The Long Walk

workshirt. Stebbins was still tailing the pack like some thin vulture, just waiting for them to fall—
    Garraty felt a wave of rage. He had a sudden urge to rush back and throttle Stebbins. There was no rhyme or reason to it, but he had to actively fight the compulsion down.
    By the time they had reached the bottom of the grade, Garraty’s legs felt rubbery and unsteady. The state of numb weariness his flesh had more or less settled into was broken by unexpected darning-needles of pain that drove through his feet and legs. threatening to make his muscles knot and cramp. And Jesus, he thought, why not? They had been on the road for twenty-two hours. Twenty-two hours of nonstop walking, it was unbelievable.
    “How do you feel now?” he asked Scramm, as if the last time he had asked him had been twelve hours ago.
    “Fit and fine,” Scramm said. He wiped the back of his hand across his nose, sniffed, and spat. “Just as fit and fine as can be.”
    “You sound like you’re getting a cold.”
    “Naw, it’s the pollen. Happens every spring. Hay fever. I even get it in Arizona. But I never catch colds.”
    Garraty opened his mouth to reply when a hollow, poom-poom sound echoed back from far ahead. It was rifle fire. The word came back. Harkness had burnt out.
    There was an odd, elevatorish sensation in Garraty’s stomach as he passed the word on back. The magic circle was broken. Harkness would never write his book about the Long Walk. Harkness was being dragged off the road someplace up ahead like a grain bag or was being tossed into a truck, wrapped securely in a canvas bodybag. For Harkness, the Long Walk was over.
    “Harkness,” McVries said. “Ol’ Harkness bought a ticket to see the farm.”
    “Why don’t you write him a poime?” Barkovitch called over.
    “Shut up, killer,” McVries answered absently. He shook his head. “Ol’ Harkness, sonofabitch.”
    “I ain’t no killer!” Barkovitch screamed. “I’ll dance on your grave, scarface! I’ll—”
    A chorus of angry shouts silenced him. Muttering, Barkovitch glared at McVries. Then he began to stalk on a little faster, not looking around.
    “You know what my uncle did?” Baker said suddenly. They were passing through a shady tunnel of overleafing trees, and Garraty was trying to forget about Harkness and Gribble and think only of the coolness.
    “What?” Abraham asked.
    “He was an undertaker,” Baker said.
    “Good deal,” Abraham said disinterestedly.
    “When I was a kid, I always used to wonder,” Baker said vaguely. He seemed to lose track of his thought, then glanced at Garraty and smiled. It was a peculiar smile. “Who’d embalm him, I mean. Like you wonder who cuts the barber’s hair or who operates on the doctor for gallstones. See?”
    “It takes a lot of gall to be a doctor,” McVries said solemnly.
    “You know what I mean.”
    “So who got the call when the time came?” Abraham asked.
    “Yeah,” Scramm added. “Who did?”
    Baker looked up at the twining, heavy branches under which they were passing, and Garraty noticed again that Baker now looked exhausted. Not that we don’t all look that way, he added to himself.
    “Come on,” McVries said. “Don’t keep us hanging. Who buried him?”
    “This is the oldest joke in the world,” Abraham said. “Baker says, whatever made you think he was dead?”
    “He is, though,” Baker said. “Lung cancer. Six years ago.”
    “Did he smoke?” Abraham asked, waving at a family of four and their cat. The cat was on a leash. It was a Persian cat. It looked mean and pissed off.
    “No, not even a pipe,” Baker said. “He was afraid it would give him cancer.”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” McVries said, “who buried him? Tell us so we can discuss world problems, or baseball, or birth control or something.”
    “I think birth control is a world problem,” Garraty said seriously. “My girlfriend is a Catholic and—”
    “Come on!” McVries bellowed. “Who the fuck buried your grandfather, Baker?”
    “My uncle. He was my uncle. My grandfather was a lawyer in Shreveport. He—”
    “I don’t give a shit,” McVries said. “I don’t give a shit if the old gentleman had three cocks, I just want to know who buried him so we can get on. ”
    “Actually, nobody buried him. He wanted to be cremated.”
    “Oh my aching balls,” Abraham said, and then laughed a little.
    “My aunt’s got his ashes in a ceramic vase. At her house in Baton Rouge. She tried