briefly lit up the curtains and then faded behind.
Then they were out in empty darkness running along an uneven paved surface; no longer a freeway but neither was it an urban street. A country road most likely; and from its lack of bends it could be in the desert.
He drowsed again, fighting his body’s agonies, but he was aware of it when the truck left the paved surface and went bucking across the expressively musical grid of a cattle-guard. For a crazy moment he wondered if they’d gone full circle and returned to the Sierras.
It was a dirt road with a good graded surface. The choking stink of fine alkali dust filled the compartment but the truck ran along at a good clip without jouncing much.
Beside him Jay came awake with a start and recoiled away from him. Mackenzie heard the sudden swift rush of Jay’s fast breathing when recollection brought terror back into his consciousness.
At his feet Earle Dana stirred and groaned. Mackenzie kept his raw eyes shut and tried to ignore everything: there was nothing to do but wait stoicly for this interval to pass; if he were still alive at the end of the journey he would think about things then.
Somewhere in the midst of the night Duggai stopped the truck and let them out again one by one. When it was Mackenzie’s turn he stood abaft the tailgate rubbing his wrists gingerly and watching Duggai.
Duggai indicated the canteen with his revolver and stepped back two paces. Mackenzie had trouble lifting the canteen: there was no strength at all in his hands. Finally by using his elbows to prop it he got it to his lips and drank slowly, forcing himself not to gorge. The tissues of his mouth had been eroded by the gag and the water stung ferociously as he ingested it.
Duggai watched him relieve himself at the side of the road. Mackenzie took the opportunity to survey the horizons. It was desert country-rocks and brush, the occasional spindle tracery of cactus. They were ringed by barren hills and mountains. More likely Arizona or Utah than California.
Duggai fed him a sandwich and another drink, then did his hands up again and replaced the gag. This time Mackenzie knew it was a method of torment rather than security; in this open empty wilderness there was no practical reason to keep the prisoners gagged. Duggai shoved him back into the truck and hauled Earle Dana out, the last of them. When the gag was removed from Earle’s mouth Mackenzie heard him try to speak; nothing came out but a dry wheezing cackle.
Finally Earle was back in place on the metal floor and the truck was moving again. Perhaps, Mackenzie thought, perhaps I have died and am in Hell because surely this is what Hell is all about.
Either the road petered out or Duggai left it deliberately; in either case the effect was the same-the ride became more violent, the truck bucked and pitched at decreasing road speed until after a while it was lurching along at a walking pace, the transmission singing in low gear. When the pitch bent uphill Mackenzie felt and heard the slap and whine of the four-wheel engage. Jay Painter was flung against him more frequently now and several times Mackenzie couldn’t prevent the back of his head from rapping the metal wall. Quite evidently Duggai was picking a path across rock-strewn country-certainly this was no road-and Mackenzie was certain Duggai was using starlight alone to see by; there wasn’t the faint reflection of red taillights at the back window that he’d grown used to.
It went on without relief and almost without end: there had never been a longer night in Mackenzie’s experience. But the mind’s instinct for self-protection cloaked him in a kind of withdrawn indifference so that experience and pain were distanced: he was not unaware of them but his awareness was abstract, dreamlike. Partly he knew it was the effect of trauma to the psyche: a kind of medical shock. Partly it was the cumulative result of thirst and hunger and fatigue and terror. Abruptly for the first time he was able to comprehend the bovine indifference of the Jews who had let themselves be marched into the gas ovens. Protective withdrawal.
They were going over mountains of substantial proportion; he guessed that much from the strain of the truck’s engine and the length of time during which they climbed. Then there was an even more painful hour or more of downslope maneuvering; Duggai was using the gears and perhaps occasionally the handbrake but never once did Mackenzie see the flash of the brakelights.
Abruptly and for no accountable reason he believed he saw the end intention of Duggai’s plan.
If he was correct then this was not Hell; this was mere Purgatory on a route charted toward Hell by the brown Charon at the wheel of the pickup.
The truck stopped; it was still dark; Mackenzie was wide awake now, hollow-hearted with anticipatory fear. He felt the truck relax on its springs when Duggai stepped out. The rear door opened. Duggai was a heavy silhouette against the night. Fragments of starlight glinted briefly on the barrel of the Magnum. Duggai climbed up into the camper bed and untied their feet quickly-almost carelessly because he knew no one had the strength or circulation to kick him.
Having untied all their feet Duggai backed out and jumped down and took Shirley by the arm because she was closest to him. Mackenzie saw her feet give way under her when she tried to get up. Duggai dragged her out bodily by the shoulder; she fell off the tailgate and Mackenzie heard her muffled outcry.
His feet free, Mackenzie moved them experimentally. They had no feeling in them. His right foot slid to one side and he remembered the folded plastic raincoat. In the spi-raling bleak chaos of his thoughts there was a pinprick of alertness to its potential importance.
Duggai was hauling Jay Painter off the bunk seat. Jay fell to his knees and crawled precariously toward the tailgate where Duggai reached up for his collar and dragged him out face down; Jay was rolling to one side when he fell out of Mackenzie’s sight and there was a terrible loud thud when he hit the ground but Mackenzie suspected he had been able to take the fall on his shoulder rather than his face.
Earle Dana lay with his feet toward Duggai and Duggai simply took him by one ankle and dragged him sliding out of the truck.
Earle managed somehow to explode an angry roar around the gag in his mouth: Mackenzie saw him lash back with his free leg and strike out, kicking at Duggai with his heel.
Duggai whipped the Magnum down and Mackenzie heard it plainly, sickeningly, when the heavy revolver hit Earle’s shin. There was no mistaking the crack of sound: it had broken Earle’s shinbone.
Duggai heaved Earle bodily out of the truck and no gag could have silenced the shriek of pain.
It was a scream that Mackenzie used to cover the scrape of his own movement. Sliding his foot quickly toward the tailgate he kicked clumsily at the floor. His purpose was to hurl the plastic raincoat out of the truck. It was a small thing of no weight; he saw it flicker as it sailed out over the bumper of the pickup but he was sure Duggai hadn’t noticed it-Duggai was stooped in rage above Earle, ready to strike again with his bludgeon.
Mackenzie eased his way along the seat toward the back. When Duggai grabbed his bicep he was ready for it and let himself go slack; Duggai yanked him out of the truck and Mackenzie took the fall harmlessly on his hip and shoulder.
The folded rectangle of plastic lay just beneath the left taillight. Starlight winked off its surface.
Duggai went back to examine Earle Dana. It was evident Earle had lost consciousness-shock, nothing more; he hadn’t been hit on the head. Duggai was doing something with his hands behind Earle’s back. After a moment Mackenzie realized what it was: Duggai was removing the wire manacles from Earle’s hands.
The wire clattered when Duggai threw it into the back of the truck. Then Duggai put his Magnum away in his belt, snugging it down. He went into a pocket and Mackenzie, sitting up slowly, watched him unfold a pocketknife.
Duggai came forward hefting the blade. “Belly down, Captain.”
Mackenzie obeyed. His own awkwardness infuriated him.
He was expecting Duggai to remove the wire from his wrists or the gag from his mouth; he froze in twanging panic when he felt the cold prick of the knife against his spine.
“I wouldn’t move,” Duggai said.
Then there was a tugging, a snagging sound of rending cloth-and suddenly Duggai was tearing the clothes off him. In horrified paralysis Mackenzie lay perfectly still while the knife ravaged his clothing and Duggai pulled shreds of cloth away from his flesh. He felt the sharp blade tug his belt tight and saw its way outward through the leather until the belt parted; then the blade was whisking down his pant legs from waistline to ankles; the sleeves were parted like halved ripe melons and fell away from his arms; and nothing that had gone before was half so icily terrifying as the whisper of the keen blade in fast strokes within millimeters of his flesh.
The boot took him completely by surprise, snapping perfunctorily into his ribs: not a brutal blow, not hard enough to damage him-a tap for attention.
