فصل 03 - بخش 11

3

The path up the bluff was treacherous in the dark, even with the help of the flashlight, and Jack took his time. He had enough problems without falling and breaking something. By the time he got to his lookout point, the first hesitant light was starting to seep into the sky. He shone his flash on the pitchfork he’d left behind the day before, started to reach for it, then recoiled. He hoped this wasn’t an omen of how the rest of his day was going to go, but the situation had its irony, and even in his current situation, Jack could appreciate it.

He had brought the pitchfork to guard against snakes, and now one was lying beside and partly on top of it. It was a rattlesnake, and not a little one; this was a real monster. He couldn’t shoot it, a bullet might only wound the goddam thing, in which case it would probably strike at him, and he was wearing sneakers, having neglected to buy boots in Tippit. Also, there was the potential for a ricochet that might do him serious damage.

He held his rifle by the end of its stock, slowly extending the barrel as far as he could. He got it under the dozing rattler and flipped it high over his shoulder before it could slither away. The ugly bastard landed on the path twenty feet behind him, coiled, and began sounding off, a noise like beads being shaken in a dry gourd. Jack snatched up the pitchfork, took a step forward, and jabbed at it. That rattler slithered into a crack between two leaning boulders and was gone.

‘That’s right,’ Jack said. ‘And don’t come back. This is my place.’

He lay down and peered through the scope. There was the parking lot with its ghostly yellow lines; there was the decaying gift shop; there was the boarded-up cave entrance, the sign over it faded but still legible: WELCOME TO THE MARYSVILLE HOLE.

Nothing to do now but wait. Jack settled in to do it.