Before Barry could answer, there was a double break on the CB and Apron Annie said, “He’s with me and Long Paul, sweetie. Is it . . . is it a good one?” Annie sounded anxious, and Rose could understand that. Richard Gaylesworthy had been a very good one, but six weeks was a long time between meals, and he was beginning to wear off.
“Is the old feller compos, Annie?”
Before she could answer, a raspy voice came back, “I’m fine, woman.” And for a guy who sometimes couldn’t remember his own name, Grampa Flick did sound pretty much okay. Testy, sure, but testy was a lot better than befuddled.
A second ping hit her, this one not as strong. As if to underline a point that needed no underlining, Grampa said, “We’re going the wrong fuckin way.”
Rose didn’t bother answering, just clicked another double break on her mike. “Crow? Come back, honeybunch.”
“I’m here.” Prompt as always. Just waiting to be called.
“Pull em in at the next rest area. Except for me, Barry, and Flick. We’ll take the next exit and double back.”
“Will you need a crew?”
“I won’t know until we get closer, but . . . I don’t think so.”
“Okay.” A pause, then he added: “Shit.”
Rose racked the mike and looked out at the unending acres of corn on both sides of the fourlane. Crow was disappointed, of course. They all would be. Big steamheads presented problems because they were all but immune to suggestion. That meant taking them by force. Friends or family members often tried to interfere. They could sometimes be put to sleep, but not always; a kid with big steam could block even Snakebite Andi’s best efforts in that regard. So sometimes people had to be killed. Not good, but the prize was always worth it: life and strength stored away in a steel canister. Stored for a rainy day. In many cases there was even a residual benefit. Steam was hereditary, and often everyone in the target’s family had at least a little.
7
While most of the True Knot waited in a pleasantly shady rest area forty miles east of Council Bluffs, the RVs containing the three finders turned around, left the turnpike at Adair, and headed north. Once away from I-80 and out in the toolies, they spread apart and begin working the grid of graveled, well-maintained farm roads that parceled this part of Iowa into big squares. Moving in on the ping from different directions. Triangulating.
It got stronger . . . a little stronger still . . . then leveled off. Good steam but not great steam. Ah, well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
8
Bradley Trevor had been given the day off from his usual farm chores to practice with the local Little League All-Star team. If his pa had refused him this, the coach probably would have led the rest of the boys in a lynch party, because Brad was the team’s best hitter. You wouldn’t think it to look at him—he was skinny as a rake handle, and only eleven—but he was able to tag even the District’s best pitchers for singles and doubles. The meatballers he almost always took deep. Some of it was plain farmboy strength, but by no means all of it. Brad just seemed to know what pitch was coming next. It wasn’t a case of stealing signs (a possibility upon which some of the other District coaches had speculated darkly). He just knew. The way he knew the best location for a new stock well, or where the occasional lost cow had gotten off to, or where Ma’s engagement ring was the time she’d lost it. Look under the floormat of the Suburban, he’d said, and there it was.
That day’s practice was an especially good one, but Brad seemed lost in the ozone during the debriefing afterward, and declined to take a soda from the tub filled with ice when it was offered. He said he thought he better get home and help his ma take in the clothes.
“Is it gonna rain?” Micah Johnson, the coach, asked. They’d all come to trust him on such things.
“Dunno,” Brad said listlessly.
“You feel okay, son? You look a little peaked.”
In fact, Brad didn’t feel well, had gotten up that morning headachey and a bit feverish. That wasn’t why he wanted to go home now, though; he just had a strong sense that he no longer wanted to be at the baseball field. His mind didn’t seem . . .