Лоуренс Блок - Random Walk - A Novel for a New Age

“I saw signs,” he said, “and then I must have missed it because the signs stopped. My kids read all her books, and of course there was the television show. I figure if I’m this close, I ought to be able to tell my daughter I saw the original little house on the prairie.”

“There are a couple of houses that she lived in,” Kimberley told him, “and pots and pans from their kitchen, and lots of great stuff. I went when I was a kid and I loved it.”

“Maybe I’ll walk with you,” he said. “Is that where you’re all headed?”

“Well, we’ll be passing through De Smet. I don’t think we’ll stop. We stopped in Huron yesterday to look at the world’s largest pheasant, but that only took a few minutes. You just stood there and looked at it.”

“How large could the world’s largest pheasant be?”

“Pretty large. I’d seen it before, of course, because we lived around here and we used to go into Huron all the time. The world’s largest pheasant is forty feet high and weighs twenty-two tons.”

“That’s a pretty big pheasant.”

“I told you. Or wait a minute, did I get that right? Maybe it’s twenty-two feet high and weighs forty tons. No, I think I had it right the first time. It’s made of steel and fiberglass.”

“No feathers?”

“No feathers. We’ll pass close to the Ingalls memorial, but I don’t think we’ll actually go in. I mean, look how many there are of us. And it’s just a little house.”

“On a prairie.”

“In town, actually. They don’t have the prairie house, but there are pictures of it. You’re welcome to walk with us, and that way you won’t miss it this time.”

They had been walking as they talked, and his car was by now quite a ways behind. But this was not unusual; every day someone walked away from a car to join them.

“Eight or ten miles,” he said. “I guess I can walk that far. And you’re going on from there? That’s a lot of walking.”

She laughed. “Some of these people have been walking all the way from Oregon.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. I wish I could have been with them all the way, but here I was in South Dakota, so I let the parade come to me. I’m Kimberley, by the way.”

“I’m Mark.”

He was surprised how much he enjoyed walking.

Of course it didn’t hurt that it was a glorious day. The sun was high and bright, but it never shined for long without interruption; just as the heat was on the verge of becoming oppressive, a cloud would interpose itself. And the wind, a steady force at his back, kept the heat from building up.

Amazing how much color the prairie had. He’d been driving through similar country for months, but when you slowed to a walk you saw the different patches of wildflowers. At highway speed the colors blurred.

Lunatics. Walking across the country, talking about miracles. This one had thrown away a pair of glasses, that one had discarded a hearing aid. Like the dimwits who made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, hobbled into the cathedral, walked out beaming, pronounced themselves cured, cast aside their crutches, and fell down a flight of stone steps. Still, they were a happy bunch, physically attractive, glowing from within. Pleasant enough to be around.

And wonderfully accepting, perfectly delighted to have him in their midst. If he was harebrained enough to walk away from his car and tag along with them to De Smet, he was obviously their kind of people.

A pretty girl, Kimberley. Young, certainly, but older than the swimmer in Pueblo, the pudgy little darling whose swimsuit wouldn’t stay up.

Kimberley was a different physical type entirely, tall and slender, one of those clear-eyed Scandinavian country girls you found all over these parts.

He reached into his pocket even as he gazed at the back of her neck. A gold chain circled her throat, but it would snap like a twig if he tried to strangle her with it. But the picture wire in his pocket, that would do the job nicely enough. He’d just have to find some way to cut her out of the herd. Then a quick silent kill and the parade could go on without her.

The tricky part would be rejoining the line of march himself, so that he could select his next target.

Within the hour he got her off by herself.

She had been sharing her water with him, and it was almost gone. She spotted a farmhouse and said she wanted to refill her container from their pump. He said he’d go with her. She offered no objection, and no one volunteered to join them.

Up a straight gravel road to the white clapboard farmhouse. She rang the bell and no one responded to it. “Let’s see,” she said. “They won’t miss the water, but where do you suppose the pump is?”

She looked for it and he stayed at her side, his hand in his pocket, fingering the length of picture wire. Or should he use his hands? God, she was nice. He’d get her from behind, press up against her, let her bottom rub against him as she fought…

She had found the pump and was working its handle. Water spurted forth. She caught some in one cupped hand, lapped it up. “It’s good,” she announced. “Not sulphury. Drink, I’ll pump.”

She worked the pump handle. Now, he thought, willing his hands to reach for her.

But first he’d have a drink. He bent over, put his mouth to the faucet, let her pump the cold well water for him. He drank deeply, water splashing all over his face and onto his shirt. Then he stood up, and it was his turn to pump for her. She held her hair out of the way but made no effort to keep the water from soaking her face and chest as she drank. She stood up at last, laughing, her T-shirt clinging to her body, her nipples clearly visible through the wet cotton.

“Gosh, look at me,” she said. Then her eyes caught his. “Uh, I guess you are looking at me, aren’t you?”

“I was just noticing that,” he said, pointing to the crystal suspended from the gold chain.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” She held it out, displaying it to him. “Gary gave it to me last night.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

She laughed. “No, it was just, well, a gift. Somebody gave it to him and he gave it to me and I guess in a couple of days it’ll be time for me to give it to somebody else. He said it gets stronger every time you pass it on.”

“It gets stronger?”

“I’m not sure what that means. I asked him if he was sure he didn’t want to keep it, and he said you had to give it away in order to keep it, and I don’t know what that means, either.”

Kimberley is your sister.

He thought for a moment that the words had been spoken aloud. But only he had heard them. A voice in his head, then. And a meaningless one at that. He had no brothers or sisters. Anyway, Kimberley was young enough to be his daughter.

She said, “Mark? You want to pump some more and I’ll hold the bottle?”

He worked the handle. She held the container, an empty plastic bottle that had originally held a diet soft drink, and capped it when it was full.

The pump handle was a bar of white metal a foot and a half long. It was removable, and it would do if he wanted to knock her out. But he didn’t have to knock her out.

“Kimberley? Hold still a minute.”

She did just that while he moved to stand behind her. His hands settled themselves on either side of her neck.

“Oh, great,” she said. “How did you know I needed a neck rub?”

And his hands, as if with a will of their own, began to knead her trapezius muscles, his fingers going right to the tight spots and working at them. She made appreciative noises while he massaged her gently but firmly for several minutes. Then, with a sigh, she straightened up. “We’d better get going,” she said, “if we want to catch up with the others.”