The Talisman

directly from the Territories. He sucked in a double tablespoon of water that tasted like the best meal on earth and wound down through him like a sparkling little river, reviving everything it touched. He felt as though he were being irrigated.
    Wolf removed the cup from his lips long before Jack considered he was through with it. ‘If I give you more you’ll just sick it up,’ Wolf said. ‘Open your eyes, Jack – but only a little bit.’
    Jack followed directions. A million particles of light stormed into his eyes. He cried out.
    Wolf sat down, cradling Jack in his arms. ‘Sip,’ he said, and put the cup once more to Jack’s lips. ‘Eyes open, little more.’
    Now the sunlight hurt much less. Jack peered out through the screen of his eyelashes at a flaring dazzle while another miraculous trickle of water slipped down his throat.
    ‘Ah,’ Jack said. ‘What makes water so delicious?’
    ‘The western wind,’ Wolf promptly replied.
    Jack opened his eyes wider. The swarm and dazzle resolved into the weathered brown of the shed and the mixed green and lighter brown of the gully. His head rested against Wolf’s shoulder. The bulge of Wolf’s stomach pressed into his backbone.
    ‘Are you okay, Wolf?’ he asked. ‘Did you get enough to eat?’
    ‘Wolfs always get enough to eat,’ Wolf said simply. He patted the boy’s thigh.
    ‘Thanks for bringing me those pieces of meat.’
    ‘I promised. You were the herd. Remember?’
    ‘Oh, yes, I remember,’ Jack said. ‘Can I have some more of that water?’ He slid off Wolf’s huge lap and sat on the ground, where he could face him.
    Wolf handed him the cup. The John Lennon glasses were back; Wolf’s beard was now little more than a scurf covering his cheeks; his black hair, though still long and greasy, fell well short of his shoulders. Wolf’s face was friendly and peaceful, almost tired-looking. Over the bib overalls he wore a gray sweatshirt, about two sizes two small, with INDIANA UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT stencilled on the front.
    He looked more like an ordinary human being than at any other time since he and Jack had met. He did not look as if he could have made it through the simplest college course, but he could have been a great high-school football player.
    Jack sipped again – Wolf’s hand hovered above the rusty tin cup, ready to snatch it away if Jack gulped. ‘You’re really okay?’
    ‘Right here and now,’ Wolf said. He rubbed his other hand over his belly, so distended that it stretched the fabric at the bottom of the sweatshirt as taut as a hand would a rubber glove. ‘Just tired. Little sleep, Jack. Right here and now.’
    ‘Where’d you get the sweatshirt?’
    ‘It was hanging on a line,’ Wolf said. ‘Cold here, Jacky.’
    ‘You didn’t hurt any people, did you?’
    ‘No people. Wolf! Drink that water slow, now.’ His eyes disconcertingly shaded into happy Halloween orange for a second, and Jack saw that Wolf could never really be said to resemble an ordinary human being. Then Wolf opened his wide mouth and yawned. ‘Little sleep.’ He hitched himself into a more comfortable position on the slope and put down his head. He was almost immediately asleep.

III
    A COLLISION OF WORLDS

CHAPTER TWENTY
TAKEN BY THE LAW
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    1
    By two o’clock that afternoon they were a hundred miles west, and Jack Sawyer felt as if he too had been running with the moon – it had gone that easily. In spite of his extreme hunger, Jack sipped slowly at the water in the rusty can and waited for Wolf to awaken. Finally Wolf stirred, said, ‘Ready now, Jack,’ hitched the boy up onto his back, and trotted into Daleville.
    While Wolf sat outside on the curb and tried to look inconspicuous, Jack entered the Daleville Burger King. He made himself go first to the men’s room and strip to the waist. Even in the bathroom, the maddening smell of grilling meat caused the saliva to spill into his mouth. He washed his hands, arms, chest, face. Then he stuck his head under the tap and washed his hair with liquid soap. Crumpled paper towels fell, one after the other, to the floor.
    At last he was ready to go to the counter. The uniformed girl there stared at him while he gave his order – his wet hair, he thought. While she waited for the order to come through, the girl stepped back and leaned against the service hatch, still unabashedly looking at him.
    He was biting into the first Whopper as he turned away toward the glass doors. Juice ran