AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He smiled as he realized that wouldn’t quite work. He would only go halfway—halfway as far as he thought he could go, so that he’d still have the strength to return. Then he’d have to make a deal with the Warden, tell her where he found Kate Barlow’s lipstick tube, and beg for mercy.
He was surprised by how far out the holes extended. He couldn’t even see the camp compound anymore, but he still kept passing holes. Just when he thought he’d passed the last hole, he’d come across another cluster of them, a little farther away.
Back at the compound, they had dug in a systematic order, row upon row, allowing space for the water truck. But out here there was no system. It was as if every once in a while, in a fit of frustration, the Warden would just pick a spot at random, and say, “What the hell, dig here.” It was like trying to guess the winning numbers in a lottery.
Stanley found himself looking down into each hole he passed. He didn’t admit to himself what he was looking for.
After more than an hour had gone by, he thought he had surely seen the last hole, but then off to the left he saw another cluster of them. He didn’t actually see the holes. He saw the mounds of dirt that surrounded them.
He stepped over the mounds and looked into the first hole. His heart stopped.
Down at the bottom was a family of yellow-spotted lizards. Their large red eyes looked up at him.
He leapt back over the mound and ran.
He didn’t know if they were chasing after him. He thought he might have seen one leap out of the hole.
He ran until he couldn’t run any farther, then collapsed. They hadn’t come after him.
He sat there awhile and caught his breath. As he got back to his feet, he thought he noticed something on the ground, maybe fifty yards away. It didn’t look like much, maybe just a big rock, but in a land of nothingness, any little thing seemed unusual.
He walked slowly toward it. The encounter with the lizards had made him very cautious.
It turned out to be an empty sack of sunflower seeds. He wondered if it was the same one Magnet had stolen from Mr. Sir, although that didn’t seem likely.
He turned it inside out and found one seed stuck to the burlap.
Lunch.
34
The sun was almost directly overhead. He figured he could walk for no more than another hour, maybe two, before he had to turn back.
It seemed pointless. He could see there was nothing ahead of him. Nothing but emptiness. He was hot, tired, hungry, and, most of all, thirsty. Maybe he should just turn around now. Maybe he’d already gone halfway and didn’t know it.
Then, looking around, he saw a pool of water less than a hundred yards away from where he was standing. He closed his eyes and opened them to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. The pool was still there.
He hurried toward it. The pool hurried away from him, moving as he moved, stopping when he stopped.
>
There wasn’t any water. It was a mirage caused by the shimmering waves of heat rising off the dry ground.
He kept walking. He still carried the empty sack of sunflower seeds. He didn’t know if he might find something to put in it.
After a while he thought he could make out the shape of the mountains through the haze. At first he wasn’t sure if this was another kind of mirage, but the farther he walked, the clearer they came into a view. Almost straight ahead of him, he could see what looked like a fist, with its thumb sticking up.
He didn’t know how far away it was. Five miles? Fifty miles? One thing was certain. It was more than halfway.
He kept walking toward it, although he didn’t know why. He knew he’d have to turn around before he got there. But every time he looked at it, it seemed to encourage him, giving him the thumbs-up sign.
As he continued walking, he became aware of a large object on the lake. He couldn’t tell what it was, or even if it was natural or man-made. It looked a little like a fallen tree, although it didn’t seem likely that a tree would grow here. More likely, it was a ridge of dirt or rocks.
The object, whatever it was, was not on the way to Big Thumb but off to the right. He tried to decide whether to go to it or continue toward Big Thumb. Or maybe just turn around.
There was no point in heading toward Big Thumb, he decided. He would never make it. For all he knew it was like chasing the moon. But he could make it to the mysterious object.
He changed directions. He doubted it was anything, but the fact that there was something in the middle of all this nothing made it hard for him to pass up. He decided to make the object his halfway point, and he hoped he hadn’t already gone too far.
