We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      This book is a work of fiction, even the true parts. Locations, events, names, and characters, whether historical or not, are portrayed solely for fictional purposes.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

       J. Kirk Howard, President

      Printed and bound in Canada.

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      Dundurn Press

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      Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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      For Dennis Saleh: always three steps ahead in words and deed. Also for Peter Nelson, Stuart Peterfreund, and the Arab-Israeli Axis. In memory of James B. Hall, who brought us together. And with admiration and respect for Dr. Michael Klonsky.

      * * * * *

      The road is long With many a winding turn — “He Ain’t Heavy” by B. Scott and B. Russell, for The Hollies

      Contents

Part 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Part 2

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Acknowledgements

PART 1

      THE ROAD

Chapter 1

      I reached the end of the San Joaquin Valley about four o’clock in the afternoon. I had the old Volksie Bug cranked to about sixty-eight or sixty-nine, full throttle, blasting along Interstate 5. South of Bakersfield, I’d begun peering down the freeway through the heat haze to catch that first glimpse of the mountain wall. My shirt was off, I had both windows open, and rills and rivulets of sweat were trickling down my ribs. Every so often I leaned forward to unstick my back from the seat.

      As always happened, traffic seemed to materialize out of thin air as we approached ever closer to the start of the climb out of the San Joaquin, that moment after Grapevine when I-5 began its abrupt lift from the valley floor toward Tejon Pass. The highway hadn’t been busy most of the day, except for the usual jam-ups through Sacramento and Fresno. Around Bakersfield an accident had slowed us to a crawl for about ten minutes, but then the road had cleared once more. Lots of cars had ripped past me on the asphalt as the hours ticked by, but I had overtaken my share of slowpoke sedans and strings of tractor trailers. Inevitably, I had felt a rush when I scooted by one of the Los Angeles– Seattle Motor Express rigs. LASME and I shared most of my three-day route, except I had started three hours north of Seattle and would stop a couple of hours south of L.A.

      Sweltering weather had been with me since I’d left the Frozen North. The calendar might have turned into September, but nature hadn’t gotten the word. The first night of the drive I had set up my tent in a county park I liked outside Grants Pass, Oregon; the second, the night before, I had camped at Colusa in a state park on the banks of the Sacramento River about ten miles off I-5. Both nights I was broiling while I hammered pegs into the campsite’s tent pad and coaxed the big old canvas umbrella more or less vertical. Then I scummaged together a dinner out of the soggy mess in the cooler — last night, spaghetti. The best moment car camping was when I had the dishwater heating on the hissing Coleman stove. I could officially mark the end of the long day’s run by sitting at the picnic table savouring a cup of coffee out of the instant jar, idly checking the map to review the ground I’d covered and anticipate what tomorrow would bring. Eventually, though, I had to put the coffee aside, wash up, and pack the cooking gear back into the still-heated rear seat and trunk. Once I’d huffed and puffed up my air mattress, I tied down the tent flap from inside. The interior was an oven.

      Both nights I read by flashlight for a half-hour, even though it wasn’t completely dark out. I was finishing a book of short stories by Régis Debray, the guy who had argued that