thought.
There was one last thing, the finishing mark of the rampage.
Kurt’s foot brushed something light as he moved back. He froze and looked down. Glared. Focused.
He thought it was an animal skin. Many of this county’s poor sold hides for extra cash. A possum hide, for example, brought about a dollar and a half from local tanners, and a racoon skin went for up to forty dollars, depending upon the season.
Higgins came into the trailer. “Nothing out back except—” but he stopped to look around in obtuse dismay. “Judas J. Priest.”
Kurt backed up, his guts crawling.
“I better call this in,” Higgins said. “I take it Fitzwater’s not here.”
“You be the judge.” Kurt pointed to the floor.
Higgins squatted before it. He examined the thing with a tiny Tekna micro-lith light he kept on his belt. He poked at it apprehensively. “Holy Mother—” he said, not looking at Kurt. “What is this thing?”
”A scalp,” Kurt replied. “I think it’s Fitzwater’s scalp.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Time had escaped him. He was aware only of the weapon.
Night fell on the sedate motel, the sun stealing away without Sanders ever realizing it. Inside, shadows expanded and eventually filled Room 6, save for the nebulous trapezoid of lamplight ablaze over the desk. He sat quite still, quite transfixed. Soft light touched his face, and he looked at the weapon.
Veneration, or perhaps an abstract kind of loyalty, made his eyes shine. Sanders trusted his relationship with guns. It was not a false one. There were many people today who regarded weapons erroneously. There were the gun shop commandos, the underground Nazis, and all these civilian jungle troopers who pursued an interest in guns because guns were cool, guns were power, guns were things of men. They wore camouflage jackets on the weekends, DEATH FROM ABOVE T-shirts, and caps and belt buckles embossed with names of their favorite gun companies; yet they knew nothing of the military, of killing, and of the reality of guns. These were the people on which the gun industry flourished, the very people who should not have guns. Never mind the right to bear arms— what good were guns when wielded by jackasses? Guns were the stilts of this lot, making little men tall. To them, guns were proof of masculinity, but they never saw the falseness of their ideals. They worshipped guns behind the sheer lack of faith in their own penises.
Sanders knew guns in an honest way, and he had business with them. There was still much he didn’t know about his potential enemy.
The weapon lay before him on the desktop. He appraised it in reverent silence. M16A1 Colt Firearms Mfg. Co., Hartford, Conn. How did the classic saying go?
He was pleased that he had not forgotten how to do the field strip; within a minute, he had reduced the rifle to a layout of parts, each of which he examined and found free of defects and dirt. He checked the gasline for dents, the select switch for play, the buffer spring, the bolt-carrier, and everything else within the 11 Bravo maintenance echelon. No pits, no stress marks. He raised the upper receiver to the light and peered down the barrel, glimpsing what idiom had dubbed the flower of death.
The weapon was immaculate and in close to mint condition, as Wilson had said. After lightly lubricating the bolt-runner with LSA-medium and wiping the parts down, Sanders reassembled everything.
In addition to three 30-round clips and four percussion grenades, Wilson had also supplied five 20-round boxes of 5.56mm tracer, bullets which traveled at a rate in excess of 3,000 feet per second. If they didn’t work, nothing would.
He pushed the many statistical question marks from his mind. He knew that before he made his move, he needed to familiarize himself with the target area, and maybe drop a few questions on some of the locals. It was almost nine o’clock.
He hid the weapon, the ammunition and grenades, and his vest in the box spring of his bed. Though he was sure no one had seen him bring it in, he didn’t like the idea of leaving such sensitive items here unguarded, but driving around with them in a stolen car wasn’t much in the way of brains, either. All he brought with him then was a compact Almar folding knife with a three-inch blade, which was about all that might conform to Maryland’s foggy, uninterpretable knife laws.
Outside, he locked the door, looking quickly left and right. He closed the glass-louvered storm door and affixed a piece of Scotch tape across the gap, a simple but proven tactic. He didn’t like unexpected guests.
He had only general knowledge of where he was going, though it couldn’t be far, according to the signs. He drove steadily but unhurried. A county police cruiser screamed past on the right with its light flashing. It gave Sanders a momentary, thrilling jolt.
It reminded him of the spontaneity he’d known all his life. Spontaneity such as this. He’d always loved a gamble, and he was always hearing how gamblers were all looking for the same thing—they were looking to lose. On a moment’s notice he could pull a U at the next light, return the weapons and the station wagon, and be on the next 707 to Florida. It would be easy.
His life had been a string of gambles, and he’d always won. Was this really so different? He was blind, he was conspicuous, he didn’t know for the life of him what he was walking into.
He didn’t care about any of that.
But he was going to do it. He just had to know.
Route 301 rolled on, barren and perfectly straight. The only other vehicles he saw were a couple of refrigerated semi rigs. They roared up out of the dark, huge and unheeding, oblivious to the 50 mph speed limit, and were gone as fast the police car. A traffic light twinkled from far up the road, and then a big green sign: TYLERSVILLE, NEXT LEFT.
He made the turn and crossed town limits on an incline. The cant of the road made him feel as though he were ascending. He passed an old muddy-colored restaurant, a shopping plaza and several apartment complexes, all glowing murkily within the perimeter of vapor lamps. Then a quarter mile of darkness until a road sign: MD RT 154. From what he made of his map, Tylersville existed entirely along this queer forested lane, where it all but isolated the town. There was very little open land, just some clearings and some cramped cornfields. For the most part though, Route 154 seemed to plow through woods. He wondered where the population lived.
Clouds lolled overhead, blotching the twilight. Way off and up in the distance, he saw the flashing red aerial lights of a television tower, though it seemed peculiar to him that such a thing would be located so remotely. The road continued its steady rise, then at last began to even out and bend and turn. Now he noticed houses set back in the woods, quite a few of them, made discernible by porch lights and softly lit windows. It seemed that the trees were gradually growing around the houses, as if to keep them out of sight.
Originally he wanted his first exposure to Tylersville to be under the cover of darkness, but now he was beginning to think he’d made a mistake. This “town” was dead, just sullen houses screened by trees and this long
