In the other room the mantelpiece clock softly began to chime the
hour of five.
Dale went back into the living room, and took the picture down
again.
What you're talking about is madness.
Looked at the boy with the short blonde hair again.
I loved them all like they was my brothers.
Turned the picture over.
Please don't think I killed your son - all of your sons - by taking
their picture. Please don't hate me because I was in the Homan
base hospital with bleeding haemorrhoids instead of on the Ky Doe
bridge with the best friends I ever had in my life. Please don't hate
me, because I finally caught up, it took me ten years of trying, but I
finally caught up.
Written on the back, in the same soft-lead pencil, was this notation:
Jack Bradley Omaha, Neb.
Billy Clewson Binghamton, NY.
Rider Dotson Oneonta, NY
Charlie Gibson Payson, ND
Bobby Kale Henderson, IA
Jack Kimberley Truth or Consequences. NM
Andy Moulton Faraday, LA Staff Sgt. I
Jimmy Oliphant Beson, Del.
Asley St. Thomas Anderson, Ind.
*Josh Bortman Castle Rock, Me.
He had put his own name last, Dale saw - he had seen all of this
before, or course, and had noticed it... but had never really noticed
it until now, perhaps. He had put his name last, out of alphabetical
order, and with an asterisk.
The asterisk means 'still alive.' The asterisk means 'don't hate
me.'
Ah, but what you're thinking is madness, and you damned well
know it.
Nevertheless, he went to the telephone, dialled 0, and ascertained
that the area code for Maine was 207. He dialed Maine directory
assistance, and ascertained that there was a single Bortman family
in Castle Rock.
He thanked the operator, wrote the number down, and looked at
the telephone.
You don't really intend to call those people, do you?
No answer - only the sound of the ticking clock. He had put the
picture on the sofa and now he looked at it - looked first at his own
son, his hair pulled back behind his head, a bravo little moustache
trying to grow on his upper lip, frozen forever at the age of twenty-
one, and then at the new boy in that old picture, the boy with the
short blonds hair, the boy whose dog-tags were twisted so they lay
face-down and unreadable against his chest. He thought of the way
Josh Bortman had carefully segregated himself from the others,
thought of the asterisk, and suddenly his eyes filled with warm
