The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War Read Free Page B

cab was thick with smoke. But through the dull haze, Covenant could see that he was big and burly, with a distended paunch, and one heavy arm that moved over the steering wheel like a piston, turning the truck easily. He had only that one arm; his right sleeve was empty, and pinned to his shoulder. Covenant understood dismemberment, and he felt a pang of sympathy for the driver.
    “Where to, buddy?” the big man asked comfortably.
    Covenant told him.
    “No problem,” he responded to a tentative inflection in Covenant’s tone. “I’m going right through there.” As the automatic transmission whined upward through. its gears, he spat his cigar out the window, then let go of the wheel to unwrap and light a new smoke. While his hand was busy, he braced the wheel with his belly. The green light of the instrument panel did not reach his face, but the glow of the cigar coal illuminated massive features whenever he inhaled. In the surging red, his face looked like a pile of boulders.
    With his new smoke going, he rested his arm on the wheel like a sphinx, and abruptly began talking. He had something on his mind.
    “You live around here?”
    Covenant said noncommittally, “Yes”
    “How long? You know the people?”
    “After a fashion.”
    “You know this leper-this Thomas something-or-other Thomas Covenant?”
    Covenant flinched in the gloom of the cab. To disguise his distress, he shifted his position on the seat. Awkwardly, he asked, “What’s your interest?”
    “Me? I got no interest. Just passing through-hauling my ass where they give me a load to go. I never even been around here before. But where I et at back in town I heard talk about this guy. So I ask the broad at the counter, and she damn near yaks my ear off.
    One question-and I get instant mouth with everything I eat. You know what a leper is?”
    Covenant squirmed. “After a fashion.”
    “Well, it’s a mess, let me tell you. My old lady reads about this stuff all the time in the Bible. Dirty beggars. Unclean. I didn’t know there was creeps like that in America.
    But that’s what we’re coming to. You know what I think?”
    “What do you think?” Covenant asked dimly.
    “I think them lepers ought to leave decent folks alone. Like that broad at the counter. She’s okay, even with that motor mouth, but there she is, juiced to the gills on account of some sick bastard. That Covenant guy ought to stop thinking of his self. Other folks don’t need that aggravation. He ought to go away with every other leper and stick to his self, leave decent folks alone. It’s just selfishness, expecting ordinary guys like you and me to put up with that. You know what I mean?”

    The cigar smoke in the cab was as thick as incense, and it made Covenant feel light-headed. He kept shifting his weight, as if the falseness of his position gave him an uncomfortable seat. But the talk and his vague vertigo made him feel vengeful. For a moment, he forgot his sympathy. He turned his wedding ring forcefully around his finger.
    As they neared the city limits, he said, “I’m going to a nightclub just up the road here.
    How about joining me for a drink?”
    Without hesitation, the trucker said, “Buddy, you’re on. I never pass up a free drink.”
    But they were still several stoplights from the club. To fill the silence, and satisfy his curiosity, Covenant asked the driver what had happened to his arm.
    “Lost it in the war.” He brought the truck to a stop at a light while adjusting his cigar in his lips and steering with his paunch. “We was on patrol, and walked right into one of them antipersonnel mines. Blew the squad to hell. I had to crawl back to camp.
    Took me two days-I sort of got unhinged, you know what I mean? Didn’t always know what I was doing. Time I got to the doc, it was too late to save the arm.
    “What the hell, I don’t need it. Least my old lady says I don’t-and she ought to know by now.” He chuckled. “Don’t need no two arms for