Roadside Picnic

The valley had cooled overnight, and by dawn it was actually cold. They were walking along the embankment, stepping over the rotten ties between the rusty rails, and Redrick watched the drops of condensed fog glisten on Arthur Burbridge's leather jacket. The boy was striding along lightly and merrily, as though the exhausting night, the nervous tension that still made every vein in his body ache, and the two horrible hours they spent huddled back to back for warmth in a tortured half-sleep on top of the hill, waiting for the flood of the green stuff to drip past them and disappear into the ravine—as though all that had not happened.

A thick fog lay along the sides of the embankment. Once in a while it crawled up on the rails with its heavy gray feet and in those places they walked knee-deep in the swirling mists. The air smelled of rust, and the swamp to the right of the embankment reeked of decay. The fog made it impossible to see anything, but Redrick knew that a hilly plain with rubble heaps surrounded them, and that mountains hid in the gloom beyond. And he knew also that when the sun came up and the fog settled into dew, he would see the downed helicopter somewhere on his left and the ore flatcars up ahead. And then the real work would begin.

Redrick slipped his hand up under the backpack to lift it so that the edge of the helium tank would not dig into his spine. It's a heavy bugger, he thought. How am I going to crawl with it? A mile on all fours. All right, stalker, no grumbling now, you knew what you were getting into. Five hundred thousand at the end of the road. I can work up a sweat for that. Five hundred thousand sure is a sweet bundle. I'll be damned if I give it to them for less. Or if I give Buzzard more than thirty. And the punk? The punk gets nothing. If the old bugger had told even half the truth, the punk gets nothing.

He looked at Arthur's back again and watched through squinted eyes as the boy stepped over two ties at a time, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped. His dark raven hair, like his sister's, bounced rhythmically. He asked for it, Redrick thought grimly. Himself. Why did he beg to come along so persistently? So desperately? He trembled and had tears in his eyes. “Take me, Mr. Schuhart! Lots of people have offered to take me along, but they're all no good! My father … but he can't take me now!” Redrick forced himself to drop the memory. He was repelled by the thought and maybe that's why he started thinking about Arthur's sister. He just could not fathom it: how such a fantastic-looking woman could actually be a plastic fake, a dummy. It was like the buttons on his mother's blouse—they were amber, he remembered, semitransparent, and golden. He just wanted to shove them in his mouth and suck on them, and every time he was disappointed terribly, and every time he forgot about the disappointment—not forgot, just refused to accept what his memory told him.

Maybe it was his pop who sent him over to me, he thought about Arthur. Look at the piece he's carrying in his back pocket. Nah, I doubt it. Buzzard knows me. Buzzard knows that I don't go for jokes. And he knows what I'm like in the Zone. No, that's all nonsense. He's not the first to have begged me, and not the first to have shed tears; others even got down on their knees. And as for the piece, they all bring guns on their first time in the Zone. The first and last time. Is it really the last? It's your last, bud. Here's how it works out, Buzzard: his last. Yes, if you knew what your sonny boy was planning—you would have beaten him to a pulp with your crutches. He suddenly felt that there was something ahead of them—not far, some thirty or forty yards away.

"Stop,” he told Arthur.

The boy obediently froze in his tracks. His reflexes were good—he had stopped with one foot in the air, and he lowered it slowly and carefully. Redrick stopped next to him. The track dipped noticeably here and disappeared completely in the fog. And there was something in the fog. Something big and motionless. Harmless. Redrick carefully sniffed the air. Yes. Harmless.

"Forward,” he said quietly. He waited for Arthur to take a step and he followed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Arthur's face, his chiseled profile, the clear skin of his cheek, and the determined set of his lips under the thin mustache.

They were up to their waists in fog, and then up to their necks. A few seconds later the great hulk of the ore cars loomed ahead of them.

"That's it,” Redrick said and took off his backpack. “Sit down right where you are. Smoke break."

Arthur helped him with the backpack, and they sat down next to each other on the rusty rails. Redrick unbuttoned a flap and took out a package with sandwiches and a thermos of coffee. While Arthur set up the sandwiches on top of the backpack, Redrick took out his flask, opened it, closed his eyes, and took several slow sips.

"Want some?” he offered, wiping the neck of the flask. “For courage?"

Arthur shook his head, hurt.