(To: Great Speckeld Bird)

When Mama lay a-dyin’ on the flatbed,

She told me not to truck with girls like you;

But I was blinded by the glare of your headlights,

And went joy-ridin’ just for the view.

CHORUS:

You’re a detour on the highway to heaven,

I am lost on the backroads of sin,

I have got to get back to the four-lane,

So that I can see Mama again.

Your curves made me lose my direction,

My hands from the steering wheel strayed,

But you were just one more roadside attraction,

It’s been ten thousand miles since I prayed.

If you ever get out of the fast lane

And get back to that highway above,

I’ll be waiting for you at the tollbooth,

In that land where all roads end in love.

Chapter One

I

THE MOUNTAIN meadow was carpeted with fresh green and starred with small, shy flowers. He came towards me, walking so lightly the grass scarcely seemed to bend under his feet. His hair shone silver-gilt in the sunlight, and he was smiling, and his blue eyes held a look I had seen in them only once before. Trembling, I waited for him to come to me. He stopped a few feet away, still smiling, and held out his hands.

They were wet and red and dripping. I looked from his bleeding hands to his face and saw blood erupt from it in spurting streams, from the corners of his mouth, from under the hair on his temples. Bright scarlet patches blossomed on the breast of his shirt. There was blood everywhere, covering him like a red rain. I stretched out my arms but I couldn’t reach him and I couldn’t move and the scream I tried to utter wouldn’t come out of my throat and he fell, face down at my feet, and the back of his head wasn’t golden fair but sticky scarlet and the blood spread out, staining the green grass and drowning the shy flowers and still I couldn’t reach him . . .

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .’ Somebody was whining. It wasn’t I. I was blubbering and swearing – or was I praying?

Swearing. ‘Damn him, damn him!’ I reached out blindly in the dark. There was something monstrous and hairy on my bed. I threw my arms around it and clutched it to my bosom.

Caesar stopped whining and began licking my face with frantic slurps. Caesar is a Doberman; his tongue is as rough as a file and about a foot and a half long. He has very bad breath.

‘All right, okay,’ I gasped, fending him off and reaching for the bedside lamp.

The light helped, and so did the sight of my familiar messy bedroom, but I was still shaking. God! That had been the worst one yet.

Caesar’s furry face stared worriedly at me. He wasn’t allowed on the bed. I must have cried out in my sleep, and the gallant dog had leaped up to my rescue.