Chapter Three

   UPMAN brought the Mustang in tow to the small unincorporated settlement of Weathervane, consisting of a petrol pump, a garage and an inn. While the car was gone over inside and out, Chris (his stomach having somewhat recovered) entered the I Know You—that being the name of the inn—and enquired for food. A beef sandwich was shortly placed before him, and while he attacked it a man on the end stool at the bar began chatting with him. This person, rather elderly and possessed of a bulbous nose and white chin whiskers, was the only other customer. He introduced himself as Guy Wise, a retired real estate operator who lived in Carnapolis. He made as if to come closer, but Chris warned him away.

   ''Better stay where you are,'' he said. ''You might not like the breeze.''

   ''What happened to you?''

   ''You know where those roadworks are back there by Stuck Creek?''

   ''Don't tell me you tried to ford it?''

   Chris nodded. ''My car's across the street getting fixed. Now if I can just find someone to fix me up.''

   ''Son, what made you try it?''

   ''Various reasons. Mainly, I've got this ache, this

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funny pressure on my back, and I'm on my way to get some help for it.''

   ''Man, what you need is a drink. Give this friend of mine something,'' said Wise to the bartender, but Chris waved him away. ''Where,'' the man pursued, ''do you reckon to get rid of your trouble? You won't find any back specialists around here. I know some good ones in Carnapolis, though.''

   ''There are specialists in Doomsdale too, but I think I have a better lead,'' said Chris. ''There's a man up at that transmitter who's supposed to know the answers.''

   Guy Wise put down his glass. ''What idiot told you that?'' he asked.

   ''Fellow named van Gelst. I have his card here.''

   ''I thought so.'' The older man's nostrils twitched as he caught the aroma from Chris sleeve. ''Listen to me! That fellow has stirred up more trouble in these parts than anyone I know. They ought to lock him up. He goes around the area giving crazy advice to strangers and getting them into one jam after another. Look at your gear! You can thank him for that. You keep on listening to him and you're in for a batch.''

   ''Well,'' said Chris, chewing thoughtfully, ''I don't know that I can blame him for what happened back there. It was my own carelessness.''

   ''Son,'' said Guy Wise, ''don't take offence. You don't know me, but I'm older than you are and I've lived around these parts all my life. This fellow is just no good. Forget about him. Go on back home. Where

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you from, Doomsdale? I thought so. That's a nice town; I own a piece of property over there. Still travel that way once in a while. Fact is, I came through there this morning. A real pretty place, with shady trees and all. But if I told you what lies ahead of you out this way—if I told you what I know about that transmitter crowd—well, you wouldn't—''

   '' I really don't care, Mr. Wise,'' said Chris as he pointed to a piece of pie. ''This thing with my back is worse than all the trouble you can talk about, as far as I'm concerned, and I'll do anything—I mean anything—to get rid of it.''

   ''How long have you had it?''

   ''Well, to be honest, it started one day last week while I was trying to do some reading."

   "Uh-huh. What were you reading?"

   ''The New Testament.''

   ''There you go. I thought so. One of those there psychosomatic ailments that start in a man's mind.''

   ''It doesn't hurt any less because of that.''

   ''Don't suppose it does.'' Guy Wise took a card out of his wallet and began writing on it. ''Tell you what you do, Anders. You make a left turn fifty yards down the road here, and go on up the hill a spell till you come to a village called Upper Striving. Got that? There's a psychologist there who happens to be my next door neighbour in Carnapolis, but he keeps office hours in this village. This man, I mean, he knows just about everything. I figure he can pinpoint your back business better than any specialist could ever do. He talks to me a lot about things. I'm just

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kind of an amateur, see, but you sound like a textbook case to me. It may take a little time, but he'll clear you out of that pain and send you home so good you'll wonder why you ever left. You take this card and forget van what's-his-name. I can tell you right now, I've been over to that transmitter and they don't know anything. They don't know which way is up.''

   ''A headshrinker? What's his name?''

   ''Doctor Leigel. He's no phony, Anders. He took his clinical training in Vienna. He's real big-time, but like I say, he prefers to operate in this little town. I sold him the building, and you'll find it right on the main street. What more could you ask for?''

   ''I'll buy,'' said Chris. ''He sounds good.''

   ''You sure can't go wrong,'' said Guy Wise, emptying the bottle into his glass. ''There's a motel on the edge of town, and a men's wear store near the traffic lights. You go up a hill to get there, but you won't have any trouble. What you might do, if your car's ready, is stay there tonight and look him up in the morning. Use that card. If the receptionist knows that Guy Wise sent you, she'll let you go right in.''

   But as it turned out, Chris never did make it. He finally took delivery of the car in the late afternoon, started out, made the left turn, and headed up the hill. But before he had gone half a mile a sign appeared saying SLIDE AREA. To his consternation he came to a section covered with stones which had washed down the steep cut during the cloudburst of the night before. He picked his way among them for a few hundred yards, until he had to stop the car to move the larger

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rocks out of his path. As he proceeded, the profusion of debris became thicker and he noticed, as he got in and out of the car that gashes were beginning to appear on his tyres. To add to his predicament, he suddenly rounded a bend to encounter a brush fire blazing on the lower slope. The smoke blew directly across the road, cutting off his view. Chris decided to turn around and was backing and filling in the narrow space when another car loomed through the smoke behind him and nearly ran into him. The driver after sounding his horn, quickly stopped and got out, and Chris saw to his embarrassment that the car was a Chevelle and the man coming toward him none other than Ernie van Gelst.

   ''Anders,'' he said, ''what in the world are you doing up here?''

   Chris grimaced  as he pulled on the wheel. ''I have an appointment to see a doctor in Upper Striving,'' he said, ''and I'm about to break it.''

   ''But I sent you to the transmitter. How did you get on this road in the first place?''

   Chris stopped tugging at the wheel and leaned back. ''If you must know,'' he said, ''I had some car trouble. While I was waiting to have it fixed at the garage back there, I stopped in at the bar across the street, and some old man sitting there told me about a Doctor Liegel who was a specialist in psychosomatic back problems like mine. So I figured, what could I lose?''

   ''My friend,'' said van Gelst, ''you lost just about everything. What was this man's name?''

   ''Guy Wise. He says he knows you.''

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   ''Does he, now? What did he say about me?''

   Chris stared straight ahead. ''He said you were a kind of religious fanatic who went all over the area giving bad advice to strangers, and that you ought to be put away somewhere. He said he had been up to the transmitter and that they didn't know which way was up.''

   Van Gelst walked around in front of the Mustang and began pushing away stones with his foot. ''Let's get these cars turned around,'' he said, ''and then I'd like to spend some time with you.''

   They manoevred their cars back away from the fire and came slowly down the hill until visibility cleared and the rocks were less menacing. Here they pulled into a turning and Van Gelst came over and sat beside Chris.

   ''Anders,'' he asked, ''why did you leave Doomsdale?''

   ''Well,'' said Chris. ''I thought I had a purpose when I left, right now I could probably be persuaded into admitting I ran out.''

   ''But you had this physical problem, you said.''

   ''Still have it.''

   ''What else troubled you?''

   ''The state of the world. I figure now it's only a matter of hours before the big bombs start dropping that'll put an end to us.''

   ''But other people were disturbed, and they didn't leave.''

   Chris fidgeted with the steering wheel. ''I guess I meant to look for something. Or someone.''

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   ''God?''

   ''Well, yes, in a way.''

How can you explain to someone you don't know that you're sick and tired of yourself and have been for forty-three years How do you say I came to the end of the line and didn't care about anyone or anything Just wanted to opt out and go look for whoever started it all and try to find out what went wrong I give up I cant explain anything. . . .

   ''Are you still looking for Him?'' Chris did not answer.

   ''Do you believe God can help you?'' persisted Van Gelst.

   Chris stuck out his lower lip. ''I believe only the Lord can straighten out this fouled-up world situation.''

   ''And will He?''

   ''Why—''

   ''I'm going to put it to you straight, Anders,'' said Van Gelst. ''Your problem is not the world, it's you, and you know it. But you've just about hamstrung yourself. The advice you followed was all bad. And yet this fellow Guy Wise is not an unpleasant person. I know him. I believe he attends a church over in Struggletown, which isn't far from Carnapolis. But he did three things that came close to finishing you off.''

   ''What three things?'' asked Chris, suddenly feeling very tired.

   ''First of all, he got you off the right road. When a man is on the kind of journey you're on, it's sudden death to sidetrack him. The search requires everything

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thing he has, it calls up every cell in his body. If he turns off to one side or the other, it's fatal. Second, he sent you on the wrong road. He directed you to Doctor Leigel and told you he could handle your case. Leigel is a quack. He wasn't trained in Vienna. He isn't a clinical psychologist. He has a few analytic techniques that he learned from a book and applies woodenly to every one who comes to him. He says, 'Follow my rules and you'll be cured.' He hardly looks at his patients. Never in a thousand years will he get that trouble out of your back, because what you've got, according to the book in my hand, is not something even good psychology or psychiatry can treat. You have a spiritual sickness.

   ''Now Liegel will tell you differently. He'll try to make it sound as if you have a psychosomatic condition, and he'll say, 'Your pain is caused by a guilt feeling. You need to give yourself an outlet.' He's right that your pain is related to a sense of guilt, but he's wrong in thinking you can shrug it off. That only makes it worse. Liegel likes to tell his people, 'Get rid of your inhibitions and you'll feel better.' That's not true. It's the worse legalism of all, because it has no morals.''

   ''I know it's a lie,'' said Chris, ''because I've tried it. If that's all that doctor has to offer, I nearly killed myself for nothing.''

   ''What you ran into on the road to Upper Striving,'' said Van Gelst, ''was what every man runs into when he sets out to solve his problems by himself. They used to call it boot-strap religion, and it has never worked

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and never will. The only way to God is the way God Himself has made. And that's the third mistake your friend Guy Wise made.''

   ''What was that?''

   ''He ignored the directions.''

   ''What directions?''

   ''God's directions.''

   ''But we never even talked about God.''

   ''Exactly.''

   ''He said he could help me get fixed up so I could go back to my family in Doomsdale.''

   ''And he lied. Let me read you something: 'No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.' You see, you're not just on another experimental project, Anders. The computers will never get this programme. This one is for keeps.''

   ''Yeah, Well, maybe I'm not ready for keeps. I'm married, you know. I've got a wife and four boys back there.''

   ''They haven't been forgotten.''

   ''You bet they haven't. I know everybody thinks I ditched my family, but that wasn't the idea at all. What I told Eileen was, I wanted to get away and get some help. It sounds crazy, now I think of it, but at the time I had been reading the Bible, and then there was all the war business. I guess it made me panic. You just try living with this thing on your back and see how you react!"

   "Look, if you will just turn left up here at the intersection—''

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   ''I'm sick of the driving conditions around here. No matter which way I turn, I'm in trouble. I think maybe I just ought to go back and see how they're getting along, and then try to get some help in Doomsdale. It was probably a mistake to leave. There must be somebody there who can feed me a pill that will give me some relief.''

   ''You forget, you tried there.''

   ''Well, at least I can get cleaned up. I can't stand the smell of myself.'' He turned the key and started up his engine, but Van Gelst reached over and quietly shut it off.

   ''I know why you want to go back,'' he said. ''You're not kidding anyone.''

   ''What do you mean, you know? I don't know myself.''

   ''You've got some problems there that won't leave you alone. But I can tell that you're in no shape to handle them, Anders. You'll just stir up the mud."

   ''Yeah? You seem to know a lot."

   Van Gelst grinned. "Your friend Guy Wise was right, you need to get yourself fixed up. But don't listen to him—don't listen to anybody. Just keep going the way you started."

   "When do I head back to Doomsdale? then?"

   ''Forget about Doomsdale." Van Gelst's expression changed. "Forget about everything except this. Man, you're blind; and the Bible says when one blind man tries to lead another, they both end up in the ditch."

   ''You mean forget about my wife and the boys? What kind of monster are you?"

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   "Naturally I didn't mean forget them. Look, would you like to get rid of that back pressure for good and all? Would you like something that will make a new man of you? I'm talking about today."

   Chris looked sideways at him. "You gave me that sweet talk before," he said.

   "But you got off the road. You have to follow the directions and watch where you're going. That's basic."

   "OK, let's have it once more. Slower this time."

   "Right. You go back to Weathervane, get on the main country road and follow it across the valley and up the hill. When you come to the summit there's a radio transmitter. The call sign is WEAL. Right below the tower you'll see the transmitter station. There's an engineer on duty there, his name is Colonel Goodall. You tell him who you are and why you've come. Got it?"

   "I think so. Has he got a shower?"

   "Yes." He offered his hand. "God in your heart."

   Van Gelst went back to his Chevelle, and Chris once again put his Mustang on the road, muttering to himself, "So help me, if anybody else tries to take me up the garden path. . . ."

   And they did try. When he stopped at Weathervane, there was Guy Wise standing in front of the I Know You, watching for him and hollering as he swung to the left and moved down the country road. A mile farther along a car was stranded on the opposite shoulder, its bonnet up, and a man stood there waving. This time Chris slowed down.

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   "I just need a little push," the man said. "I'm trying to get to Doomsdale."

   "Get in," said Chris. ''I'll run you back to the garage."

   ''How far is it?''

   "A mile or so.''

   "No, no, I mean, how far is it to Doomsdale?"

   "Oh, maybe twenty-five miles. That's my town—or it was."

   The man's face came alive. "Say,'' he said, ''would you tow me there? I'll pay you whatever you ask. Fifty bucks? Look, I've got a good towrope in the boot."

   "You don't want the garage?" asked Chris.

   "No, I'm late for an appointment. But I really will—''

   Chris moved the stick in to D. "Sorry,'' he said. "I'm a little late myself." He sped across the valley and began climbing the hill where the tower was now clearly visible, its warning light flashing. Dusk seemed to be settling fast; a mist came up from the lowlands and obscured the summit as he reached it. However, his directions were accurate; the car turned in through a grove of trees and headed up to a low building below the transmitter, marked only by the letters above the door, WEAL.

   As Chris began to slow down there was a sudden violent clap of thunder and immediately a tattoo began beating on the roof of the car. Hail almost the size of mothballs was now falling and clattering around him. He pulled on the brake, leaped out into the pelting storm and made a dash for the doorway.

Chapter Four  ||  Table of Contents