They made their last run at 4:15 P.M., the body of the dump truck filled with the last of the Latter-Day corpses. In town the truck had to weave laboriously in and out of stalled traffic, but on Colorado 119, three tow trucks had been out all day, latching on to stalled cars and depositing them into the ditches on both sides of the road. They lay there like the overturned toys of some giant-child.

At the burial site, the other two orange trucks were already parked. Men stood around with their rubber gloves off, their fingers white and pruney at the tips from a day of sweating inside rubber. They smoked and talked desultorily. Most of them were very pale.

Norris and his two helpers had it down to a science now. They shook out a huge piece of plastic sheeting on the rocky ground. Norman Kellogg, the Louisianian who was driving Harold’s truck, backed up to the edge of the plastic. The tailgate slammed down and the first bodies fell out onto the plastic crawsheet like partially stiffened ragdolls. Harold wanted to turn away but was afraid that the others might construe it as weakness. He did not mind watching them fall out too much; it was the sound that got him. The sound they made when they hit what was going to become their shroud.

The note of the dumper’s engine deepened and there was a hydraulic whine as the truck’s body began to go up. Now the bodies tumbled out in a grotesque human rain. Harold felt an instant of pity, a feeling so deep it was an ache. Cordwood, he thought. How right he was. That’s all that’s left. Just… cordwood.

“Ho! ” Chad Norris shouted, and Kellogg pulled the dump truck ahead and shut it off. Chad and his helpers stepped onto the plastic carrying rakes and now Harold did turn away, pretending to scan the sky for rain, and he was not alone—but he heard a sound that would haunt him in his dreams, and that was the sound of change falling from the pockets of the dead men and women as Chad and his helpers worked with their rakes, spreading the corpses evenly. The coins falling on the plastic made a sound that reminded Harold absurdly of tiddledywinks. The sickly-sweet stench of corruption drifted up in the warm air.

When he looked back, the three of them were pulling the edges of the plastic shroud together, grunting with the strain, arms bulging. A few of the other men, Harold among them, pitched in. Chad Norris produced a huge industrial stapling gun. Twenty minutes later that part of the job was done, and the plastic lay on the ground like a giant gelatin capsule. Norris climbed into the cab of a bright yellow bulldozer and keyed the engine. The scarred blade thudded down. The dozer rolled forward.

A man named Weizak, also on Harold’s truck, walked away from the scene with the jerky steps of a badly controlled puppet. A cigarette jittered between his fingers. “Man, I can’t watch that,” he said as he passed Harold. “It’s really kind of funny. I never knew I was Jewish until today.”

The bulldozer shoved and rolled the large plastic package into a long rectangular cut in the ground. Chad backed away, shut down, climbed off. Motioning the men to gather around, he walked over to one of the Public Works trucks and put one booted foot up on the running board.

“No football cheers,” he said, “but you did damned good. We put away close to a thousand units today, I guess.”

Units, Harold thought.

“I know this kind of work takes something out of a man. Committee’s promising us another two men before the end of the week, but I know that don’t change the way you guys feel—or the way I feel, for that matter. All I’m saying is that if you’ve had enough, don’t feel like you can take another day of it, you don’t have to worry about avoiding me on the street. But if you feel like you can’t cut it, its awful-damn important that you find someone to take your place tomorrow. So far as I’m concerned, this is the most important job in the Zone. ‘It isn’t too bad now, but if we’ve still got twenty thousand corpses in Boulder next month when it gets to be wet weather, people are going to get sick. If you feel like you can make it, I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the bus station.”

“I’ll be there,” someone said.

“Me too,” Norman Kellogg said. “After a six-hour bath tonight.” There was laughter.

“Count me in,” Weizak chimed in.

“Me too,” Harold said quietly.

“It’s a dirty job,” Norris said in a low, emotional voice. “You’re good men. I doubt if the rest of them will ever know just how good.”

Harold felt a sense of drawing-together, a camaraderie, and he fought against it, suddenly afraid. This was no part of the plan.

“See you tomorrow, Hawk,” Weizak said, and squeezed his shoulder.

Harold’s grin was startled and defensive. Hawk? What kind of joke was that? A bad one, of course. Cheap sarcasm. Calling fat, pimply Harold Lauder Hawk. He felt the old black hate rise, directed at Weizak this time, and then it subsided in sudden confusion. He wasn’t fat anymore. He couldn’t even properly be called stout. His pimples had vanished over the last seven weeks. Weizak didn’t know he had once been a school joke. Weizak didn’t know that Harold’s father had once asked him if he was a homosexual. Weizak didn’t know that Harold had been his popular sister’s cross to bear. And if he had known, Weizak probably wouldn’t have given a sweet shit.

Harold climbed into the back of one of the trucks, his mind churning helplessly. All of a sudden the old grudges, the old hurts, and the unpaid debts seemed as worthless as the paper money choking all the cash registers of America.

Could that be true? Could it possibly be true? He felt panicked, alone, scared. No, he decided at last. It couldn’t possibly be true. Because, consider. If you were strong-willed enough to be able to resist the low opinions of others, when they thought you were a queer, or an embarrassment, or just a plain old bag of shit, then you had to be strong-willed enough to resist…

Resist what?

Their good opinion of you?

Wasn’t that kind of logic… well, that kind of logic was lunacy, wasn’t it?

An old quote surfaced in his troubled mind, some general’s defense of interning Japanese-Americans during World War II. It had been pointed out to this general that no acts of sabotage had occurred on the West Coast, where the naturalized Japanese were most heavily concentrated. The general’s reply had been: “The very fact that no sabotage has taken place is an ominous development.”

Was that him?

Was it?

Their truck pulled into the bus station parking lot. Harold jumped over the side, reflecting that even his coordination had improved a thousand percent, either from the weight he had lost, his almost constant exercise, or both.

The thought came to him again, stubborn, refusing to be buried: I could be an asset to this community.

But they had shut him out.

That doesn’t matter. I’ve got the brains to pick the lock on the door they slammed in my face. And I believe I’ve found enough guts to open it once it’s unlocked.

But—

Stop it! Stop it! You might as well be wearing handcuffs and legchains with that one word stamped all over them. But! But! But! Can’t you stop it, Harold? Can’t you for Christ’s sake climb down off your high fucking horse?

“Hey, man, you okay?”

Harold jumped. It was Norris, coming out of the dispatcher’s office, which he had taken over. He looked tired.

“Me? I’m fine. I was just thinking.”

“Well, you go right along. Seems like every time you do that you coin money for this joint.”

Harold shook his head. “Not true.”

“No?” Chad let it go. “Can I drop you somewhere?”

“Huh-uh. I’ve got my chopper.”

“You wanna know something, Hawk? I think most of these guys are really going to come back tomorrow.”