Page:Weird tales v36n07 1942-09.djvu/10

8 cooledif it ever would under this blazing sun. Now that the machine was no longer moving, the heat clamped in upon him with reeking fingers. The sun was a burning lance that thrust through the top of the car and into his skull.

Enough of that was enough, he decided. He crawled from behind the wheel into the dust and pulverized grit of the roadway.

"A hell of a road," he remarked and eyed the twisting length of it along the way he had come. Dust-devils galloped playfullywrithing brown towers with roots in the baking earth and crests smudging the blue-tinted brass of the sky.

There was water in the luggage compartment. A good drink would lower Lizzie's fever. Dust spurted from under his shoe-soles as he trudged forward with the five-gallon gasoline tin in his grip.

He lifted the hood, took caps off water-can and radiator, and stood back as a cloud of steam first spurted, then drifted into the astringent heat of the air. When the cloud had thinned somewhat, he tilted the can and permitted the precious water to gurgle throbbingly into the overheated intestines of the radiator.

"Need help, Mister?"

Mulvaney hadn't heard the girl approach. He nearly dropped the water-tin from surprise.

"You gave me a start," he said, controlling himself. He focused the glance of his gray eyes upon her face.

HE wasn't smilingbut it seemed that she was. The set of her face was made for laughter. Her eyes were blue. Her hair was golden blond; her complexion well-tanned. She was dressed in some sort of boots and breeches arrangement, designed for hiking. Dust covered her slim figure from the toes of the awkward boots to the grayed bandanna that held her vagrant curls in place.

"I wear it to keep the sun from doing unmentionable things to my hair," she explained. The corners of her full mouth twitched. "Not to speak of boiling my brain in its own water!"

He set the water-tin carefully at his feet.

"Where'd you come from? I'd no idea there was a soul within miles!"

A shadow crossed her face.

"So there isn't," she said strangely. Then, "I was hiking along just over the rise." She gestured. "I heard your car thumping up the hill. I was all set to thumb a ride when it stopped. So I came back to see what's up."

"The motor overheated and conked on me," he explained.

He eyed her speculatively, almost prompted to ask what business brought her on foot into this God-forgotten wilderness. He wondered if it was possible she were bound for the same place he was. He forced an end to his speculation.

"She'll be cool enough to start off again pretty soon," he said. "You're welcome to ride along as far as I go."

There was a certain blankness in her gaze that troubled him. Her blue eyes clouded briefly.

"How far are you going?" More than ordinarily curious, the tone was.

"Wereville."

He wondered if it were only imagination that made him believe she gasped as he pronounced the name. It was devilishly hot. Enough to fry your brains and make you imagine almost anything. She didn't ask why he was going to Wereville.

He took advantage of their momentary silence to replace the water-tin in the luggage compartment. She stood silently in the blazing sun, shoe-soles sunk into the powdery loess. Her look as she regarded the dead motor was as if she hoped by some alchemy of glance to bring it to life again.