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.In matters having anything to do with movie-making he was an authentic genius, though totally unpublicized, usually unemployed, and practically unpaid.Sometimes the people who gave him rides asked him how old he was.They were beginning to have plans for him, at least tentative plans, of one kind or another, file:///G|/rah/Fred%20Saberhagen/Saberhagen,.d%20-%20Dracula%2004%20-%20Thorn%20[v1].html (169 of 263) [2/5/2004 12:19:42 AM]Saberhagen, Fred - Dracula 04 - Thorn (v1.0) (html) when they asked that.Pat's answer would vary, depending.If he thought the tentative plan was to hand over poor young Pat to the juvenile authorities somewhere, for his own good, he could answer with the truth.To the best of his own belief he was actually twenty-two, though he had to overcome a certain inner reluctance to admit to himself that he was that old.And he could document that age with a driver's license that bore his photograph, if the discussion ever got that far.In cases where the plan did not involve turning him over to the cops, he often varied his answer downward.No one as far back as he could remember had ever doubted him if he said he was sixteen.If he said he was seventeen, they sometimes still doubted, believing him to be certainly younger than that.To the truck driver he was riding with when he reached Albuquerque, Pat had said he was sixteen.The truck driver had then responded with: "First time away from home, huh?""Yeah.""I got a long drive ahead.We'll keep going all night," said the driver, and squeezed Pat's thigh, and smiled.It was still early afternoon.Pat smiled back and made no protest about the hand on his leg.The driver was surprised and chagrined when just a little later, at a truck stop near the junction of Interstates 40 and 25 Pat announced that he was getting out, for good."Hey.What the hell.I thought ya wanted to go to California."Still smiling, Pat slid down from the cab to stand on the sunstroked pavement.He stretched.Mountains whose name he had never learned, though he had come through this way going east or west so many times, rose barrenly a few miles to the east.He had chosen a good place for his announcement; a truck stop surrounded by a city, with a fair number of people about.The jilted trucker was not going to be able to do anything, or even to argue very much.file:///G|/rah/Fred%20Saberhagen/Saberhagen,.d%20-%20Dracula%2004%20-%20Thorn%20[v1].html (170 of 263) [2/5/2004 12:19:42 AM]Saberhagen, Fred - Dracula 04 - Thorn (v1.0) (html)"Hey.Kid."Pat did not even turn, but simply walked away.His feeling for Annie had altered suddenly.West was no longer the right direction.Now she had to be somewhere to his right, somewhere to the north of here.He could tell that she was out of walking distance still, but now she was no longer anything like a full day's drive away.Interstate 25 going north out of Albuquerque was a new route to Pat.But one highway was not all that different from another; he was really at home on them all.Hiking the shoulder now, going up an entry ramp toward the northward traffic flow, Pat felt a certain relief.Not only at leaving that particular trucker behind—sadistic tendencies there, experienced instinct whispered—but at not having to go on to Arizona, which was the next state west.There had been a bad scene out there in Phoenix, once.Real bad.Pat couldn't remember it consciously.But the stink of it still came up to conscious memory, like something dead and too shallowly buried.A warning: Don't dig here.Pat topped the entrance ramp and kept on moving, hiking, looking over his left shoulder at a burst of speeding cars that passed him.Like an accomplished athlete or an old actor going into an old routine, he only needed to use half his attention in trying to flag a ride.Meanwhile he could use the other half on the question of what he ought to do when he reached Annie.He could tell where she was, in a general way that seemed to get more particular the closer he got to her.But he couldn't tell what she was doing.For all he knew, she might be home, reconciled with her parents; or maybe in some other situation that she wouldn't be anxious to leave, just to hit the road again with Pat.So he ought to have some kind of hopeful proposition ready for her, something really attractive to suggest.He would talk about—what else?—getting her into movies of some kind.Every girl liked that idea, and Annie was quite good-looking enough to make it credible.In fact, now that he thought of it…Now that he thought about it, making movies with Annie was suddenly the one file:///G|/rah/Fred%20Saberhagen/Saberhagen,.d%20-%20Dracula%2004%20-%20Thorn%20[v1].html (171 of 263) [2/5/2004 12:19:42 AM]Saberhagen, Fred - Dracula 04 - Thorn (v1.0) (html) thing Pat wanted desperately to do.Sure.Of course.There would be some way.Why not? Almost forgetting to work at picking up a ride, Pat hiked excitedly along the shoulder.The mountains to his right were forgotten, as was the intermittent roar of traffic at his left elbow
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