Jack L. Chalker - Dancing Gods 1 - The River of the Dance

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CHAPTER I

ENCOUNTER ON A LONELY ROAD

People taken from other universes should always be near death.

—The Books of Rules, XX, 109, 234(a)

JUST BECAUSE YOUR WHOLE LIFE IS GOING TO HELL DOESN'T

mean you have to walk there.

She was walking down a lonely stretch of west Texas free-

way in the still dark of the early morning, an area where nobody

walked and where there was no place to walk to, anyway. She

might have been hitching, or not, but a total lack of traffic

gave her very little choice there. So she was just walking,

clutching a small overnight bag and a purse that was almost

the same size, holding on to them as if they were the only two

real things in her life, they and the dark and that endless stretch

of west Texas freeway.

Whatever traffic there was seemed to be heading the other

way—an occasional car, or pickup, or eighteen-wheeler with

someplace to go and some reason to go there, all heading in

the direction she was walking from, and where, she knew too

well, there was nothing much at all for anybody. But if their

destinations were wrong, their sense of purpose separated the

night travelers from the woman on the road; people who had

someplace to go and something to do belonged to a different

world than she did.

She had started out hitching, all right. She'd made it to the

truck stop at Ozona, that huge, garish, ultramodern, and plastic

heaven in the middle of nowhere that served up anything and

everything twenty-four hours a day for those stuck out here,

going between here and there. After a time, she'd gotten an-

other ride, this one only twenty miles west and at a cost she

was not willing to pay. And so here she was, stuck out in the

middle of nowhere, going nowhere fast. Walk, walk, walk to

nowhere, from nowhere in particular, because nowhere was all

the where she had to go.

Headlights approached from far off; but even if they had

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held any interest for her, they were still too far away to be

more than abstract, jerky round dots in the distance, a distance

that the west Texas desert made even more deceptive. How far

off was the oncoming driver? Ten miles? More? Did it matter?

It was at least ten, maybe fifteen minutes before the vehicle

grew close enough for the woman to hear the roar of the big

diesel and realize that this was, in fact, one of those haunters

of the desert dark, a monster tractor-trailer truck with a load

of furniture for Houston or beef for New Orleans or, perhaps,

California oranges for the Nashville markets. Although it had

been approaching her from the west for some time, its sudden

close-up reality was startling against the total stillness of the

night, a looming monster that quickly illuminated the night and

its empty, vacant walker, then was just as suddenly gone, a

mass of diminishing red lights in the distance behind her. But

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in the few seconds that those gaping headlights had shone on

the scene, they had illuminated her form against that desperate

dark, illuminated her and, in the cab behind those lights, gave

her notice and recognition.

She paid this truck no more attention than any of the others

and just kept walking onward into the unseen distance.

The driver had been going much too fast for a practical stop,

a pace that would have upset the highway patrol but was re-

quired to make his employer's deadline. Besides, he was on

• the wrong side of the median to be of any practical help himself—

but there were other ways, ways that didn't even involve slow-

ing down.

"Break one-nine, break, break. How 'bout a westbound?

Anybody in this here Lone Star truckin' west on this one dark

night?" His accent was Texarkana, but he could have been

from Maine or Miami or San Francisco or Minneapolis just as

well. Something in the CB radio seemed automatically to add

the standard accent, even in Brooklyn.

"You got a westbound. Go," came a reply, only very slightly

different in sound or tone from the caller's.

"What's your twenty?" Eastbound asked.

"Three-thirty was the last I saw," Westbound responded.

"Clean and green back to the truck-'em-up. Even the bears go

to sleep this time o' night in these parts."

Eastbound chuckled. "Yeah, you got that right. I got to keep

pushin' it, though. They want me in Shreveport by tonight."

JACK L. CHALKER 3

"Shreveport! You got some haul yet!"

"Yeah, but that's home sweet home, baby. Get in, get it

off, stick this thing in the junkyard, and I'm in bed with the

old lady. I'll make it."

"All I got is El Paso by ten."

"Aw, shit, you'll make that easy. Say—caught something

your side in my lights about three-two-seven or so you might

check out. Looked like a beaver just walkin' by the side of the

road. Maybe a breakdown, though I ain't seen no cars on your

side and I'm just on you now. Probably nothin', but you might

want to check her out just in case. Ain't nobody lives within

miles o' here, I don't think."

"P 11 back off a little and see if I can eyeball her," Westbound

assured him. "Won't hurt much. That your Kenworthjust passed

me?"

"Yeah. Who else? All best to ya, and check on that little

gal. Don't wanna hear she got found dead by the side of the

road or something. Spoil my whole day."

"That's a four," Westbound came back with a slight chuckle.

"Keep safe, keep well, that's the Red Rooster sayin' that,

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eastbound and down."

"Y'all have a safe one. This is the Nighthawk, westbound

and backin' down."

Nighthawk put his mike into its little holder and backed

down to fifty. He wasn't in any hurry, and he wouldn't lose

much, even if this was nothing at all, not on this flat stretch.

The woman was beginning to falter, occasionally stumbling

in the scrub brush by the side of the road. She was starting to

think again, and that wasn't what she wanted at all. Finally

she stopped, knowing it was beyond her to take too many more

steps, and looked around. It was incredible how dark the desert

could be at night, even with more stars than city folk had ever

seen beaming down from overhead. No matter what, she knew

. she had to get some rest. Maybe just lie down over there in

the scrub—get stung by a tarantula or a scorpion or whatever

else lived around here. Snake, maybe. She considered the idea

and was somewhat surprised that she cared about that. Nice

and quick, maybe—but painfully bitten or poisoned to death

by inches? That seemed particularly ugly. With everything else

so messed up, at least her exit ought to be clean, neat, and as

comfortable as these things could be. One thing in her life

4 THE RIVER OF DANCING GODS

should go right, damn it. And for the first time since she'd

jumped out of the car, she began to consider living again—at

least a little bit longer, at least until the sunrise. She stopped

and looked up and down the highway for any sign of lights,

wondering what she'd do if she saw any. It would just as likely

be another Cal Hurder as anybody useful, particularly at this

ungodly hour in a place like this.

Lights approaching from the east told her a decision was

near, and soon. But she made no decision until the lights were

actually on her, and when she did, it was on impulse, without

any thought applied to it. She turned, put down her bags, and

stuck out her thumb.

Even with that and on the lookout for her, he almost missed

her. Spotting her, he hit the brakes and started gearing to a

stop by the side of the road, getting things stopped fully a

hundred yards west of her. Knowing this, he put the truck in

reverse and slowly backed up, eyeing the shoulder carefully

with his right mirror. After all this, he didn't want to be the

one to run her down.

Finally he saw her, or thought he did, just standing there,

looking at the huge monster approaching, doing nothing else

at all. For her part, she was unsure of just what to do next.

That huge rig was really intimidating, and so she just stood

there, trembling slightly.

Nighthawk frowned, realized she wasn't coming up to the

door, and decided to put on his flashers and go to her. He was

not without his own suspicions; hijackers would use such bait

and such a setting—although he could hardly imagine some-

body hijacking forty thousand pounds of soap flakes. Still, you

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never knew—and there was always his own money and cards

and the truck itself to steal. He took out his small pistol and

slipped it into his pocket, then slid over, opened the passenger

door, and got out warily.

He was a big man, somewhat intimidating-looking himself,

perhaps six-three, two hundred and twenty-five pounds of mostly

muscle, wearing faded jeans, boots, and a checkered flannel

shirt. His age was hard to measure, but he was at least in his

forties with a face maybe ten years older and with very long,

graying hair. He was dark, too—she took him at first for a

black man—but there was something not quite of any race and

JACK L. CHALKER 5

yet of all of them in his face and features. He was used to the

look she was giving him and past minding.

"M'am?" he called to her in a calm yet wary baritone. "Don't

worry—I don't bite. A trucker going the other way spotted you

and asked me to see if you was all right."

Oh, what the hell, she decided, resigning herself. / can

always jump out again. "I need a ride," she said simply. "I'm

kind of stuck here."

He walked over to her, seeing her tenseness and pretty much

ignoring it. He picked up her bag, letting her get her purse,

and went back to the truck. "Come on. I'll take you for a while

if you're going west."

She hesitated a moment more, then followed him and per-

mitted him to assist her up into the cab. He slammed her door,

walked around the truck, got in on the driver's side, released

the brakes, and put the truck in gear. "How far you going?"

he asked her.

She sat almost pressed against the passenger door, trying

to look as if she weren't doing it. For all he knew, she didn't

realize she was doing it.

She sighed. "Any place, I guess. How far you going?"

"El Paso. But I can get you to a phone in Fort Stockton if

that's what you need." ,

She shook her head slowly. "No, nobody to call. El Paso's

fine, if it's okay with you. I don't have enough money for a

motel or anything."

Up to speed and cruising now, he glanced sideways over at

her. At one time she'd been a pretty attractive woman, he

decided. It was all still there, but something had happened to

it, put a dull, dirty coating over it. Medium height—five-four

or -five, maybe—with short, greasy-looking brown hair with

traces of gray. Thirties, probably. Thin and slightly built, she

had that hollow, empty look, like somebody who'd been on

the booze pretty long and pretty hard.

"None of my business, but how'd you get stuck out here in

the middle of nowhere at three in the morning?" he asked

casually.

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She gave a little sigh and looked out the window for a

moment at the black nothingness. Finally she said, "If you

really want to know, I jumped out of a car."

"Huh?"

6 THE RIVER OF DANCING GODS

"I got a ride with a salesman—at least he said he was a

salesman—back at Ozona. We got fifteen, twenty miles down

the road and he pulled over. You can guess the rest."

He nodded.

"I grabbed the bags and ran. He turned out to be a little

scared of the dark, I guess. Just stood there yelling for me,

then threatened to drive off if I didn't come back. I didn't—

and he did."

He lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and expelled the

smoke with an accompanying sigh. "Yeah, I guess I get the

picture."

"You—you're an Indian, aren't you?"

He laughed. "Good change of subject. Well, son of. My

mom was a full-blooded Seminole, my dad was Puerto Rican,

which is a little bit of everything."

"You're from Florida? You don't sound like a southerner."

Again he chuckled. "Oh, I'm from the south, all right. South

of Philadelphia, anyway. Long story. Right now what home I

have is in a trailer park in a little town south of Baltimore. No

Indians or Puerto Ricans around, so they just think of me as

something a little bit exotic, I guess."

"You're a long way from home," she noted.

He nodded. "More or less. Don't matter much, though. I'm

on the road so much the only place I really feel at home is in

this truck. I own it and I run it, and it's mine as long as I keep

up the payments. They had to let me keep the truck, otherwise

they couldn't get no alimony. What about you? That pretty

voice sounds pure Texas to me."

She nodded idly, still staring distantly into the nothingness.

"Yeah. San Antone, that's me."

"Air Force brat?" He was nervous at pushing her too much,

maybe upsetting or alienating her—she was on a thin edge,

that was for sure—but he just had the feeling she wanted to

talk to somebody.

She did, a little surprised at that herself. "Sort of. Daddy

was a flier. Jet pilot."

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