His feet were slowing again and he forced himself to pick them up. Somewhere quite far up ahead Barkovitch said something and followed it up with a short burst of his unpleasant laughter. He could hear McVries’s response clearly: “Shut up, killer.” Barkovitch told McVries to go to hell, and now he seemed quite upset by the whole thing. Garraty smiled wanly in the darkness.

He had dropped back almost to the tail of the column and reluctantly realized he was angling toward Stebbins again. Something about Stebbins fascinated him. But he decided he didn’t particularly care what that something was. It was time to give up wondering about things. There was no percentage in it. It was just another royal pisser.

There was a huge, luminescent arrow ahead in the dark. It glowed like an evil spirit. Suddenly a brass band struck up a march. A good-sized band, by the sound. There were louder cheers. The air was full of drifting fragments, and for a crazy moment Garraty thought it was snowing. But it wasn’t snow. It was confetti. They were changing roads. The old one met the new one at a right angle and another Maine Turnpike sign announced that Oldtown was now a mere sixteen miles away. Garraty felt a tentative feeler of excitement, maybe even pride. After Oldtown he knew the route. He could have traced it on the palm of his hand.

“Maybe it’s your edge. I don’t think so, but maybe it is.”

Garraty jumped. It was as if Stebbins had pried the lid off his mind and peeked down inside.

“What?”

“It’s your country, isn’t it?”

“Not up here. I’ve never been north of Greenbush in my life, except when we drove up to the marker. And we didn’t come this way.” They left the brass band behind them, its tubas and clarinets glistening softly in the moist night.

“But we go through your hometown, don’t we?”

“No, but close by it.”

Stebbins grunted. Garraty looked down at Stebbins’s feet and saw with surprise that Stebbins had removed his tennis shoes and was wearing a pair of soft-looking moccasins. His shoes were tucked into his chambray shirt.

“I’m saving the tennis shoes,” Stebbins said, “just in case. But I think the mocs will finish it.”

“Oh.”

They passed a radio tower standing skeletal in an empty field. A red light pulsed as regular as a heartbeat at its tip.

“Looking forward to seeing your loved ones'?”

“Yes, I am,” Garraty said.

“What happens after that?”

“Happens?” Garraty shrugged. “Keep on walking down the road, I guess. Unless you are all considerate enough to buy out by then.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Stebbins said, smiling remotely. “Are you sure you won’t be walked out? After you see them?”

“Man, I’m not sure of anything,” Garraty said. “I didn’t know much when I started, and I know less now.”

“You think you have a chance?”

“I don’t know that either. I don’t even know why I bother talking to you. It’s like talking to smoke.”

Far ahead, police sirens howled and gobbled in the night.

“Somebody broke through to the road up ahead where the police are spread thinner,” Stebbins said. “The natives are getting restless, Garraty. Just think of all the people diligently making way for you up ahead.”

“For you too.”

“Me too,” Stebbins agreed, then didn’t say anything for a long time. The collar of his chambray workshirt flapped vacuously against his neck. “It’s amazing how the mind operates the body,” he said at last. “It’s amazing how it can take over and dictate to the body. Your average housewife may walk up to sixteen miles a day, from icebox to ironing board to clothesline. She’s ready to put her feet up at the end of the day but she’s not exhausted. A door-to-door salesman might do twenty. A high school kid in training for football walks twenty-five to twenty-eight… that’s in one day from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night. All of them get tired, but none of them get exhausted.”

“Yeah.”

“But suppose you told the housewife: today you must walk sixteen miles before you can have your supper.”

Garraty nodded. “She’d be exhausted instead of tired.”

Stebbins said nothing. Garraty had the perverse feeling that Stebbins was disappointed in him.

“Well… wouldn’t she?”

“Don’t you think she’d have her sixteen miles in by noon so she could kick off her shoes and spend the afternoon watching the soaps? I do. Are you tired, Garraty?”

“Yeah,” Garraty said shortly. “I’m tired.”

“Exhausted?”

“Well, I’m getting there.”

“No, you’re not getting exhausted yet, Garraty.” He jerked a thumb at Olson’s silhouette. “That’s exhausted. He’s almost through now.”

Garraty watched Olson, fascinated, almost expecting him to drop at Stebbins’s word. “What are you driving at?”

“Ask your cracker friend, Art Baker. A mule doesn’t like to plow. But he likes carrots. So you hang a carrot in front of his eyes. A mule without a carrot gets exhausted. A mule with a carrot spends a long time being tired. You get it?”

“No.”

Stebbins smiled again. “You will. Watch Olson. He’s lost his appetite for the carrot. He doesn’t quite know it yet, but he has. Watch Olson, Garraty. You can learn from Olson.”

Garraty looked at Stebbins closely, not sure how seriously to take him. Stebbins laughed aloud. His laugh was rich and full-a startling sound that made other Walkers turn their heads. “Go on. Go talk to him, Garraty. And if he won’t talk, just get up close and have a good look. It’s never too late to learn.”

Garraty swallowed. “Is it a very important lesson, would you say?”

Stebbins stopped laughing. He caught Garraty’s wrist in a strong grip. “The most important lesson you’ll ever learn, maybe. The secret of life over death. Reduce that equation and you can afford to die, Garraty. You can spend your life like a drunkard on a spree.”

Stebbins dropped his hand. Garraty massaged his wrist slowly. Stebbins seemed to have dismissed him again. Nervously, Garraty walked away from him, and toward Olson.

It seemed to Garraty that he was drawn toward Olson on an invisible wire. He flanked him at four o’clock. He tried to fathom Olson’s face.

Once, a long time ago, he had been frightened into a long night of wakefulness by a movie starring-who? It had been Robert Mitchum, hadn’t it? He had been playing the role of an implacable Southern revival minister who had also been a compulsive murderer. In silhouette, Olson looked a little bit like him now. His form had seemed to elongate as the weight sloughed off him. His skin had gone scaly with dehydration. His eyes had sunk into hollowed sockets. His hair flew aimlessly on his skull like wind-driven cornsilk.

Why, he’s nothing but a robot, nothing but an automaton, really. Can there still be an Olson in there hiding? No. He’s gone. I am quite sure that the Olson who sat on the grass and joked and told about the kid who froze on the starting line and bought his ticket right there, that Olson is gone. This is a dead clay thing.

“Olson?” he whispered.

Olson walked on. He was a shambling haunted house on legs. Olson had fouled himself. Olson smelled bad.

“Olson, can you talk?”

Olson swept onward. His face was turned into the darkness, and he was moving, yes he was moving. Something was going on here, something was still ticking over, but-

Something, yes, there was something, but what?

They breasted another rise. The breath came shorter and shorter in Garraty’s lungs until he was panting like a dog. Tiny vapors of steam rose from his wet clothes. There was a river below them, lying in the dark like a silver snake. The Stillwater, he imagined. The Stillwater passed near Oldtown. A few halfhearted cheers went up, but not many. Further on, nestled against the far side of the river’s dogleg (maybe it was the Penobscot, after all), was a nestle of lights. Oldtown. A smaller nestle of light on the other side would be Milford and Bradley. Oldtown. They had made it to Oldtown.