The Long Walk

or later, what’s the difference?” Scramm looked at them dumbly, then shook his head slowly from side to side. “Why’d I have to get sick? I was going good, I really was. Odds-on favorite. Even when I’m tired I like to walk. Look at folks, smell the air . . . why? Is it God? Did God do it to me?”
    “I don’t know,” Abraham said.
    Garraty felt the death-fascination coming over him again, and was repulsed. He tried to shake it off. It wasn’t fair. Not when it was a friend.
    “What time is it?” Scramm asked suddenly, and Garraty was eerily reminded of Olson.
    “Ten past ten,” Baker said.
    “Just about two hundred miles down the road,” McVries added.
    “My feet ain’t tired,” Scramm said. “That’s something.”
    A little boy was screaming lustily on the sidelines. His voice rose above the low crowd rumble by virtue of pure shrillness. “Hey Ma! Look at the big guy! Look at that moose, Ma! Hey Ma! Look!”
    Garraty’s eyes swept the crowd briefly and picked out the boy in the first row. He was wearing a Randy the Robot T-shirt and goggling around a half-eaten jam sandwich. Scramm waved at him.
    “Kids’re nice,” he said. “Yeah. I hope Cathy has a boy. We both wanted a boy. A girl would be all right, but you guys know . . . a boy . . . he keeps your name and passes it on. Not that Scramm’s such a great name.” He laughed, and Garraty thought of what Stebbins had said, about bulwarks against mortality.
    An apple-cheeked Walker in a droopy blue sweater dropped through them, bringing the word back. Mike, of Mike and Joe, the leather boys, had been struck suddenly with gut cramps.
    Scramm passed a hand across his forehead. His chest rose and fell in a spasm of heavy coughing that he somehow walked through. “Those boys are from my neck of the woods,” he said. “We all coulda come together if I’d known. They’re Hopis.”
    “Yeah,” Pearson said. “You told us.”
    Scramm looked puzzled. “Did I? Well, it don’t matter. Seems like I won’t be making the trip alone, anyway. I wonder—”
    An expression of determination settled over Scramm’s face. He began to step up his pace. Then he slowed again for a moment and turned around to face them. It seemed calm now, settled. Garraty looked at him, fascinated in spite of himself.
    “I don’t guess I’ll be seeing you guys again.” There was nothing in Scramm’s voice but simple dignity. “Goodbye.”
    McVries was the first to respond. “Goodbye, man,” he said hoarsely. “Good trip.”
    “Yeah, good luck,” Pearson said, and then looked away.
    Abraham tried to speak and couldn’t. He turned away, pale, his lips writhing.
    “Take it easy,” Baker said. His face was solemn.
    “Goodbye,” Garraty said through frozen lips. “Goodbye, Scramm, good trip, good rest.”
    “Good rest?” Scramm smiled a little. “The real Walk may still be coming.”
    He sped up until he had caught up with Mike and Joe, with their impassive faces and their worn leather jackets. Mike had not allowed the cramps to bow him over. He was walking with both hands pressed against his lower belly. His speed was constant.
    Scramm talked with them.
    They all watched. It seemed that the three of them conferred for a very long time.
    “Now what the hell are they up to?” Pearson whispered fearfully to himself.
    Suddenly the conference was over. Scramm walked a ways distant from Mike and Joe. Even from back here Garraty could hear the ragged bite of his cough. The soldiers were watching all three of them carefully. Joe put a hand on his brother ’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. They looked at each other. Garraty could discern no emotion on their bronzed faces. Then Mike hurried a little and caught up with Scramm.
    A moment later Mike and Scramm did an abrupt about-face and began to walk toward the crowd, which, sensing the sharp tang of fatality about them, shrieked, unclotted, and backed away from them as if they had the plague.
    Garraty looked at Pearson and saw his lips tighten.
    The two boys were warned, and as they reached the guardrails that bordered the road, they about-faced smartly and faced the oncoming halftrack. Two middle fingers stabbed the air in unison.
    “I fucked your mother and she sure was fine!” Scramm cried.
    Mike said something in his own language.
    A tremendous cheer went up from the Walkers, and Garraty felt weak tears beneath his eyelids. The crowd was silent. The spot behind Mike and Scramm was barren and empty.