The Hammer of Eden Read Online Free PDF Page A

you left the bar last night, Lenny gave me this long speech, man, about how much the truck cost, and how I don’t gotta give no rides, nor pick up no hitchhikers, and how he’s trustin’ me, and stuff.”
    I can just imagine Lenny, shit-faced drunk and maudlin—he probably had you nearly in tears, Mario, you dumb son of a bitch
.
    “You know how it is, Ricky. This is an okay job—hard work and long hours, but the pay is pretty good. I don’t want to lose this job.”
    “Hey, no problem,” Priest said with forced lightness. “So long as you can still take me to San Antonio.”
I’ll think of something between here and there
.
    Mario shook his head. “I better don’t, not after what Lenny said. I ain’t taking nobody nowhere in that truck. That’s why I brought my own car here, so I can give you a ride back into town.”
    And what am I supposed to do now, for Christ’s sake?
    “So, uh, what do you say, you wanna get going?”
    And then what?
    Priest had built a castle of smoke, and now he saw it shimmer and dissipate in the light breeze of Mario’s guilty conscience. He had spenttwo weeks in this hot, dusty desert, working at a stupid, worthless job, and had wasted hundreds of dollars on airfares and motel bills and disgusting fast food.
    He did not have time to do it again.
    The deadline was now only two weeks and one day away.
    Mario frowned. “Come on, man, let’s go.”
    *  *  *
    “I’m not going to give this place up,” Star had said to Priest on the day the letter arrived. She sat next to him on a carpet of pine needles at the edge of the vineyard, during the midafternoon rest period, drinking cold water and eating raisins made from last year’s grapes. “This is not just a wine farm, not just a valley, not just a commune—this is my whole life. We came here, all those years ago, because we believed that our parents had made a society that was twisted and corrupt and poisoned. And we were right, for Christ’s sake!” Her face flushed as she let her passion show, and Priest thought how beautiful she was, still. “Just
look
at what’s happened to the world outside,” she said, raising her voice. “Violence and ugliness and pollution, presidents who tell lies and break the law, riots and crime and poverty. Meanwhile, we’ve lived here in peace and harmony, year after year, with no money, no sexual jealousy, no conformist rules. We said that all you need is love, and they called us naive, but we were
right
and they were
wrong
. We
know
we’ve found the way to live—we’ve
proved
it.” Her voice had become very precise, betraying her old-money origins. Her father had come from a wealthy family but had spent his life as a doctor in a slum neighborhood. Star had inherited his idealism. “I’ll do anything to save our home and our way of life,” she went on. “I’ll die for it, if our children can continue to live here.” Her voice went quiet, but her words were clear, and she spoke with remorseless determination. “I’ll kill for it, too,” she said. “Do you understand me, Priest?
I will do anything.”
    *  *  *
    “Are you listening to me?” Mario said. “You want a ride into town or not?”
    “Sure,” Priest said.
Sure, you lily-livered bastard, you yellow dog coward, you goddamn scum of the earth, I want a ride
.
    Mario turned around.
    Priest’s eye fell on the Stillson wrench he had dropped a few minutes earlier.
    A new plan unfolded, fully formed, in his brain.
    As Mario walked the three paces to his car, Priest stooped and picked up the wrench.
    It was about eighteen inches long and weighed four or five pounds. Most of the weight was at the business end, with its adjustable jaws for gripping massive hexagonal nuts. It was made of steel.
    He glanced past Mario, along the track that led to the road. There was no one in sight.
    No witnesses.
    Priest took a step forward just as Mario reached to open the door of his pickup.
    He had a sudden disconcerting flash: a