Jamieson shrugged. "I met an old Indian in Muskogee, Oklahoma. When he
looked at me, he knew right away that something was different. He said, 'what did
you see, wasichu? What did you see?' He kept buying me beers until I fessed up.
When I was finished, he told me, 'You ain't crazy, wasichu. What you seen is real.
You're the first white man to see them and survive, so I'll tell you the secret.' I
switched to coffee so I could remember. Turns out they're called The Harrow Trees.
If they realize you know about them, they hunt you until you die, and they will never
give up. They still have weaknesses. They can only move when you're not looking.
Thing is, you have to blink sometime, and in that instant, they can move a long
ways. And there's only two things they can't cross: concrete and water.
"But even that won't slow them down much. That Indian told me they're always
throwing out seeds. Thousands a day. Only one in a hundred grows to become
another Harrow Tree, but that's enough. If that seed blows across the river or the
highway, they'll grow up overnight and the chase is on again. I only survived by
staying on major highways in the fast lane, far from the grassy edge of the road.
Crossing a river only slows them down a piece. I would sleep in concrete parking
lots wherever I could to be safe. That is, until the cops chased me out."
It was all starting to make sense to Pete. He had to admit, the delusion was
pretty complete. What a nightmarish world Jamieson had built for himself. "So, all
those areas where Harrow Trees threw out seeds should have left lots of forests
behind, right?"
"Sure. If that old Indian wasn't lying."
"All this running. Did you have a plan? Where were you running to?"
"I wanted to try Arizona. The desert. If they can't grow in concrete, maybe they
can't grow in the desert sands. I almost made it too. I made a mistake and ended up
on a one-lane highway." He pointed to a relatively fresh wound in his side beneath
his torn shirt. "One of 'em reached out and almost got me. I swerved out of the way
and almost hit somebody. The cops saw it all — the swerving part anyway — and
here I am."