CHAPTER I
ENCOUNTER ON A LONELY ROAD
People taken from other universes should always be near death.
—The Books of Rules, XX, 109, 234(a)
JUST BECAUSE YOUR WHOLE LIFE IS GOING TO HELL DOESN'T
mean you have to walk there.
She was walking down a lonely stretch of west Texas free-
way in the still dark of the early morning, an area where nobody
walked and where there was no place to walk to, anyway. She
might have been hitching, or not, but a total lack of traffic
gave her very little choice there. So she was just walking,
clutching a small overnight bag and a purse that was almost
the same size, holding on to them as if they were the only two
real things in her life, they and the dark and that endless stretch
of west Texas freeway.
Whatever traffic there was seemed to be heading the other
way—an occasional car, or pickup, or eighteen-wheeler with
someplace to go and some reason to go there, all heading in
the direction she was walking from, and where, she knew too
well, there was nothing much at all for anybody. But if their
destinations were wrong, their sense of purpose separated the
night travelers from the woman on the road; people who had
someplace to go and something to do belonged to a different
world than she did.
She had started out hitching, all right. She'd made it to the
truck stop at Ozona, that huge, garish, ultramodern, and plastic
heaven in the middle of nowhere that served up anything and
everything twenty-four hours a day for those stuck out here,
going between here and there. After a time, she'd gotten an-
other ride, this one only twenty miles west and at a cost she
was not willing to pay. And so here she was, stuck out in the
middle of nowhere, going nowhere fast. Walk, walk, walk to
nowhere, from nowhere in particular, because nowhere was all
the where she had to go.
Headlights approached from far off; but even if they had
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held any interest for her, they were still too far away to be
more than abstract, jerky round dots in the distance, a distance
that the west Texas desert made even more deceptive. How far
off was the oncoming driver? Ten miles? More? Did it matter?
It was at least ten, maybe fifteen minutes before the vehicle
grew close enough for the woman to hear the roar of the big
diesel and realize that this was, in fact, one of those haunters
of the desert dark, a monster tractor-trailer truck with a load
of furniture for Houston or beef for New Orleans or, perhaps,
California oranges for the Nashville markets. Although it had
been approaching her from the west for some time, its sudden
close-up reality was startling against the total stillness of the
night, a looming monster that quickly illuminated the night and
its empty, vacant walker, then was just as suddenly gone, a
mass of diminishing red lights in the distance behind her. But
in the few seconds that those gaping headlights had shone on
the scene, they had illuminated her form against that desperate
dark, illuminated her and, in the cab behind those lights, gave
her notice and recognition.
She paid this truck no more attention than any of the others
and just kept walking onward into the unseen distance.
The driver had been going much too fast for a practical stop,
a pace that would have upset the highway patrol but was re-
quired to make his employer's deadline. Besides, he was on
• the wrong side of the median to be of any practical help himself—
but there were other ways, ways that didn't even involve slow-
ing down.
"Break one-nine, break, break. How 'bout a westbound?
Anybody in this here Lone Star truckin' west on this one dark
night?" His accent was Texarkana, but he could have been
from Maine or Miami or San Francisco or Minneapolis just as
well. Something in the CB radio seemed automatically to add
the standard accent, even in Brooklyn.
"You got a westbound. Go," came a reply, only very slightly
different in sound or tone from the caller's.
"What's your twenty?" Eastbound asked.
"Three-thirty was the last I saw," Westbound responded.
"Clean and green back to the truck-'em-up. Even the bears go
to sleep this time o' night in these parts."
Eastbound chuckled. "Yeah, you got that right. I got to keep
pushin' it, though. They want me in Shreveport by tonight."
JACK L. CHALKER 3
"Shreveport! You got some haul yet!"
"Yeah, but that's home sweet home, baby. Get in, get it
off, stick this thing in the junkyard, and I'm in bed with the
old lady. I'll make it."
"All I got is El Paso by ten."
"Aw, shit, you'll make that easy. Say—caught something
your side in my lights about three-two-seven or so you might
check out. Looked like a beaver just walkin' by the side of the
road. Maybe a breakdown, though I ain't seen no cars on your
side and I'm just on you now. Probably nothin', but you might
want to check her out just in case. Ain't nobody lives within
miles o' here, I don't think."
"P 11 back off a little and see if I can eyeball her," Westbound
assured him. "Won't hurt much. That your Kenworthjust passed
me?"
"Yeah. Who else? All best to ya, and check on that little
gal. Don't wanna hear she got found dead by the side of the
road or something. Spoil my whole day."
"That's a four," Westbound came back with a slight chuckle.
"Keep safe, keep well, that's the Red Rooster sayin' that,
eastbound and down."
"Y'all have a safe one. This is the Nighthawk, westbound
and backin' down."
Nighthawk put his mike into its little holder and backed
down to fifty. He wasn't in any hurry, and he wouldn't lose
much, even if this was nothing at all, not on this flat stretch.
The woman was beginning to falter, occasionally stumbling
in the scrub brush by the side of the road. She was starting to
think again, and that wasn't what she wanted at all. Finally
she stopped, knowing it was beyond her to take too many more
steps, and looked around. It was incredible how dark the desert
could be at night, even with more stars than city folk had ever
seen beaming down from overhead. No matter what, she knew
. she had to get some rest. Maybe just lie down over there in
the scrub—get stung by a tarantula or a scorpion or whatever
else lived around here. Snake, maybe. She considered the idea
and was somewhat surprised that she cared about that. Nice
and quick, maybe—but painfully bitten or poisoned to death
by inches? That seemed particularly ugly. With everything else
so messed up, at least her exit ought to be clean, neat, and as
comfortable as these things could be. One thing in her life
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should go right, damn it. And for the first time since she'd
jumped out of the car, she began to consider living again—at
least a little bit longer, at least until the sunrise. She stopped
and looked up and down the highway for any sign of lights,
wondering what she'd do if she saw any. It would just as likely
be another Cal Hurder as anybody useful, particularly at this
ungodly hour in a place like this.
Lights approaching from the east told her a decision was
near, and soon. But she made no decision until the lights were
actually on her, and when she did, it was on impulse, without
any thought applied to it. She turned, put down her bags, and
stuck out her thumb.
Even with that and on the lookout for her, he almost missed
her. Spotting her, he hit the brakes and started gearing to a
stop by the side of the road, getting things stopped fully a
hundred yards west of her. Knowing this, he put the truck in
reverse and slowly backed up, eyeing the shoulder carefully
with his right mirror. After all this, he didn't want to be the
one to run her down.
Finally he saw her, or thought he did, just standing there,
looking at the huge monster approaching, doing nothing else
at all. For her part, she was unsure of just what to do next.
That huge rig was really intimidating, and so she just stood
there, trembling slightly.
Nighthawk frowned, realized she wasn't coming up to the
door, and decided to put on his flashers and go to her. He was
not without his own suspicions; hijackers would use such bait
and such a setting—although he could hardly imagine some-
body hijacking forty thousand pounds of soap flakes. Still, you
never knew—and there was always his own money and cards
and the truck itself to steal. He took out his small pistol and
slipped it into his pocket, then slid over, opened the passenger
door, and got out warily.
He was a big man, somewhat intimidating-looking himself,
perhaps six-three, two hundred and twenty-five pounds of mostly
muscle, wearing faded jeans, boots, and a checkered flannel
shirt. His age was hard to measure, but he was at least in his
forties with a face maybe ten years older and with very long,
graying hair. He was dark, too—she took him at first for a
black man—but there was something not quite of any race and
JACK L. CHALKER 5
yet of all of them in his face and features. He was used to the
look she was giving him and past minding.
"M'am?" he called to her in a calm yet wary baritone. "Don't
worry—I don't bite. A trucker going the other way spotted you
and asked me to see if you was all right."
Oh, what the hell, she decided, resigning herself. / can
always jump out again. "I need a ride," she said simply. "I'm
kind of stuck here."
He walked over to her, seeing her tenseness and pretty much
ignoring it. He picked up her bag, letting her get her purse,
and went back to the truck. "Come on. I'll take you for a while
if you're going west."
She hesitated a moment more, then followed him and per-
mitted him to assist her up into the cab. He slammed her door,
walked around the truck, got in on the driver's side, released
the brakes, and put the truck in gear. "How far you going?"
he asked her.
She sat almost pressed against the passenger door, trying
to look as if she weren't doing it. For all he knew, she didn't
realize she was doing it.
She sighed. "Any place, I guess. How far you going?"
"El Paso. But I can get you to a phone in Fort Stockton if
that's what you need." ,
She shook her head slowly. "No, nobody to call. El Paso's
fine, if it's okay with you. I don't have enough money for a
motel or anything."
Up to speed and cruising now, he glanced sideways over at
her. At one time she'd been a pretty attractive woman, he
decided. It was all still there, but something had happened to
it, put a dull, dirty coating over it. Medium height—five-four
or -five, maybe—with short, greasy-looking brown hair with
traces of gray. Thirties, probably. Thin and slightly built, she
had that hollow, empty look, like somebody who'd been on
the booze pretty long and pretty hard.
"None of my business, but how'd you get stuck out here in
the middle of nowhere at three in the morning?" he asked
casually.
She gave a little sigh and looked out the window for a
moment at the black nothingness. Finally she said, "If you
really want to know, I jumped out of a car."
"Huh?"
6 THE RIVER OF DANCING GODS
"I got a ride with a salesman—at least he said he was a
salesman—back at Ozona. We got fifteen, twenty miles down
the road and he pulled over. You can guess the rest."
He nodded.
"I grabbed the bags and ran. He turned out to be a little
scared of the dark, I guess. Just stood there yelling for me,
then threatened to drive off if I didn't come back. I didn't—
and he did."
He lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and expelled the
smoke with an accompanying sigh. "Yeah, I guess I get the
picture."
"You—you're an Indian, aren't you?"
He laughed. "Good change of subject. Well, son of. My
mom was a full-blooded Seminole, my dad was Puerto Rican,
which is a little bit of everything."
"You're from Florida? You don't sound like a southerner."
Again he chuckled. "Oh, I'm from the south, all right. South
of Philadelphia, anyway. Long story. Right now what home I
have is in a trailer park in a little town south of Baltimore. No
Indians or Puerto Ricans around, so they just think of me as
something a little bit exotic, I guess."
"You're a long way from home," she noted.
He nodded. "More or less. Don't matter much, though. I'm
on the road so much the only place I really feel at home is in
this truck. I own it and I run it, and it's mine as long as I keep
up the payments. They had to let me keep the truck, otherwise
they couldn't get no alimony. What about you? That pretty
voice sounds pure Texas to me."
She nodded idly, still staring distantly into the nothingness.
"Yeah. San Antone, that's me."
"Air Force brat?" He was nervous at pushing her too much,
maybe upsetting or alienating her—she was on a thin edge,
that was for sure—but he just had the feeling she wanted to
talk to somebody.
She did, a little surprised at that herself. "Sort of. Daddy
was a flier. Jet pilot."
"What happened to him?" He guessed by her tone that some-
thing had happened.
"Killed in his plane, in the finest traditions of the Air Force.
Sucked a bird into his jets while coming in for a landing and
that was it, or so I'm told. I was much too young, really, to
JACK L. CHALKER 7
...
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