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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmunder his breath, something he sometimes did when suturing a wound. Sometimes the pick would strikea rock hard enough to flash sparks, and the shiver would travel up the wooden haft to vibrate in hishands. Hecould feel blisters forming on his palms and didn’t care, although he was, like most doctors, usuallycareful of his hands. Above and around him, the wind sang and sang, playing a tree-note melody.Counterpointing this he heard the soft drop and chunk of rock. He looked over his shoulder and saw Jud,hunkered down and pulling out the bigger rocks he had dug up, making a heap of them.“For your cairn,” he said when he saw Louis looking.“Oh,” Louis said and went back to work.He made the grave about two feet wide and three feet long—a Cadillac of a grave for a damn cat, hethought—and when it was perhaps thirty inches deep and the pick was flashing sparks up from almostevery stroke, he tossed it and the shovel aside and asked Jud if it was okay.Jud got up and took a cursory look. “Seems fine to me,” he said. “Anyway, it’s what you think thatcounts.”“Will you tell me now what this is about?”Jud smiled a little. “The Micmacs believed this hill was a magic place,” he said. “Believed this wholeforest, from the swamp on north and east, was magic. They made this place, and they buried their deadhere, away from everything else. Other tribes steered clear of it—the Penobscots said these woods werefull of ghosts. Later on, the fur trappers started saying pretty much the same thing. I suppose some ofthem saw the foo-fire in Little God Swamp and thought they were seeing ghosts.”Jud smiled, and Louis thought: That isn’t what you think at all.“Later on, not even the Micmacs themselves would come here. One of them claimed he saw a Wendigohere and that the ground had gone sour. They had a big powwow about it . . or so I heard the tale in mygreen years, Louis, but I heard it from that old tosspot Stanny B.—which is what we all called StanleyBouchard—and what Stanny B. didn’t know, he’d make up.”Louis, who knew only that the Wendigo was supposed to be a spirit of the north country, said, “Do youthink the ground’s gone sour?”Jud smiled—or at least his lips slanted. “I think it’s a dangerous place,” he said softly, “but not for catsor dogs or pet hamsters. Go on and bury your animal, Louis.”file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (106 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM