The Interlopers - 12 by Hamilton Donald

Author:Hamilton, Donald [Hamilton, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

25 INLAND, IT WAS A FANTASTIC country. The stuff along the coast was picturesque enough, but I was brought up on mountain scenery, and it takes a lot of rock to impress me. The real experience for me came when I climbed out of the coastal cliffs and canyons and topped out on the endless roof of the world, bright in fall colors. I’d seen something like it once before, in northern Europe at the same time of the year, but that kind of landscape doesn’t grow old very fast. The road was just as lousy as I’d been promised it would be, making the total impression even more memorable. There’s something kind of insulating about asphalt and concrete. In order to appreciate a country fully, you’ve got to dodge the rocks, smash into the potholes, weave along the ruts, splash through the puddles, and taste the high-flung mud blown in through the open window…. My next-and last, thank God-pickup wasn’t scheduled until early this evening, at the final border crossing at a small town called Beaver Creek, only some three hundred miles ahead. It was still early. I had plenty of time to make it if I didn’t get in a hurry and break something, so I just cruised easily along the twisting gravel road-gravel, in that part of the world, means anything from chicken-gravel to head-sized boulders-across the gaudy tundra, if that’s the proper term for the terrain I was viewing. There was no human habitation and no traffic for a good many miles beyond the border. Then I passed a single car, a fellow straggler from the bunch off the morning’s ferry, judging by the shiny paint and the California plates. It was a big new Lincoln carrying a middle-aged couple obviously reluctant to get their expensive sedan bent or dirty; the man was driving very cautiously, picking his way along the rugged road like a lady trying to cross a wet street late at night without ruining her party shoes. Five miles farther on, I saw another vehicle approaching from ahead. As it drew closer, I realized that I knew it, even though it was going the wrong way and had got pretty muddy since I’d seen it last. It was the lab truck, as young Smith had called it. It was heading back toward Haines for some reason, and the boys weren’t sparing it a thing the road could dish out. They were really coming, hammering over the washboards and sliding through the curves. As they neared me, I pulled over to give them plenty of room, since they didn’t seem to have the situation altogether under control. The man at the wheel-whichever one of them it was-flashed his headlights at me and slammed on his brakes. He skidded to a halt well beyond me as, in answer to his signal, I stopped my rig more sedately on the other side of the road. It seemed like a hell of a place for a conference,

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