The Regulators - Stephen King [116]
Anyway, I saw them arrive from the window by the desk where I had all my papers spread out. Clear as day, I saw them. They dithered around their car for a minute or two, pointing to the embankment south of town, just as excited as chickens in a rainstorm, and then the little guy dragged his Dad toward the office trailer.
All this occurred at Deep Earth's Nevada HQ, a double-wide trailer which is located about two miles off the main drag (Highway 50), on the outskirts of Desperation, a town known for its silver mining around the time of the Civil War. Our main mining operation these days is the China Pit, where we are leaching copper. Strip mining is what the 'green people' call it, of course, although it's really not so bad as they like to make out.
Anyway, Little Brother pulled his Daddy right up the trailer steps, and I heard him say, 'Knock, Daddy, there's someone home, I know there is.' Dad looked surprised as heck at that, although I didn't know why, since my car was parked right out front, 'big as Billy be damned'. I soon found out it wasn't what the little tyke was saying but that he was saying anything at all!
Father looked around at the rest of his clan, and all of them said the same thing, knock on the door, knock on the door, go on and knock on the door! Excited as hell. Sort of funny and cute, too. I was curious, I'll freely admit it. I could see their license plate, and just couldn't figure what a family from Ohio was doing way the hell and gone out in Desperation on a Sunday afternoon. If Dad hadn't got up nerve enough to knock, I was going to go out myself and pass the time of day with him. 'Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back,' you know!
But he knocked, all right, and as soon as I opened the door, the little tyke went running in right past me! Right over to the wall he went, to the same bulletin board where Sally put up Mrs Wyler's letter when it came in, marking it CAN ANYONE HELP THIS LADY in big red-ink letters.
The tyke tapped the aerial photographs of the China Pit we kept tacked on the bulletin board, one after the other. Maybe you had to be there to understand how strange it was, but take my word for it. It was like he'd been in the office a dozen times before.
'Here it is, Daddy!' he said, tapping his way around those pictures. 'Here it is! Here it is! Here's the mine, the silver mine!'
'Well,' I said, kind of laughing, 'it's copper, sonny, but I guess that's close enough.'
Mr Garin gave me a red-faced look and said, 'I'm sorry, we don't mean to barge in.' Then he barged in himself and grabbed his little boy up. I was some amused. Couldn't help but be.
He carried the tyke back out to the steps, where he must have thought they belonged. Being from Ohio, I don't guess he knew we take barging around pretty much for granted out in Nevada. The tyke didn't kick or have a tantrum, but his eyes never left those photos on the bulletin board. He looked as cute as a papoose, peeking over his Daddy's shoulder with his little bright eyes. The rest of the family clustered around down below, staring up. The bigger kids were near bursting with excitement, and Mom looked pretty much in the same emotions.
Father said they were from Toledo, then introduced himself, his wife, and the two big kids. 'And this is Seth,' he finished up. 'Seth is a special child.'
'Why, I thought they were all special,' I said, and stuck out my hand. 'Put 'er there, Seth; I'm Allen Symes.' He shook with me right smart. The rest of the family looked flabbergasted, his Dad in particular, although I couldn't see why. My own Dad taught me to shake hands when I was just three; it's not hard, like learning to juggle or floating aces up to the top of the deck. But things got clearer to me before long.
'Seth wants to know if he can see the mountain,' Mr Garin says, and pointed at the China Pit. The north face does look a little like a mountain. 'I think he actually means