"Chores done?" repeated the Old Man.

Duane shook himself out of his contemplation of the learning machines. "Yeah. Thought I'd go into the library."

The Old Man looked up and let his close-work glasses slip down on his nose. "Library? Why today? Didn't you go Saturday?"

"Yeah, but I forgot to see if they had a small-motor repair manual."

The Old Man frowned. The pump on the old windmill needed repair. "I thought you already knew all about that stuff."

Duane shrugged. "That motor's old. It was put in before the rural electrification around here. I'd better have a manual if I'm going to do anything but change the belts and brushes.''

The Old Man's gaze lost focus and Duane could imagine what he was thinking: he'd been spooked by the truck trying to kill his boy the day before-when they'd buried Witt in the afternoon, Duane had thought he'd seen tears in the Old Man's eyes . . . but the wind was blowing and it might've just been blowing sand irritating them-but on the other hand, the Old Man couldn't keep Duane penned up at home all summer or drive him around all the time.

"Can you get there without taking the road in?"

"Yeah, easy," said Duane. "I'll just cut back through the south pasture and walk the edge of Johnson's fields."

The Old Man looked back at the web of gears and pulleys he was adjusting. "All right. Just be home for supper, understand?"

Duane nodded, went to the kitchen, made himself a couple of baloney sandwiches and stuck them in a greasy sack, filled a Thermos with coffee and hung it on his belt by the cup handle, checked to make sure he had his notebook and pen in his pocket, and ambled out. He'd made four steps toward the barn to say good-bye to Witt before he remembered. Duane adjusted his glasses and went through the gate, heading for the south pasture just as he'd told the Old Man.

And he would use the Johnson fields to get as far west as tfie railroad tracks. He hadn't lied to his father. But he hadn't exactly told the truth, either: the library he was heading for wasn't the tiny one in Elm Haven, a little more than two miles away ... it was the library in Oak Hill, more than eight miles along the backroads and easily more than ten the way Duane was planning to go.

Duane settled down into his distance-gobbling waddle, the Thermos batting against his left leg with every other step, his black sneakers scaring grasshoppers into flight in the high weeds. The sun was out today and the morning was the hottest of the summer so far. Duane opened the top two buttons of his flannel shirt and considered whistling a tune as he walked.

He decided not to.

The best way to get to Oak Hill from Duane's house would have been to go north on County Six until it ran into the unnumbered gravel road north of the Barminton farm, head west until that road intercepted State Highway 626, better known as Oak Hill Road, and then take that the final four and half miles into town. But that meant roads.

Duane crossed his first road north of Elm Haven-moving quickly across the gravel road that ran south to become First Avenue-and then cut through the forest of metal grain-storage silos arrayed north of the town's playing fields. A row of pines that ran west from the water tower obscured the view for Duane, so he couldn't check to see if his friends were playing ball that day.

West of there, he ambled north again to avoid the town and the upper reaches of Broad Avenue.

He did have to follow a narrow lane through the bushes to the railroad tracks after Catton Road ended, but he couldn't imagine the Rendering Truck forcing its way through the branches and shrubs here. He realized then that he was only a few hundred yards from the tallow plant-the place from which Congden had said the truck had been "stolen"-but the woods were so thick here that Duane couldn't even see the tin roof of the place.

The railroad embankment was a relief after all the underbrush, and Duane slowed his pace enough to unhitch his Thermos and pour himself a cup of coffee. He did not stop, but sipped as he walked, putting up with coffee spilled on his shirt and pants. Well, the pants were about the same color as the stains.

He smelled the dump before he saw it, and just at that second he saw the squalid huddle of shacks just outside the south entrance to the dump. Cordie Cooke lived in one of those homes-if you could call that collection of tarpaper and tin on cinderblocks home-but Duane wasn't sure which one. Something moved in the shrubbery on the west side of the tracks, but although Duane looked over his shoulder, he caught no glimpse of the animal.

He ambled on, passing the heaps of the county dump-the mountains of garbage clearly visible through and above the trees-and then crossing the low trestle over what, three miles east of here, would become Corpse Creek. He was in luck: the wind was blowing from the north, so once he left the dump behind, he left it behind.

From the dump, it was a simple seven-mile walk through the fields and forests of Creve Coeur County and Duane made it in a little over two hours.

Oak Hill was more than three times as large as Elm Haven, boasting almost 5,500 people. It had a small hospital as well as a library bigger than a chicken coop, a small factory on its outskirts, a county courthouse, a block of suburbs-everything.

Duane came down off the tracks as the railroad embankment curved east to miss the town. He didn't mind walking the tree-lined streets of Oak Hill, although every time a car or truck turned a corner behind him, he glanced over his shoulder quickly and was peripherally aware of porches within running distance.

He paused on the courthouse lawn in the shade of an oak and a bronze cannon to eat his baloney sandwiches and finish his coffee. He was hot-it was at least in the nineties today-but his flannel shirt wasn't sticking to him. Finished, he tucked the Thermos on his belt and crossed to the hospital on the south side of the square.

The lady's name on the green badge was Miss Alnutt, her desk was planted firmly in the middle of the only corridor leading to the wards, and she was implacable. "You can't come in," she said in her maiden-aunt rasp. The talcum-powder and old-skin scent of her wafted to Duane on the slight breeze from the overhead fan. "You're too young." Duane nodded. "Yes, ma'am. But Jimmy's my only cousin and his mama said I could come see him."

Miss Alnutt jerked her head in what might have been dismissal. "You're too young. No one under sixteen is allowed in the patients' wing. No exceptions." She peered at him through the half-lenses perched on her nose. "Besides, no extraneous food or drink is allowed in the patients' rooms." Duane glanced down at his Thermos and quickly unhooked it from his belt. "Yes, ma'am. I could leave this here. I only want to see him for a minute or two-I promise I'll just look in on him and come right back."

Miss Alnutt made a flicking motion with her veined wrist and turned her attention back to the cards in her small file box. Duane had noticed the room number when he'd first asked about Harlen. Now he said, "Thank you, ma'am," and turned to trudge back through the lobby.

The only pay phone was down the corridor to the public restrooms. The only phone he had seen in the lobby was at the admissions desk, twenty paces beyond his corridor and around the corner. He'd brought fifty cents in change, just in case. He only needed a nickel. The number was in the tattered phone book.

They didn't page her. One of the nurses from the lobby came around, whispered to Miss Alnutt, and walked with her as the older lady rushed to the front desk. It was, after all, an important call.

Duane strolled by the empty desk, turned into the patients' ward, and for the second time that day, resisted the impulse to whistle.

After breakfast, Dale Stewart borrowed his dad's binoculars and headed down Depot Street to the depot and then out the railroad tracks to Cordie's. He didn't really want to go-that whole side of town gave him the willies because of Congden's house, and the woods out by the dump were worse-but after the talk in the chickenhouse the night before, Dale sort of felt it was his duty. But what Cordie and Tubby Cooke had to do with some jerk scaring Duane with the Rendering Truck, Dale had no idea.