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187 their walking would take them down from the -expan= sive vantage=point, actually the shotgun man had wade a fairly wide circle=sweep when he had first stepped out of the car, but Prankster had seem it as merely being an attempt at being a sentinelsso But' now it was to lates and Prankster decidely kept his emotions to the barren, clese -to the-earth, twisted ‘nature of things, which heaved a ae Topeuea » ation: between ocean and desert along the-mountains Nerth of Les Angeles. First: they passed'a shack, Then another, More: like lean too's these, Raw wood worn, then colored’ with time-by tiny bits -of red’ windclay, Then they approa= ched‘ a smalli village-ef shacks, that were: standing : on etiltse He supposed’ the-stilts:were-for. keeping out snakes, and ‘other wild life-that moved close-to the grouaz So this was not a medow at all, but a walked down sod street. dcross from the row ef shacks, about fifty yards due west was a grove-of low twisting trees. (Madrone) and Prankster thought the trunks and branches of the , trees vtwisted like snakes, Knarled and wild they were, and somehow being ae WHET oe to tain’ pesos herey Ang-sounts-of strangeness, anud—theetmosphere-did-fect —