Wearing his Mackintosh bathrobe, Qwilleran headed for the elevator, walking with a slow and dignified step dictated by his legful of bandages. He was thankful he had not landed on his bad knee. On second thought, he realized he now might have two bad knees.
Everyone in the corridor seemed to know him. Orderlies and ambulatory patients greeted him by name — or, rather, by initial — and one of the nurses said, "Sorry about your room, Mr. Q — the color of the walls, I mean. It was supposed to be antique pink, but the painters got their signals crossed." "It's not very appetizing," Qwilleran agreed. "It looks like raw veal, but I can live with it for another twenty-four hours." In the cafeteria he was greeted with applause from the nurses, technicians, and doctors who were lunching on cottage cheese salads, bowls of chili, and braised cod with poached celery. He acknowledged their greetings with courtly bows and exaggerated salutes before taking his place in line. Ahead of him was a white-haired country doctor with two claims to fame: He was Melinda's father, and he had swabbed throats, set bones, and delivered babies for half of Moose County.
Dr. Halifax Goodwinter turned and said, "Ah! The celebrated cyclist! Glad to see you're still among the living. It would be a pity if my daughter lost her first and only patient." A nurse standing behind Qwilleran nudged his elbow. "You should wear a helmet, Mr. Q. You could've been killed." He carried a tray of chili and corn muffins to a table occupied by three men he had met at the Pickax Boosters Club: the hospital administrator, a genial urologist, and a banker who served on the hospital board of trustees.
The doctor said, "Planning to sue anybody, Qwill? I can steer you to a couple of ingenious ambulance chasers." The banker said, "You can't sue the manufacturer, That kind of bike hasn't been made for fifty years." The administrator said, "We're taking up a collection to buy you a new bike — and maybe a new bathrobe." Patting the lapels of his ratty red plaid, Qwilleran said in his best declamatory style, "This is a vintage robe with a noteworthy provenance, gentlemen. The distress marks merely add to its associative value." The truth was that Koko had gone through a wool-eating phase, nibbling chair upholstery, neckties, the Mackintosh robe, and other handy items.
Qwilleran felt at ease with the hospital badinage. It was the same kind of jocular roasting he had enjoyed at the Daily Fluxion. Everyone in Pickax City seemed to like him, and why not? He was an affable companion, a sympathetic listener, and the richest man in the county. He had no delusions on that score. As a feature writer for the Fluxion he had been courted by lobbyists, politicians, businessmen, and media hounds, He accepted their attentions graciously, but he had no delusions.
After lunch the lab took blood samples, and Qwilleran had an EKG, followed by another nap and another dream.
Again it was vivid — painfully so. He was climbing out of a ditch near a lonely highway. His clothing was soaked; his pants were tom; his legs were bleeding. Blood was trickling into his right eye as he stumbled onto the highway and started to walk. Soon a red car stopped, and someone in a blue shirt jumped out. It was Junior Goodwinter, the young managing editor of the Pickax Picayune. Junior gave him a ride back to town and talked incessantly on the journey, but Qwilleran could say nothing. He struggled to answer Junior's questions, but he could find no words.
The dream ended abruptly, and the dreamer found himself sitting up in bed, sweating and shivering. He mopped his face and then reached for the telephone and called the newspaper office.
"Qwill! You pulled through!" shouted Junior into the phone. "When I picked you up yesterday, you weren't exactly dead, but you weren't alive either. We had the type all set up to print an obit if you kicked off." "Thanks. That was decent of you," Qwilleran said. "Are you hitting on all eight? You sound okay." "They sewed me together, and I look like the Spirit of 76. Where was I when you picked me up, Junior?" "On Ittibittiwassee Road, beyond the Buckshot mineshaft. You were wandering around in the middle of the pavement in a daze — going in the wrong direction. Your clothes were all ripped and muddy. Your head was bleeding. You really had me worried, especially when you couldn't talk." "Did you see my bike?" "Tell the truth, I wasn't looking for it. I just concentrated on getting you to the hospital. I hit a hundred ten." "What were you driving?" "My Jag, luckily. That's why I could kick it up to one-ten so fast." "Thanks, Junior. Let's have lunch next week. I'll buy." Another dream checked out! Even the color of the car was accurate. Qwilleran knew that Junior's Jaguar was red.
He discussed his dreams with Melinda Goodwinter and Arch Riker that evening when they came to the hospital to have dinner with him in the cafeteria. Without her white coat and stethoscope Melinda looked more like the young woman he had been dating for the last two months.
Qwilleran asked her, "Do you kiss all your bedridden I male patients?" "Only those of advanced age," she retorted with a sweetly I malicious look in her green eyes.
"Funny thing," he said, "but some of the details I couldn't remember came back to me in dreams this afternoon.
There's only one blank left in my memory — the actual circumstances that caused the accident." "It wasn't a pothole," Melinda said. "That's a brand-new highway, smooth as glass." Riker said, "It's my guess that you swerved to avoid hitting something, Qwill, and skidded on the shoulder. A skunk or raccoon, perhaps, or even a deer. I saw a lot of dead animals on the road, coming in from the airport." "We'll never know for sure," Qwilleran said. "How's everything at the house? Did you get some sleep? Did Mrs. Cobb give you lunch? Did you see Koko?" "Everything's fine. Koko met me at the front door and gave me a military inspection. I guess I passed muster, because he allowed me to enter." Late that night, when the hospital corridor was silent, Qwilleran dreamed his final dream. It was the missing link between the macaroni-and-cheese and the red Jaguar. He saw himself pedaling at a leisurely pace along a deserted highway, appreciating the smooth asphalt and the lack of traffic and the gently rolling hills. Pedaling uphill was easy, and coasting down was glorious." He passed the abandoned Buckshot Mine with its rotting shaft house and ominous signs: Danger… Keep Out…
Beware of Cave-ins. The deserted mines that dotted the lonely landscape around Pickax City were a source of endless fascination for Qwilleran. They were mysterious — silent — dead.
The Buckshot was different, however. He had been told that, if one listened intently, one could hear an eerie whistling sound coming from the shaft where eighteen miners had been buried alive in 1913.
In the dream he pedaled slowly and silently past the Buckshot. Only a tick-tick in the rear wheel and a grinding sound in the sprocket broke the stillness. He turned his head to gaze at the gray ghost of the shaft house… the sloping depression at the site of a cave-in… the vibrant green weeds that smothered the whole scene. He was staring so intently that he was unaware of a truck approaching from the opposite direction — unaware until its motor roared. He looked ahead in time to see its burst of speed, its sudden swerve into the eastbound lane, a murderous monster bearing down upon him. In the dream he had a vivid picture of the grille, a big rusty thing that seemed to be grinning. He yanked the handlebars and plunged down toward the roadside ditch, but the front wheel hit a rock and he went sailing over the handlebars. For an interminable moment he was airborne.
Qwilleran wrenched himself from sleep in a fright and found himself sitting up in bed, sweating and shouting.
An orderly hurried into the room. "Mr. Q! Mr. Q! What's the problem? A bad dream?" Qwilleran shook himself in an effort to dispel the nightmare. "Sorry. Hope I didn't disturb the other patients." "Want a drink of water, Mr. Q?" "Thanks. And will you raise the bed? I'd better sit up for a while." Qwilleran leaned back against his pillow, reliving the dream. It was as graphic as the others. The sky was blue. The weeds around the deserted mine were poison green. The truck had a rusted grille.