He made one more trip, then started the Mustang and turned on the heater to make the car nice and toasty-warm. It was five-thirty. Daylight was advancing. The stars had paled; now only Venus glowed brightly.
Back in the house, Blaze lifted Joe out of his cradle and put him on his bed. The baby muttered but didn’t wake. Blaze took the cradle out to the car.
He went back in and looked around rather wildly. He took the radio from its place on the windowsill, unplugged it, wrapped the cord around it, and set it on the table. In the bedroom he hauled his old brown suitcase — battered and scuffed white at the corners — from under the bed. He piled the remainder of his clothes in, helter-skelter. On top of these he put a couple of girly magazines and a few comic-books. He took the suitcase and his radio out to the car, which was starting to get full. Then he went back to the house for the last time.
He spread a blanket, put Joe on it, wrapped him up, and put the entire bundle inside his jacket. Then he zipped the jacket up. Joe was awake now. He peered out of his cocoon like a gerbil.
Blaze carried him out to the car, got in behind the wheel, and put Joe down on the passenger seat.
“Now, don’t go rolling around there, Skinner,” he said.
Joe smiled and promptly pulled the blanket over his head. Blaze snorted a little chuckle, and in the same instant he saw himself putting the pillow over Joe’s face. He shuddered.
He backed out of the shed, turned the car around, and trundled down the driveway — and although he didn’t know it, he was beating an area-wide necklace of roadblocks by less than two hours.
He used back roads and secondary roads to skirt Portland and its suburbs. The steady sound of the motor and the heater’s output sent Joe back to dreamland almost immediately. Blaze tuned to his favorite country music station, which came on at sunrise. He heard the morning scripture reading, then a farm report, then a right-wing editorial from Freedom Line in Houston that would have sent George into paroxysms of profanity. Finally came the news.
“The search for the kidnappers of Joseph Gerard IV continues,” the announcer said gravely, “and there may be at least one new development.”
Blaze pricked up his ears.
“A source close to the investigation claims that the Portland Postal Authority received a possible ransom demand in the mail last night, and sent the letter by car directly to the Gerard home. Neither local authorities nor Federal Bureau of Investigation lead agent Albert Sterling would offer any comment.”
Blaze paid no attention to that part. The Gerards had gotten his letter, and that was good. Next time he would have to call them. He hadn’t remembered to bring any newspapers or envelopes or anything to make paste with, anyway. And calling was always better. It was quicker.
“And now the weather. Low pressure centered over upper New York State is expected to sweep east and hit New Englanders with the biggest snowstorm of the season. The National Weather Service has posted blizzard warnings, and snow may begin as early as noon today.”
Blaze turned onto Route 136, then turned off it two miles up and onto the Stinkpine Road. When he passed the pond — now frozen — where he and Johnny had once watched beavers building their dam, he felt a dreamy and powerful sense of
Blaze turned right at the fork a mile up and onto a pitted tertiary road that had been carelessly (and narrowly) plowed, then allowed to drift back in. A quarter of a mile up, beyond a curve the boys had called Sweet Baby Turn (Blaze had known why in the long-ago, but it escaped him now), he came to a chain hung across the road. Blaze got out, went over to it, and pulled the rusted padlock free of its hasp with one gentle tug. He had been here before, and then half a dozen hard yanks had been needed to break the lock’s old mechanism.
Now he laid the chain down and surveyed the road beyond. It hadn’t been plowed since the last storm, but he thought the Mustang would roll okay if he backed up first and got some speed. He’d come back later and fix the chain across the road; it wouldn’t be the first time. This place drew him.
And best? Snow was coming, and snow would bury his tracks.
He dropped his bulk into the bucket seat, shifted into reverse, and backed up two hundred feet. Then he dropped the drive-selector all the way down into low range and hit the gas. The Mustang went like its name. The engine was snarling and the RPM gauge the owner had installed was redlining, so Blaze knocked the gearshift up into drive with the side of his hand, figuring he could downshift again if his little stolen pony really started to labor.
He hit the snow. The Mustang tried to skid but he went with it and its pretty little nose came back around. He drove like a man in a memory that is half a dream, counting on that dream to keep him out of the hidden ditches to either side where the Mustang would mire. Snow spumed up in fans on either side of the speeding car. Crows rose from trashwood pines and lumbered into the scum-white sky.
He crested the first hill. Beyond it, the road bent left. The car tried to skid again, and Blaze once more rode it, on the very edge of control, the wheel turning itself under his hands for a moment, then coming back to his grip as the tires found some thin traction. Snow flew up and covered the windshield. Blaze started the wipers, but for a moment he was driving blind, laughing with terror and exhilaration. When the windshield cleared again, he saw the main gate dead ahead. It was closed, but it was too late to do anything about it except put a steadying hand on the sleeping baby’s chest and pray. The Mustang was doing forty and running rocker panel-deep in snow. There was a bitter clang that shivered the car’s frame and no doubt destroyed its alignment forever. Boards split and flew. The Mustang fishtailed — spun —stalled.
Blaze reached out a hand to re-start the engine, but it faltered and fell away.
There, in front of him, brooded Hetton House: three stories of sooty redbrick. He looked at the boarded-up windows, transfixed. It had been the same way the other times he’d come out here. Old memories stirred, took on color, started to walk. John Cheltzman doing his homework for him. The Law finding out. The discovered wallet. The long nights spent planning how they’d spend the money in the wallet, whispering bed to bed after lights-out. The smell of floor-varnish and chalk. The forbidding pictures on the walls, with eyes that seemed to follow you.
There were two signs on the door. One said NO TRESPASSING BY ORDER OF SHERIFF, CUMBERLAND COUNTY. The other said FOR SALE OR LEASE SEE OR CALL GERALD CLUTTERBUCK REALTY, CASTLE ROCK, MAINE.
Blaze started the Mustang, shifted to low, and crept forward. The wheels kept trying to spin, and he had to keep the steering-wheel lefthauled in order to stay straight, but the little car was still willing to work and he slowly made his way down the east side of the main building. There was a little space between it and the long low storage shed next door. He drove the Mustang in there, mashing the accelerator all the way to the floorboards to keep it moving. When he turned it off, the silence was deafening. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that the Mustang had finished its tour of duty, at least with him; it would be here until spring.
Blaze shivered, although it wasn’t cold in the car. He felt as if he had come home.
To stay.
He forced the back door and brought Joe inside, wrapped snugly in three of his blankets. It felt colder inside than out. It felt as if cold had settled into the building’s very bones.
He took the baby up to Martin Coslaw’s office. The name had been scraped off the frosted glass panel, and the room beyond was a bare box. There was no feel of The Law in here now. Blaze tried to remember who had come after him and couldn’t. He’d been gone by then, anyway. Gone to North Windham, where the bad boys go.
He laid Joe down on the floor and began to prowl the building. There were a few desks, some scattered hunks of wood, some crumpled paper. He scavenged an armload, carried it back to the office, and built a fire in the tiny fireplace set into the wall. When it was going to his satisfaction and he was sure the chimney was going to draw, he went back to the Mustang and began to unload.
By noon he was established. The baby was tucked into his cradle, still sleeping (although showing signs of waking up). His diapers and canned dinners were carefully arranged on the shelves. Blaze had found a chair for
