Angelica got into the back seat, so Cochran climbed into the front and sat in the passenger seat while Pete started the engine and let it warm up. The truck interior smelled of fresh plywood and old beer. Cochran had just settled back in the seat against the hard bulk of the revolver at the back of his belt, and lit a cigarette, when through the rain-blurred new windshield he saw the front door of his house pulled open, and saw Plumtree step out.
She was wearing his old leather jacket now, and sneakers—and when she stared across the driveway at the truck, Cochran’s face chilled in the instant before he consciously recognized the narrower face and higher shoulders.
“I guess Cody wants to come along too,” observed Pete, moving the stuffed pig so that Cochran could scoot over.
Cochran ground his cigarette out in the ashtray. “It’s Janis,” he said.
He stared toward her, and their eyes met with an almost palpable reciprocation through the glass; and Cochran was peripherally aware that a big raindrop rolling down the outside slope of the windshield stopped at the top edge of their linked gaze as if at an invisible barrier, then wobbled off to the side and ran on down to the black rubber gasket without having crossed between their eyes.
Then Janis was hurrying across the wet pavement with her head down and her hands in the pockets of the leather jacket, and she opened the front door and climbed in beside Cochran, who shifted to the middle of the long seat to give her room.
“Janis,” he said, “I’m glad you—”
She touched her ear and shook her head. “I’m deaf. Scant,” she said in a loud, droning voice.
“Oh.” All he could do then was look into her eyes and nod, as Pete clanked the gearshift into reverse and backed the truck around on the wide driveway, then drove down the road to Serramonte Boulevard and made a right turn onto the southbound lanes of the 280.
“Janis’s mom!” said Angelica sharply from the back seat. And when Janis just kept looking ahead at the rainy highway lanes for several seconds, Angelica said “I guess she really is deaf.”
“Don’t…tease her,” said Cochran, “even if she…can’t know you’re doing it.”
Janis had seen him speaking, and looked at him; he looked into her eyes and lifted his right hand, and then held it raised even though after the first few seconds he thought Pete must be expecting him to thumb his nose at the traffic ahead. At last Janis brought up her unbandaged left hand and clasped his, creaking the sleeve of the leather jacket. For several seconds she squeezed his hand hard; then she had released it and looked away, out at the road shoulder rushing past outside.
“I wasn’t teasing her,” said Angelica quietly. “And I’m glad she’s along. I wasn’t thrilled to be leaving her back there with Kootie, and just poor Arky.”
Beyond the window glass the vivid green San Mateo County hills swept past under the low gray sky, with pockets of fog visible in the hollows, and columns of steam standing up like white smoke from behind the middle-distance hills.
Black crows were flapping low across the rainy sky, and for a panicky moment Cochran couldn’t see any buildings or signs, and there appeared to be no other cars on the highway.
Then Janis spoke loudly: “Why would someone be hitch-hiking on a day like this?”
The truck’s engine seemed to roar more loudly after Pete had lifted his foot from the gas pedal. Obscurely reassured by a glimpse of a couple of cars passing the truck on the left, Cochran leaned forward to peer out between the slapping windshield-wiper blades—there was a lone figure in flapping white clothing on the misty highway shoulder a hundred yards ahead, trudging south, the same way they were going, with its highway-side left arm extended.
“Well, it can’t be the hitch-hiker the old lady told us about,” said Angelica matter-of-factly, “today’s not the day. Tomorrow’s Tet.”
Pete was pressing the brake. “I’m not risking any more carelessness.”
“How far are we from Soledad?” protested Angelica. She was leaning forward across the seat, her breath hot on the back of Cochran’s neck. “That’s probably an escaped prisoner!”
“Do they dress them in bedsheets?” asked Pete quietly.
The right-side tires were now hissing and grinding in the muddy shoulder gravel, and the mournful squeal of the brakes made the walking figure stop.
“We’re a hundred miles north of Soledad,” said Cochran.
The hitch-hiker was barefooted and wearing a sort of stiff, blue-patterned white poncho, and when Cochran made out the letters ARLI on the fabric and looked more closely, he realized that the garment was a big painted-canvas banner from one of the roadside garlic stands down in Gilroy. The person was still facing away from them.
“Long dark hair,” said Angelica. “Is it a man or a woman?”
“There’s a beard,” said Pete.
The figure had turned its head in profile to look back at the vehicle, and Cochran recognized the high forehead and chiselled profile. “It’s—” he began.
Beside him, Plumtree jumped violently. “The Flying Nun!” she wailed.
“—Scott Crane,” said Angelica, after giving Plumtree a startled glance. “I remember the face from when he was stretched out, dead, on my kitchen table down in Solville. Well, we’re really in the animal soup now.” She levered open her door, and the sudden chilly breeze inside the truck carried the earthy smells of wet grass and stone. “Uh…hop in,” she called over the increased hissing of the rain, squinting as she leaned out of the still slowly moving truck. Obvious fright made her speak too loudly. “Where you headed?”
With shaking hands, Plumtree cranked down the passenger-side window, and Cochran flinched at the damp wind in his face.
Scott Crane’s ghost turned to face them—it might have been naked under the makeshift poncho, but it was decently covered at the moment. Its beard and long hair were dark and ropy with rain water. “Jack and Jill went up the hill,” the figure called back, “to fetch a chalice of aquamort. To the grail castle, to take away the container of the god’s reconciling blood.” Its voice was baritone but faint, like a voice on a radio with the volume turned down. “I will brook no…trout,” the ghost said.
“Before its time,” agreed Plumtree. The voice was Cody’s, and fairly level, though Cochran could hear the edge of hoarse strain in it. “We can drive you there,” she cried. “But you got to tell us where to turn:’
Can we get there by candlelight? thought Cochran, quoting the old nursery rhyme; aye, and back again.
“And we might need to stop for gas,” said Pete shakily.
Cochran was shifted around with his right elbow down the back of the front seat now, and he saw Angelica visibly consider climbing into the back of the truck or even over the front seat and right onto his lap; but by the time the king’s ghost had limped to the truck’s side door she had simply slid all the way over to the left.
The ghost was as solid as a real person as it climbed in—the truck even dipped on its shocks—and when the dripping bony face turned toward the front, Cochran could feel cold breath on his right hand. “What gas would that be?” the ghost asked. “Not nitrous oxide, at least. I’m running on a sort of induction coil, here.” Its eyes squinted ahead through the rainy windshield. “Straight on south,” the ghost said, pulling the door closed with a slam. The thrashing of the rain on the highway shoulder was shut out, and there was just the drumming on the truck’s roof.