"Chalker, Jack L - The Dancing Gods 1 The River Of The Dancing Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

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
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!"