He turned around, trying to control his gorge. He almost had it, too, but then Benny threw up—a big wet yurp sound—and Norrie followed suit. Joe gave in and joined the club.
When they were under control again, Joe unslung his backpack, took out the bottles of Snapple, and handed them around. He used the first mouthful to rinse with, and spat it out. Norrie and Benny did the same. Then they drank. The sweet tea was warm, but it still felt like heaven on Joe's raw throat.
Norrie took two cautious steps toward the black, fly-buzzing heap: at the foot of the phone pole. 'Like the deer,' she said. 'Poor guy (jlidn't have any riverbank to jump over, so he beat his brains out on a phone-pole.'
'Maybe it had rabies,' Benny said in a thin voice. 'Maybe the deer I did, too.'
Joe guessed that was a technical possibility, but he didn't believe it. 'I've been thinking about this suicide thing.' He hated the tremble he heard in his voice, but couldn't seem to do anything about it. 'Whales and dolphins do it—they beach themselves, I've seen it on TV. And my dad says octopuses do it.'
'Pi,' Norrie said. 'Octopi.'
'Whatever. My dad said when their environment gets polluted, they I eat off their own tentacles.'
'Dude, do you want me to throw up again?' Benny asked. He sounded querulous and tired.
'Is that—what's going on here?' Norrie asked. 'The environment's polluted?'
Joe glanced up at the yellowish sky. Then he pointed southwest, where a hanging black residue from the fire started by the missile strike discolored the air. The smutch looked to be two or three hundred feet high and a mile across. Maybe more.
'Yes,' she said, 'but that's different. Isn't it?'
Joe shrugged.
'If we're gonna feel a sudden urge to kill ourselves, maybe we should go back,' Benny said. 'I got a lot to live for. I still haven't been able to beat Warhammer!
'Try the Geiger counter on the bear,' Norrie said.
Joe held the sensor tube out toward the bear's carcass. The needle didn't drop, but it didn't rise either.
Norrie pointed east. Ahead of them, the road emerged from the thick band of black oak that gave the ridge its name. Once they were out of the trees, Joe thought they'd be able to see the apple orchard at the top.
'Let's at least keep going until we're out of the trees,' she said, 'We'll take a reading from there, and if it's still going up, we'll head back to town and tell Dr Everett or that guy Barbara or both of them. Let them figure it out.'
Benny looked doubtful. 'I don't know.'
'If we feel anything weird, we'll turn back right away'Joe said.
'If it might help, we should do it,' Norrie said. 'I want to get out of The Mill before I go completely stir-crazy'
She smiled to show this was a joke, but it didn't sound like a joke, and Joe didn't take it as one. Lots of people kidded about what a small burg The Mill was—it was probably why the James McMurtry song had been so popular—and it was, intellectually speaking, he supposed. Demographically, too. He could think of only one Asian American—Pamela Chen, who sometimes helped Lissa Jamieson out at the library—and there were no black people at all since the Laverty family had moved to Auburn. There was no McDonald's, let alone a Starbucks, and the movie theater was closed down. But until now it had always felt geographically big to him, with plenty of room to roam. It was amazing how much it shrank in his mind once he realized that he and his mom and dad couldn't just pile into the family car and drive to Lewiston for fried clams and ice cream at Yoder's. Also, the town had plenty of resources, but they wouldn't last forever.
'You're right,' he said. 'It's important. Worth the risk. At least I think so. You can stay here if you want to, Benny. This part of the mission is strictly volunteer.'
'No, I'm in,' Benny said. 'If I let you guys go without me, you'd rank fne to the dogs and back.'
'You're already there!' Joe and Norrie yelled in unison, then looked at each other and laughed.
17
'That's right, cry!'
The voice was coming from far away. Barbie struggled toward it, but it was hard to open his burning eyes.
'You've got a lot to cry about!'
The person making these declarations sounded like he was crying himself. And the voice was familiar. Barbie tried to see, but his lids felt swollen and heavy. The eyes beneath were pulsing with his heartbeat. His sinuses were so full his ears crackled when he swallowed.
'Why did you kill her? Why did you kill my baby?'
Some sonofabitch Maced me, Denton? No, Randolph.
Barbie managed to open his eyes by placing the heels of his hands over his eyebrows and shoving upward. He saw Andy Sanders standing outside the cell with tears rolling down his cheeks. And what was Sanders seeing? A guy in a cell, and a guy in a cell always looked guilty.
Sanders screamed, 'She was all I had!'
