Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

name had been. He was a long way from wishing he’d shot the man when he had the chance, but he was already starting to wish McCarthy had stayed the hell away from his tree and out of his life.
    2
    He had the soup on the stove and was making the cheese sandwiches when the first gust of wind arrived—a big whoop that made the cabin creak and raised the snow in a furious sheet. For a moment even the black scrawled shapes of the trees in The Gulch were erased, and there was nothing outside the big window but white: it was as if someone had set up a drive-in movie screen out there. For the first time, Jonesy felt a thread of unease not just about Pete and Henry, presumably on their way back from Gosselin’s in Henry’s Scout, but for the Beaver. You would have said that if anybody knew these woods it would have been the Beav, but nobody knew anything in a white-out— all bets were off, that was another of his ne’er-do-well father’s sayings, probably not as good as you can’t make yourself be lucky, but not bad. The sound of the genny might help Beav find his way, but as McCarthy had pointed out, sounds had a way of deceiving you. Especially if the wind started kicking up, as it had now apparently decided to do.
    His Mom had taught him the dozen basic things he knew about cooking, and one of them had to do with the art of making grilled cheese sandwiches. Lay in a little mouseturds first, she said— mouseturds being Janet Jones for mustard—and then butter the goddam bread, not the skillet. Butter the skillet and all’s you got’s fried bread with some cheese in it. He had never understood how the difference between where you put the butter, on the bread or in the skillet, could change the ultimate result, but he always did it his mother’s way, even though it was a pain in the ass buttering the tops of the sandwiches while the bottoms cooked. No more would he have left his rubber boots on once he was in the house . . . because, his mother had always said, “they draw your feet.” He had no idea just what that meant, but even now, as a man going on forty, he took his boots off as soon as he was in the door, so they wouldn’t draw his feet.
    â€œI think I might have one of these babies myself,” Jonesy said, and laid the sandwiches in the skillet, butter side down. The soup had begun to simmer, and it smelled fine—like comfort.
    â€œGood idea. I certainly hope your friends are all right.”
    â€œYeah,” Jonesy said. He gave the soup a stir. “Where’s your place?”
    â€œWell, we used to hunt in Mars Hill, at a place Nat and Becky’s uncle owned, but some god-bless’d idiot burned it down two summers ago. Drinking and then getting careless with the old smokes, that’s what the Fire Marshal said, anyway.”
    Jonesy nodded. “Not an uncommon story.”
    â€œThe insurance paid the value of the place, but we had nowhere to hunt. I thought probably that’d be the end of it, and then Steve found this nice place over in Kineo. I think it’s probably an unincorporated township, just another part of the Jefferson Tract, but Kineo’s what they call it, the few people who live there. Do you know where I mean?”
    â€œI know it,” Jonesy said, speaking through lips that felt oddly numb. He was getting another of those telephone calls from nowhere. Hole in the Wall was about twenty miles east of Gosselin’s. Kineo was maybe thirty miles to the west of the market. That was fifty miles in all. Was he supposed to believe that the man sitting on the couch with just his head sticking out of the down comforter had wandered fifty miles since becoming lost the previous afternoon? It was absurd. It was impossible.
    â€œSmells good,” McCarthy said.
    And it did, but Jonesy no longer felt hungry.
    3
    He was just bringing the chow over to the couch when he heard feet stamping on the stone outside