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"About one-third," she told hi the violet line
"See?" Doc continued to Hixon, "the thing has only four or five big shots left in it, at most There are miles of those maniacs down there on 101 If weone What&039;s down there is dreadful, I&039;ll ad on all over the world right now and we can&039;t afford to lose ourselves in it - one bucket of water tossed on a burning city! No, we backtrack! Go back and turn your truck around, Hixon - "
"Wait a o who interrupted, in a ringing voice SheThree down there," she said, pointing with the s "Morton Opperly ot to check"
"Not one chance in fifty!" Doc barked at her "Not in five hundred He&039;ll have been &039;coptered out - No!"
"I&039;ve seen people et hiot to check"
Doc shook his head "No! Too crazy a chance to take for next to nothing"
Margo grinned at hiainst her chest, "and I&039; to take it down there if I have to walk"
"That&039;s telling hiheart, then listen to o down there with that pistol, walking or in a car, and soet juet the weapon - those ot to stay here
"But I&039;ll o down there without the weapon - I&039;ll give youOpperly back, or just find he&039;s there, and we&039;ll o looked at Hunter "You drive me?" He nodded and jumped for the sedan She came around the side of the Corvette and held the ave her his revolver and took it Hunter started the sedan and drove it alongside the red car
Hixon ca too"
"You want hio nodded He asked Hixon: "You promise just to help the, "Whoever he is"
Doc said: "Okay then, but you&039;re the last one we can spare No more volunteers!" He barked the last alerly "Gimme your rifle," he told the boy "You cliatepost - "and watch for us being outflankedby anybody, including police!"
Hixon piled into the back of the sedan, Margo got in beside Hunter, Doc vaulted down and leaned an elbow on her"Hold on a second," he said, scanning the jaain just as action broke out there
A dozen figures popped up from behind and between cars near the police cas Guns cracked and two or three of thes hit the police cars Fla his lip
Doc said: "Now&039;s a good tis to think of" He shoved his head in the
"I just got one thing to say to you," he growled at the three of the yourselves back, you bastards!"
Barbara Katz sat in the top branches of a gigantic deadsun hot on her back, and watched east under the blue sky for the Atlantic to coe over the neck of Florida Froures on the darkly-creased, sweat-stained tidal chart on the back of the calendar page Benjy had torn off for her yesterday h she knew it could hardly apply closely any ht at three am and so there should be another around the middle of this afternoon
In the next spread of the branches down old KKK was tied to his seat with blanket strips around the big trunk, which shielded hi his slu his position as best she could Nearby Helen and Benjy had their spots Benjy had the rope he&039;d used to draw up the old ray uniforainly brown-crested silver birds as they perched there high in the huge, nearly leafless tree
The tree rose froht ray roots, on which the mud-spattered Rolls noas parked
South of the raveyard, its wooden headboards sand-drifted and soe-draped by the scour of the last high tide At the foot of the graveyard was a small wooden church that had once been painted white It was shifted a dozen feet off its foundation bricks and strained and twisted at the corners, though not broken apart The brown ht feet on it, al but newer-painted black letters over the door, which read CHURCH OF JESUS SAVER
Barbara squeezed her eyes shut several times rapidly It looked to her as if several patches of the blue sky had coreen land to the east, a little like the watery reflections one sees far ahead on a level concrete road on a burning hot day The blue patches grew and , Barbara watched with an intensity approaching that of trance Second linked to second and minute to minute seamlessly, as if the hooves of ti in her stood still so that she could no longer hear their pounding
Nor - so attentive was she to the strange pheno the land - did shelouder and louder fro back and forth of the three great gray featherless fowl beneath her, or evenaround it, or hear Helen&039;s screa and sliding up into the sky as that blue caly underneath, and she leaned farther and farther backwards and would have fallen, except that now a body ca ar her
"You hold on, Miss Barbara," Benjy was shouting in her ear "You watch so hard you fall"
She looked around the watery plain Florida was gone The Church of Jesus Saver was floating off upside doith its eight short legs crookedly in the air
She looked down again The e She thought of the Rolls Royce and giggled
"I don&039;t know about that, Miss Barbara," Benjy said, diviningly "I hoist out the battery and &039;stributor and soht help Plug up gas tank tight at both ends, sah I be surprise"
The tree swayed with the surge and then swayed back Helen squawked Hester clutched at her Benjy laughed crowingly He said to Barbara: "But I still got hopes - some"