The Talisman

exit ramp, he usually saw the next car pulling off to the side ten or fifteen minutes after he stuck his thumb into the air. Now he was somewhere near Batavia, way over in the western part of New York State, walking backward down the breakdown lane of I-90, his thumb out again, working his way toward Buffalo – after Buffalo, he would start to swing south. It was a matter, Jack thought, of working out the best way to accomplish something and then just doing it. Rand McNally and the Story had gotten him this far; all he needed was enough luck to find a driver going all the way to Chicago or Denver (or Los Angeles, if we’re going to daydream about luck, Jacky-baby), and he could be on his way home again before the middle of October.
    He was suntanned, he had fifteen dollars in his pocket from his last job – dishwasher at the Golden Spoon Diner in Auburn – and his muscles felt stretched and toughened. Though sometimes he wanted to cry, he had not given in to his tears since that first miserable night. He was in control, that was the difference. Now that he knew how to proceed, had worked it out so painstakingly, he was on top of what was happening to him; he thought he could see the end of his journey already, though it was so far ahead of him. If he travelled mainly in this world, as Speedy had told him, he could move as quickly as he had to and get back to New Hampshire with the Talisman in plenty of time. It was going to work, and he was going to have many fewer problems than he had expected.
    That, at least, was what Jack Sawyer was imagining as a dusty blue Ford Fairlane swerved off to the shoulder of the road and waited for him to run up to it, squinting into the lowering sun. Thirty or forty miles , he thought to himself.
    He pictured the page from Rand McNally he had studied that morning, and decided: Oatley . It sounded dull, small, and safe – he was on his way, and nothing could hurt him now.
    2
    Jack bent down and looked in the window before opening the Fairlane’s door. Fat sample books and printed fliers lay messily over the back seat; two oversize briefcases occupied the passenger seat. The slightly paunchy black-haired man who now seemed almost to be mimicking Jack’s posture, bending over the wheel and peering through the open window at the boy, was a salesman. The jacket to his blue suit hung from the hook behind him; his tie was at half-mast, his sleeves were rolled. A salesman in his mid-thirties, tooling comfortably through his territory. He would love to talk, like all salesmen. The man smiled at him and picked up first one of the outsize briefcases, hoisting it over the top of the seat and onto the litter of papers behind, then the other. ‘Let’s create a little room,’ he said.
    Jack knew that the first thing the man would ask him was why he was not at school.
    He opened the door, said, ‘Hey, thanks,’ and climbed in.
    ‘Going far?’ the salesman asked, checking the rear-view mirror as he slid the gear-lever down into Drive and swung back out onto the road.
    ‘Oatley,’ Jack said. ‘I think it’s about thirty miles.’
    ‘You just flunked geography,’ the salesman said. ‘Oatley’s more like forty-five miles.’ He turned his head to look at Jack, and surprised the boy by winking at him. ‘No offense,’ he said, ‘but I hate to see young kids hitching. That’s why I always pick em up when I see em. At least I know they’re safe with me. No touchie-feelie, know what I mean? Too many crazies out there, kid. You read the papers? I mean, I’m talking carnivores. You could turn yourself into an endangered species.’
    ‘I guess you’re right,’ Jack said. ‘But I try to be pretty careful.’
    ‘You live somewhere back there, I take it?’
    The man was still looking straight at him, snatching little birdlike peeks ahead down the road, and Jack frantically searched his memory for the name of a town back down the road. ‘Palmyra. I’m from Palmyra.’
    The salesman nodded, said, ‘Nice enough old place,’ and turned back to the highway. Jack relaxed back into the comfortable plush of the seat. Then the man finally said, ‘I guess you’re not actually playing hooky, are you?’ and it was time yet again for the Story.
    He had told it so often, varying the names of the towns involved as he worked westward, that it had a slick, monologue-like feel in his mouth. ‘No, sir. It’s just that I have to go over to Oatley to live with my Aunt Helen for a little while.