The Long Walk

looked around himself, getting a superior, lonely kind of gratification from knowing he was one of the few fully awake and aware. It was definitely lighter now, light enough to make out snatches of features in the walking silhouettes. Baker was up ahead—he could tell it was him by the flapping red-striped shirt—and McVries was behind him. He saw Olson was off to the left, keeping pace with the halftrack, and was surprised. He was sure that Olson had been one of those to get tickets during the small hours of the morning, and had been relieved that he hadn’t had to see Hank go down. It was too dark even now to see how he looked, but Olson’s head was bouncing up and down in time to his stride like the head of a rag doll.
    Percy, whose mom kept showing up, was back by Stebbins now. Percy was walking with a kind of lopsided roll, like a long-time sailor on his first day ashore. He also spotted Gribble, Harkness, Wyman, and Collie Parker. Most of the people he knew were still in it.
    By four o’clock there was a brightening band on the horizon, and Garraty felt his spirits lift. He stared back at the long tunnel of the night in actual horror, and wondered how he ever could have gotten through it.
    He stepped up his pace a little, approaching McVries, who was walking with his chin against his breast, his eyes half-open but glazed and vacant, more asleep than awake. A thin, delicate cord of saliva hung from the corner of his mouth, picking up the first tremulous touch of dawn with pearly, beautiful fidelity. Garraty stared at this strange phenomenon, fascinated. He didn’t want to wake McVries out of his doze. For the time being it was enough to be close to someone he liked, someone else who had made it through the night.
    They passed a rocky, steeply slanting meadow where five cows stood gravely at a bark-peeled pole fence, staring out at the Walkers and chewing thoughtfully. A small dog tore out of a farmyard and barked at them ratchetingly. The soldiers on the halftrack raised their guns to high post, ready to shoot the animal if he interfered with any Walker ’s progress, but the dog only chased back and forth along the shoulder, bravely voicing defiance and territoriality from a safe distance. Someone yelled thickly at him to shut up, goddammit.
    Garraty became entranced with the coming dawn. He watched as the sky and the land lightened by degrees. He watched the white band on the horizon deepen a delicate pink, then red, then gold. The guns roared once more before the last of the night was finally banished, but Garraty barely heard. The first red arc of sun was peering over the horizon, faded behind a fluff of cloud, then came again in an onslaught. It looked to be a perfect day, and Garraty greeted it only half-coherently by thinking: Thank God I can die in the daylight.
    A bird twitted sleepily. They passed another farmhouse where a man with a beard waved at them after putting down a wheelbarrow filled with hoes, rakes, and planting-seed.
    A crow cawed raucously off in the shadowy woods. The first heat of the day touched Garraty’s face gently, and he welcomed it. He grinned and yelled loudly for a canteen.
    McVries twitched his head oddly, like a dog interrupted in a dream of cat-chasing, and then looked around with muddy eyes. “My God, daylight. Daylight, Garraty. What time?”
    Garraty looked at his watch and was surprised to find it was quarter of five. He showed McVries the dial.
    “How many miles? Any idea?”
    “About eighty, I make it. And twenty-seven down. We’re a quarter of the way home, Pete.”
    “Yeah.” McVries smiled. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
    “Damn right.”
    “You feel better?” Garraty asked.
    “About one thousand per cent.”
    “So do I. I think it’s the daylight.”
    “My God, I bet we see some people today. Did you read that article in World’s Week about the Long Walk?”
    “Skimmed it,” Garraty said. “Mostly to see my name in print.”
    “Said that over two billion dollars gets bet on the Long Walk every year. Two billion !”
    Baker had awakened from his own doze and had joined them. “We used to have a pool in my high school,” he said. “Everybody’d kick in a quarter, and then we’d each pick a three-digit number out of a hat. And the guy holding the number closest to the last mile of the Walk, he got the money.”
    “Olson!” McVries yelled over cheerily. “Just think of all the cash riding on you, boy! Think of the people with a bundle