The Thicket Page 29
Not long after Shorty died I got to considering on the adventure we had together, and how we saved Lula, and how her life turned out to be better for having met Shorty. I thought about that great and impossible shot he had made. It was a shot that had not only saved her from Cut Throat, it had brought Shorty and her together. One night, thinking on all this, I decided to take my new Ford motorcar and drive over to Shorty’s telescope tower.
I came to the tower in the late dark, climbed the ladder up. Once at the peak, I sat in Shorty’s special chair in front of his telescope. I sat there not moving for a while, then, careful not to budge his settings, I put my eye to the lens of his telescope and looked out at the velvet-black night sky that was riddled with stars; the view seemed to fall right through that scope and into my head.
I looked for a long time at the stars, thinking about Shorty and him telling me about reading a book about a man who spread his arms and went to Mars, or at least some part of him did. I thought it might be nice if that happened to Shorty. That his spirit had gone to Mars. Then I realized he didn’t want that anymore. He was happy. And though he never did come to believe in God, I think he did come to believe in love.
I watched those stars and the blackness between them, and had a kind of funny thought. It was that my old idea of God and heaven, harps and angels, was too small for all that I was looking at, and that the black out there, the stars spotted on it, belonged to something bigger and harder to explain than God. I have to tell you that right then was the first time I felt I was truly part of something stranger and more wonderful than I had ever imagined.
It was a thought that didn’t bother me at all.
About the Author
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than a dozen novels, including Edge of Dark Water, Vanilla Ride, Leather Maiden, Sunset and Sawdust, and Lost Echoes. He has received the Edgar Award, the American Mystery Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, and nine Bram Stoker Awards. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was made into a film starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis and directed by Don Coscarelli. His short story “Incident on and off a Mountain Road” was also made into a film; it stars Bree Turner and was directed by Don Coscarelli for Showtime. Lansdale lives with his wife in Nacogdoches, Texas.
joerlansdale.com
Also by Joe R. Lansdale
The Magic Wagon
The Drive In
The Nightrunners
Cold in July
The Boar
Waltz of Shadows
The Bottoms
A Fine Dark Line
Sunset and Stardust
Lost Echoes
Leather Maiden
All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky
Edge of Dark Water
The Hap and Leonard Series
Savage Season
Mucho Mojo
The Two-Bear Mambo
Bad Chili
Rumble Tumble
Captain Outrageous
Vanilla Ride
Devil Red
Selected Short Story Collections
By Bizarre Hands
Sanctified and Chicken Fried
Best of Joe R. Lansdale
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Contents
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
About the Author
Also by Joe R. Lansdale
Newsletters
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2013 by Joe R. Lansdale
Cover design by Kimberly Glyder; photographs by Carlos Restrepo/Arcangel (background), ryasick/Getty Images (ribbon)
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: September 2013
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ISBN 978-0-316-24875-4