twenty seconds, but during that time anyone might have stepped into the room. However, he had felt no fear, no shame, no guilt.
But after that he had been afraid of the dark.
He was not in the dark very much in those days. The lights usually stayed on all night in his mother’s apartment. But sometimes he would wake up a little before dawn on a slow night, like a Monday, and find that everyone was asleep and the lights were out; and then he would be possessed by blind, irrational terror and would blunder around the room, bumping into furry creatures and touching strange clammy surfaces, until he found the light switch and sat on the edge of the bed, panting and perspiring, slowly recovering as he realized that the clammy surface was the mirror and the furry creature his fleece-lined jacket.
He had been afraid of the dark until he found Star.
He recalled a song that had been a hit the year he met her, and he began to sing: “Smoke on the water …” The band was Deep Purple, he recalled. Everyone was playing their album that summer.
It was a good apocalyptic song to sing at the wheel of a seismic vibrator.
He passed the entrance to the dump and drove on, heading north.
“We’ll do it tonight,” Priest had said. “We’ll tell the governor there’ll be an earthquake four weeks from today.”
Star was dubious. “We’re not even sure this is possible. Maybe we should do everything else first, get all our ducks lined up in a row,
“Hell, no!” Priest said. The suggestion angered him. He knew that the group had to be led. He needed to get them committed. They had to go out on a limb, take a risk, and feel there was no turning back. Otherwise tomorrow they would think of reasons to get scared and back out.
They were fired up now. The letter had arrived today, and they were all angry and desperate. Star was grimly determined; Melanie was in a fury; Oaktree was ready to declare war; Paul Beale was reverting to his street hoodlum type. Song had hardly spoken, but she was the helpless child of the group and would go along with the others. Only Aneth was opposed, and her opposition would be feeble because she was a weak person. She would be quick to raise objections, but she would back down even faster.
Priest himself knew with cold certainty that if this place ceased to exist, his life would be over.
Now Aneth said: “But an earthquake might kill people.”
Priest said: “I’ll tell you how I figure this will pan out. I guess we’ll have to cause a small, harmless tremor, out in the desert somewhere, just to prove we can do what we say. Then, when we threaten a second earthquake, the governor will negotiate.”
Aneth turned her attention back to her child.
Oaktree said: “I’m with Priest. Do it tonight.”
Star gave in. “How should we make the threat?”
“An anonymous phone call or letter, I guess,” Priest said. “But it has to be impossible to trace.”
Melanie said: “We could post it on an Internet bulletin board. If we used my laptop and mobile phone, no one could possibly trace it.”
Priest had never seen a computer until Melanie arrived. He threw a questioning glance at Paul Beale, who knew all about such things. Paul nodded and said: “Good idea.”
“All right,” Priest said. “Get your stuff.”
Melanie went off.
“How will we sign the message?” Star said. “We need a name.”
Song said: “Something that symbolizes a peace-loving group who have been driven to take extreme measures.”
“I know,” Priest said. “We’ll call ourselves the Hammer of Eden.”
It was just before midnight on the first of May.
Priest became tense as he reached the outskirts of San Antonio. In the original plan, Mario would have driven the truck as far as the airport. But now Priest was alone as he entered the maze of freeways that encircled the city, and he began to sweat.
There was no way he could read a map.
When he had to drive an unfamiliar road, he always took Star with him to navigate. She and the other Rice Eaters knew he could not read. The last time he drove alone on strange roads had been in the late autumn of 1972, when he fled from Los Angeles and finished up, by accident, at the commune in Silver River Valley. He had not cared where he went then. In fact, he would have been happy to die. But now he wanted to live.
Even road signs were difficult for him. If he stopped and concentrated for a while, he could tell the difference between “East” and “West” or “North” and “South.” Despite his remarkable ability to calculate in his head, he could not read numbers without staring hard and thinking long. With an effort, he could recognize signs for Route 10: a stick with a circle. But there was a lot of other stuff on road signs that meant nothing to him and confused the picture.
He tried to stay calm, but it was difficult. He liked to be in control. He was maddened by the sense of helplessness and bewilderment that came over him when he lost his way. He knew by the sun which way was north. When he felt he might be going wrong, he pulled into the next gas station or shopping mall and asked for directions. He hated doing it, for people noticed the seismic vibrator — it was a big rig, and the machinery on the back looked kind of intriguing — and there was a danger he would be remembered. But he had to take the risk.
And the directions were not always helpful. Gas station attendants would say things like “Yeah, easy, just follow Corpus Christi Highway until you see a sign for Brooks Air Force Base.”
Priest just forced himself to remain calm, keep asking questions, and hide his frustration and anxiety. He played the part of a friendly but stupid truck driver, the kind of person who would be forgotten by the next day. And eventually he got out of San Antonio on the right road, sending up prayers of thanks to whatever gods might be listening.
A few minutes later, passing through a small town, he was relieved to see the blue Honda parked at a McDonald’s restaurant.
He hugged Star gratefully. “What the hell happened?” she said worriedly. “I expected you a couple of hours ago!”
He decided not to tell her he had killed Mario. “I got lost in San Antonio,” he said.
“I was afraid of that. When I came through I was surprised how complicated the freeway system was.”
“I guess it’s not half as bad as San Francisco, but I know San Francisco.”
“Well, you’re here now. Let’s order coffee and get you calmed down.”
Priest bought a beanburger and got a free plastic clown, which he put carefully in his pocket for his six- year-old son, Smiler.
When they drove on, Star took the wheel of the truck. They planned to drive nonstop all the way to California. It would take at least two days and nights, maybe more. One would sleep while the other drove. They had some amphetamines to combat drowsiness.
They left the Honda in the McDonald’s lot. As they pulled away, Star handed Priest a paper bag, saying: “I got you a present.”
Inside was a pair of scissors and a battery-powered electric shaver.
“Now you can get rid of that damn beard,” she said.
He grinned. He turned the rearview mirror toward himself and started to cut. His hair grew fast and thick, and the bushy beard and mustache had made him round faced. Now his own face gradually reemerged. With the scissors he trimmed the hair down to a stubble, then he used the shaver to finish the job. Finally he took off his cowboy hat and undid his plait.
