o he screamed, and I shoveled dirt down on the Cadillac. For some time he did indeed scream very loudly, although I judged he never screamed louder than two sticks of dynamite taped to the ignition switch of a 1968 Chevrolet. Three, at most. And by the time the last of the Cadillac,s brightwork was covered and I rested to look down at the dirt-shrouded hump in the hole, he was producing no more than a series of hoarse and broken grunts.

I looked at my watch. It was just past one o,clock. My hands were bleeding again, and the handle of the shovel was slippery. A sheaf of gritty sand flew into my face and I recoiled from it. A high wind in the desert makes a peculiarly unpleasant sound a long, steady drone that simply goes on and on. It is like the voice of an idiot ghost.

I leaned over the hole. "Dolan?"

No answer.

"Scream, Dolan."

No answer at first then a series of harsh barks.

Satisfactory!

I went back to the van, started it up, and drove the mile and a half back down to the road construction. On the way I turned to WKXR, Las Vegas, the only station the van,s radio would pull in. Barry Manilow told me he wrote the songs that make the whole world sing, a statement I greeted with some skepticism, and then the weather report came on. High winds were forecast; a travellers, advisory had been posted on the main roads between Vegas and the California line. There were apt to be visibility problems because of sheeting sand, the disc jockey said, but the thing to really watch out for was wind-shear. I knew what he was talking about, because I could feel it whipsawing the van.

Here was my Case-Jordan bucket-loader; already I thought of it as mine. I got in, humming the Barry Manilow tune, and touched the blue and yellow wires together again. The loader started up smoothly. This time I,d remembered to take it out of gear. Not bad, white boy, I could hear Tink saying in my head. You learnin.

Yes I was. Learning all the time.

I sat for a minute, watching membranes of sand skirl across the desert, listening to the bucket-loader,s engine rumble and wondering what Dolan was up to. This was, after all, his Big Chance. Try to break the rear window, or crawl over into the front seat and try to break the windshield. I had put a couple of feet of sand and dirt over each, but it was still possible. It depended on how crazy he was by now, and that wasn,t a thing I could know, so it really didn,t bear thinking about. Other things did.

I geared the bucket-loader and drove back up the highway to the trench. When I got there I trotted anxiously over and looked down, half-expecting to see a man-sized gopher hole at the front or rear of the Cadillac-mound where Dolan had broken some glass and crawled out.

My spadework had not been disturbed.

"Dolan," I said, cheerfully enough, I thought.

There was no answer.

"Dolan."

No answer.

He,s killed himself, I thought, and felt a sick-bitter disappointment. Killed himself somehow or died of fright.

"Dolan?"

Laughter drifted up from the mound; bright, irrepressible, totally genuine laughter. I felt my flesh lift itself into large hard lumps. It was the laughter of a man whose mind has broken.

He laughed and he laughed in his hoarse voice. Then he screamed; then he laughed again. Finally he did both together.

For awhile I laughed with him, or screamed, or whatever, and the wind laughed and screamed at both of us.

Then I went back to the Case-Jordan, lowered the blade, and began to cover him up for real.

In four minutes even the shape of the Cadillac was gone. There was just a hole filled with dirt.

I thought I could hear something, but with the sound of the wind and the steady grumble of the loader,s engine, it was hard to tell. I got down on my knees; then I lay down full-length with my head hanging into what remained of the hole.

Far down, underneath all that dirt, Dolan was still laughing. They were sounds like something you might read in a comic book: Hee-hee-hee, aaah-hah-hah-hah. There might have been some words, too. It was hard to tell. I smiled and nodded, though.

"Scream," I whispered. "Scream, if you want." But that faint sound of laughter just went on, seeping up from the dirt like a poisonous vapor.

A sudden dark terror seized me Dolan was behind me! Yes, somehow Dolan had gotten behind me! And before I could turn around he would tumble me into the hole and I jumped up and whirled around, my mangled hands making rough approximations of fists.

Wind-driven sand smacked me.