better. Hillman knew it like the back of his hand; by comparison, Butch Dugan had a general working knowledge of the area, no more.
They went from the turnpike to Route 69; from 69 to two-lane blacktop; then to gravel in western Troy; then to hardpan; then to rutted dirt with grass growing up the middle; finally to an overgrown logging track that looked as if it might have last been seriously used around 1950.
'Do you know where the fuck you're going?' Butch shouted as the Cherokee crashed through rotted corduroy, then hauled itself out, engine howling, all four wheels spinning up mud and chewed splinters.
Ev only nodded. He clung to the Cherokee's big wheel like an old, balding monkey.
One woods road led into another, and finally they crashed out of a scree of foliage and onto a dirt road Butch recognized as Albion Town Road No. 5. Butch had thought it impossible, but the old man had done exactly what he promised: brought them all the way around Haven without ever once going in.
Now Ev brought the Cherokee to a stop just a hundred feet short of the marker announcing the Haven town line. He turned off the engine and unrolled his window. There was no sound but the tick of the engine. There was no birdsong, and Butch thought this odd.
'What's in that gunnysack back there?' Butch asked.
'All kinds of things. No need to worry about it now.'
'What are you waiting for?'
'Churchbells,' Ev said.
3
It was not the Methodist churchbells that Ev had grown up with and expected which rang out at a quarter to ten, calling Ruth's mourners - both the real ones and those prepared to shed copious floods of crocodile tears - to the Methodist church, where the first act of the three-act festivities was to be played out (Act II: Graveside Ceremonies; Act Ill: Refreshments in the Town Library).
Reverend Goohringer, a shy man who usually had not the fortitude to say boo to a goose, had gone around town a few weeks ago telling people he was getting damned tired of all that gonging.
'Then why don't you do something about it, Gooey?' Pamela Sargent asked him.
Rev. Lester Goohringer had never been called 'Gooey' in his entire life, but in his current state of rancor he barely noticed.
'Maybe I will,' he said, looking at her through his thick glasses grimly. 'Just maybe I will.'
'Got any ideas?'
'I might,' he said slyly. 'Time'll tell, won't it?'
'It always does, Gooey,' she said. 'Always does.'
The Reverend Goohringer in fact had a fine idea about those bells - he could hardly believe it had never occurred to him before, it was so simple and beautiful. And the best thing about it was that he wouldn't have to take it up with the deacons, or with the Ladies' Aid (an organization which apparently only attracted two types of women - fat slobs with boobs the size of barrels and skinny-assed, flat-chested sluts like Pamela Sargent, with her fake ivory cigarette holder and her raspy smoker's cough), or with the few well-to-do members of his congregation ... going to them always gave him a week's worth of acid indigestion. He did not like to beg. No, this was something the Rev. Lester Goohringer could do all by himself, and so he did it. Fuck 'em all if they couldn't take a joke.
'And if you ever call me Gooey again, Pam,' he had whispered as he rewired the fuse box in the church basement so it could handle the heavy voltage his idea would require, 'I'll jam the plumber's friend in the parsonage pissoir up your twat and plunge out your brains ... if you haven't pissed 'em all away.'
He cackled and went on rewiring. Rev. Lester Goohringer had never had such blunt thoughts or said such blunt things in his life, and he found the experience liberating and exhilarating. He was, in fact, prepared to tell anyone in Haven who didn't like his new carillon that they could take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.
But everyone in town had thought the change nothing short of magnificent. It was, too. And today the Rev. Goohringer felt a real heart-swell of pride as he flicked the new switch in the vestry and the sound of the bells floated out over Haven, playing a medley of hymns. The carillon was programmable, and today Lester Goohringer plugged in the hymns which had been particular favorites of Ruth's. They included such old Methodist and Baptist standbys as 'What