After he had gotten out of the pick-up truck he walked back to see if it could be seen. No, not from the highway. Not by a passing car. And if anyone did ask, he had only to deny any relationship to the truck. How could they prove he had arrived in it? I walked, he would say. Or I hitch-hiked and got a lift this far with somebody who turned off at the cross street.
Pushing open the door of the bar-b-q, he entered. Maybe they'll know where the Seaside Station is, he said to himself. This is probably the place where I'm supposed to pick up the fried ham sandwich and the malted milk.
In fact, he thought, I'm positive. There are just too many people in it. Like the bus depot. The same pattern.
Most of the booths were filled with couples. And at the doughnut-shaped counter in the center a number of men sat eating dinner or drinking. The place smelled of frying hamburgers; a jukebox roared off in the corner.
Not enough cars in the lot to explain so many people.
As yet they hadn't noticed him. He drew the door shut without entering, and then he walked rapidly off, across the lot and around the side of the place, to the parked pick-up truck.
Too large. Too modern. Too lit-up. Too full of people. Is this the last stage of my mental difficulty? Suspicion of people of groups and human activity, color and life and noise. I shun them, he thought. Perversely. Seeking the dark.
Back in the darkness he felt his way up into the truck, switched on the engine, and then, with the lights still off, backed around until the truck faced the highway. During a break in the traffic he drove out into the first lane. Again he found himself in motion, heading away from town, in somebody else's truck. A gas station attendant whom he had never been before in his life. I'm stealing his truck, he realized. But what else can I do?
I know they are conspiring against me. The two soldiers, the attendant. Plotting against me. The bus depot, too. The cab driver. Everybody. I can't trust anyone. They sent me off in this truck to get picked up by the first highway cop that came cruising by. Probably the back end of the truck lights up and reads RUSSIAN SPY. A sort of paranoiac "kick me," he thought.
Yes, he thought. I'm the man with the KICK ME sign pinned on him. No matter how hard he tries he can't whirl around fast enough to see it. But his intuition tells him it's there. He watches other people and gauges their actions. He infers from what they do. He infers that the sign is there because he sees them lining up to kick him.
I'm not entering any brightly lit places. I'm not starting conversations with people I don't know. There are no genuine strangers when it comes to me; everybody knows me. They're either a friend or an enemy....
A friend, he thought. Who? Where? My sister? My brother-in-law? Neighbors? I trust them as much as I do anybody. But not enough.
So here I am.
He continued driving. No more neon lights came into view. The land, on both sides of the highway, lay dark and lifeless. Traffic had thinned out. Only an occasional headlight flashed at him from the oncoming traffic beyond the dividing strip.
Lonely.
Glancing down, he noticed that the truck had a radio mounted on the dashboard. He recognized the slide-rule dial. The two knobs.
If I turn it on, I'll hear them talking about me.
He reached out his hand, hesitated, and then turned the radio on. The radio began to hum. Gradually the tubes warmed; sounds, mostly static, faded in. He fiddled with the volume as he drove.
"...afterwards," a voice said squeakily.
"...not," another voice said. "...my best."
"...okay." A series of pops.
They're calling back and forth, Ragle said to himself. The air-waves filled with alarm. Ragle Gumm eluded us! Ragle Gumm escaped!
The voice squeaked, "...more experienced."
Ragle thought, Next time send a more experienced team. Bunch of amateurs.
"...might as well... no further..."
Might as well give up, Ragle filled in. No further use in tracking him. He's too shrewd. Too wily.
The voice squeaked, "...Schulmann says..."
That would be Commander Schulmann, Ragle said to himself. The Supreme Commander with headquarters in Geneva. Mapping the top-level secret strategy to synchronize worldwide military movements so they converge on this pick-up truck. Fleets of warships steaming toward me. Atomic cannon. The usual works.
The squeaking voice became too nerve-racking; he shut the radio off. Like mice. Yammering mice squeaking back and forth
...it made his flesh crawl.
According to the odometer he had gone about twenty miles. A long distance. No town. No lights. Not even traffic, now. Only the road ahead, the dividing strip to his left. The pavement showing in his headlights.
Darkness, a flatness of fields. Up above, stars.
Not even farmhouses? Signs?
God, he thought. What would happen if I broke down out here? Where am I? _Anywhere?_
Maybe I'm not moving. Caught in a between-place. Wheels of the pick-up truck spinning in gravel... spinning, uselessly, forever. The illusion of motion. Motor noise, wheel noise, headlights on pavement. But immobility.
And yet, he felt too uneasy to stop the truck. To get out and search around. The hell with that, he thought. At least he was safe here in the truck. Something around him. Shell of metal. Dashboard before him, seat under him. Dials, wheel, footpedals, knobs.
Better than the emptiness outside.
And then, far off to the right, he saw a light. And, a little later, a sign flashed in his headlights. The marker indicating an intersection. Road traveling off right and left.
Slowing, he made a right turn onto the road.
Broken, narrow pavement loomed up in his lights. The truck bounced and swayed; he slowed down. An abandoned road. Unmaintained. The front wheels of the truck dropped into a trough; he shifted into second gear and came almost to a stop. Almost broke an axle. With care he drove forward. The road twisted and began to rise.
Hills and dense growth around him, now. A tree branch under his wheels; he heard it splinter. Once a white furred creature scuttled frantically. He swerved to avoid it and the truckwheels spun in dirt. Terrified, he wrenched the wheel. Nightmare of a few moments before... stuck and spinning, sinking down in the loose, crumbly soil.
Shifting into low gear, he let the truck climb the awfully steep hill. Now the pavement had turned to packed dirt. Deep troughs, from previous vehicles. Something brushed the top of the truck; he ducked involuntarily. His headlights flashed into foliage, streaming off the road as the truck pointed toward the edge of a descent. Then the road veered sharply to the left; he forced the wheel to turn. Again the road appeared, hemmed in by shrubbery that had crept out onto it. The road became narrower; he pushed down on the brake as the truck lurched over a pothole.
On the next turn the truck missed the edge of the road. Both right wheels spun into the underbrush; the truck spun about and he slammed down on the brakes, killing the motor. The truck leaned. He felt himself sliding away from the wheel; clutching with his hands he managed to grasp the door handle. The truck lifted, groaned, and then came to rest, half turned over.
That's all of that, he thought to himself.
After a few moments he was able to open the door and step out.
The headlights glared from the trees and bushes. Sky above. The road almost lost as it climbed still farther up. Turning, Ragle looked back down. Far below he could see the line of lights, the highway. But no town. No settlement. The edge of the hill cut the lights off, sheared them away.