The Colorado Kid   ::   Кинг Стивен

Stephanie said,“Back on message, please, both of you,” and the men laughed.

“On message,” Dave said, “there came a morning in the spring of 1980—April, it would have been—when they spied a man sitting out on Hammock Beach. You know, just on the outskirts of the village.”

Stephanie knew it well. Hammock Beach was a lovely spot, if a little overpopulated with summer people. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like after Labor Day, although she would get a chance to see; her internship ran through the 5th of October.

“Well, not exactlysitting,” Dave amended. “Halfsprawling was how they both put it later on. He was up against one of those litter baskets, don’t you know, and their bases are planted down in the sand to keep em from blowing away in a strong wind, but the man’s weight had settled back against this one until the can was…” Dave held his hand up to the vertical, then tilted it.

“Until it was like the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” Steffi said.

“You got it exactly. Also, he wa’ant hardly dressed for early mornin, with the thermometer readin maybe fortytwo degrees and a fresh breeze off the water makin it feel more likethirty two. He was wearin nice gray slacks and a white shirt. Loafers on his feet. No coat. No gloves.

“The youngsters didn’t even discuss it. They just ran over to see if he was okay, and right away they knew he wasn’t. Johnny said later that he knew the man was dead as soon as he saw his face and Nancy said the same thing, but of course they didn’t want to admit it—would you? Without making sure?”

“No,” Stephanie said.

“He was just sittin there (well…halfsprawlin there) with one hand in his lap and the other—the right one—lying on the sand. His face was waxywhite except for small purple patches on each cheek. His eyes were closed and Nancy said the lids were bluish. His lips also had a blue cast to them, and his neck, she said, had a kind ofpuffy look to it. His hair was sandy blond, cut short but not so short that a little of it couldn’t flutter on his forehead when the wind blew, which it did pretty much constant.

“Nancy says, ‘Mister, are you asleep? If you’re asleep, you better wake up.’

“Johnny Gravlin says, ‘He’s not asleep, Nancy, and he’s not unconscious, either. He’s not breathing.’

“She said later she knew that, she’d seen it, but she didn’t want to believe it. Accourse not, poor kid. So she says, ‘Maybe he is. Maybe he is asleep. You can’t always tell when a person’s breathing. Shake him, Johnny, see if he won’t wake up.