrow morning, she told herself as she drove slowly along the main street of Greeley a few minutes later. She saw several motels with vacancy signs lit, so there was no problem. What I must do, she decided, is call Abendsen tonight and say I’m coming.
When she had parked she got wearily from the car, relieved to be able to stretch her legs. All day on the road, from eight in the morning on. An all-night drugstore could be made out not far down the sidewalk; hands in the pockets of her coat, she walked that way, and soon she was shut up in the privacy of the phone booth, asking the operator for Cheyenne information.
Their phone—thank God—was listed. She put in the quarters and the operator rang.
“Hello,” a woman’s voice sounded presently, a vigorous, rather pleasant younger-woman’s voice; a woman no doubt about her own age.
“Mrs. Abendsen?” Juliana said. “May I talk to Mr. Abendsen?”
“Who is this, please?”
Juliana said, “I read his book and I drove all day up from Canon City, Colorado. I’m in Greeley now. I thought I could make it to your place tonight, but I can’t, so I want to know if I can see him sometime tomorrow.”
After a pause, Mrs. Abendsen said in a still-pleasant voice, “Yes, it’s too late, now; we go to bed quite early. Was there any special reason why you wanted to see my husband? He’s working very hard right now.”
“I wanted to speak to him,” she said. Her own voice in her ears sounded drab and wooden; she stared at the wall of the booth, unable to find anything further to say—her body ached and her mouth felt dry and full of foul tastes. Beyond the phone booth she could see the druggist at the soda counter serving milk shakes to four teen-agers. She longed to be there; she scarcely paid attention as Mrs. Abendsen answered. She longed for some fresh, cold drink, and something like a chicken salad sandwich to go with it.
“Hawthorne works erratically,” Mrs. Abendsen was saying in her merry, brisk voice. “If you drive up here tomorrow I can’t promise you anything, because he might be involved all day long. But if you understand that before you make the trip—”