The Stand

Again they drank in silence for a while, watching the sun go down.

“What do you hear about that guy Cullen?” Whitney asked finally.

“Nothing. Doodley-squat. El-zilcho. I don’t hear nothing, Barry don’t hear nothing. Nothing from Route 40, from Route 30, from Route 2 and 74 and I-15. Nothing from the back roads. They’re all covered and they’re all nothing. He’s out in the desert someplace, and if he keeps moving at night and if he can figure out how to keep moving east, he’s going to slip through. And what does it matter, anyhow? What can he tell them?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t either. Let him go, that’s what I say.”

Whitney felt uncomfortable. Lloyd was getting perilously close to criticizing the boss again. His buzz-on was stronger, and he was glad. Maybe soon he would find the nerve to say what he had come here to say.

“I’ll tell you something,” Lloyd said, leaning forward. “He’s losing his stuff. You ever hear that fucking saying? It’s the eighth inning and he’s losing his stuff and there’s no-fucking-body warming up in the bullpen.”

“Lloyd, I—”

“You ready?”

“Sure, I guess.”

Lloyd made them new drinks. He handed one to Whitney, and a little shiver went through him as he sipped. It was almost raw gin.

“Losing his stuff,” Lloyd said, returning to his text. “First Dayna, then this guy Cullen. His own wife—if that’s what she was—goes and takes a dive. Do you think her double-fucking-gainer from the penthouse balcony was in his game plan?”

“We shouldn’t be talking about it.”

“And Trashcan Man. Look what that guy did all by himself. With fiends like that, who needs enemas? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“Lloyd—”

Lloyd was shaking his head. “I don’t understand it at all. Everything was going so good, right up to the night he came and said the old lady was dead over there in the Free Zone. He said the last obstacle was out of our way. But that’s when things started to get funny.”

“Lloyd, I really don’t think we should be—”

“Now I just don’t know. We can take em by land assault next spring, I guess. We sure as shit can’t go before then. But by next spring, God knows what they might have rigged up over there, you know? We were going to hit them before they could think up any funny surprises, and now we can’t. Plus, holy God on His throne, there’s Trashy to think about. He’s out there in the desert ramming around someplace, and I sure as hell—”

“Lloyd,” Whitney said in a low, choked voice. “Listen to me.”

Lloyd leaned forward, concerned. “What? What’s the trouble, old hoss?”

“I didn’t even know if I’d have the guts to ask you,” Whitney said. He was squeezing his glass compulsively. “Me and Ace High and Ronnie Sykes and Jenny Engstrom. We’re cutting loose. You want to come? Christ, I must be crazy telling you this, with you so close to him.”

“Cutting loose? Where are you going?”

“South America, I guess. Brazil. That ought to be just about far enough.” He paused, struggling, then plunged on. “A lot of people have been leaving. Well, maybe not a lot, but quite a few, and there’s more every day. They don’t think Flagg can cut it. Some are going north, up to Canada. That’s too frigging cold for me. But I got to get out. I’d go east if I thought they’d have me. And if I was sure we could get through.” Whitney stopped abruptly and looked at Lloyd miserably. It was the face of a man who thinks he has gone much too far.

“You’re all right,” Lloyd said softly. “I ain’t going to blow the whistle on you, old hoss.”

“It’s just… all gone bad here,” Whitney said miserably.

“When you planning to go?” Lloyd asked.

Whitney looked at him with narrow suspicion.

“Aw, forget I asked,” Lloyd said. “You ready?”

“Not yet,” Whitney said, looking into his glass.

“I am.” He went to the bar. With his back to Whitney he said, “I couldn’t.”

“Huh?”

“Couldn’t! ” Lloyd said sharply, and turned back to Whitney. “I owe him something. I owe him a lot. He got me out of a bad jam back in Phoenix and I been with him since then. Seems longer than it really is. Sometimes it seems like forever.”

“I’ll bet.”

“But it’s more than that. He’s done something to me, made me brighter or something. I don’t know what it is, but I ain’t the same man I was, Whitney. Nothing like. Before… him … I was nothing but a minor leaguer. Now he’s got me running things here, and I do okay. It seems like I think better. Yeah, he’s made me brighter.” Lloyd lifted the flawed stone from his chest, looked at it briefly, then dropped it again. He wiped his hand against his pants as though it had touched something nasty. “I know I ain’t no genius now. I have to write everything I’m s’posed to do in a notebook or I forget it. But with him behind me I can give orders and most times things turn out right. Before, all I could do was take orders and get in jams. I’ve changed… and he changed me. Yeah, it seems a lot longer than it really is.

“When we got to Vegas, there were only sixteen people here. Ronnie was one of them; so was Jenny and poor old Hec Drogan. They were waiting for him. When we got into town, Jenny Engstrom got down on those pretty knees of hers and kissed his boots. I bet she never told you that in bed.” He smiled crookedly at Whitney. “Now she wants to cut and run. Well, I don’t blame her, or you either. But it sure doesn’t take much to sour a good operation, does it?”

“You’re going to stick?”

“To the very end, Whitney. His or mine. I owe him that.” He didn’t add that he still had enough faith in the dark man to believe that Whitney and the others would end up riding crosstrees, more likely than not. And there was something else. Here he was Flagg’s second-in-command. What could he be in Brazil? Why, Whitney and Ronnie were both brighter than he was. He and Ace High would end up low chickens, and that wasn’t to Lloyd’s taste. Once he wouldn’t have minded, but things had changed. And when your head changed, he was finding out, it most always changed forever.

“Well, it might work out for all of us,” Whitney said lamely.

“Sure,” Lloyd said, and thought: But I wouldn’t want to be walking in your shoes if it comes out right for Flagg after all. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when he finally has time to notice you down there in Brazil. Riding a crosstree might be the least of your worries then…

Lloyd raised his glass. “A toast, Whitney.”

Whitney raised his own glass.

“Nobody gets hurt,” Lloyd said. “That’s my toast. Nobody gets hurt.”

“Man, I’ll drink to that,” Whitney said fervently, and they both did.

Whitney left soon after. Lloyd kept on drinking. He passed out around nine-thirty and slept soddenly on the round bed. There were no dreams, and that was almost worth the price of the next day’s hangover.

When the sun rose on the morning of September 17, Tom Cullen made his camp a little north of Gunlock, Utah. It was cold enough for him to be able to see his breath puffing out in front of him. His ears were numb and cold. But he felt good. He had passed quite close to a rutted bad road the night before, and he had seen three men gathered around a small spluttering campfire. All three had guns.

Trying to ease past them through a tangled field of boulders—he was now on the western edge of the Utah badlands—he had sent a small splatter of pebbles rolling and tumbling into a dry-wash. Tom froze. Warm wee- wee spilled down his legs, but he wasn’t even aware that he’d done it in his pants like a little baby until an hour or so later.

All three of them turned around, two of them bringing their weapons up to port arms. Tom’s cover was thin, barely adequate. He was a shadow among shadows. The moon was behind a reef of clouds. If it chose this moment to come out…

One of them relaxed. “It’s a deer,” he said. “They’re all over the place.”

“I think we should investigate,” another had said.

“Put your thumb up your asshole and investigate that,” the third replied, and that was the end of it. They sat