It was very bewildering. He did not understand the meaning of it. But he knew he had corrected a former error. He was back in the world. He was alive again.
Sam Atkins looked up at his companions through eyes that seemed all but dead. "He's going to make it," he said. "We can get the car out and pick up Baker now."
They used Sam's panel truck, which had a four-wheel drive and mud tires. Nothing else could possibly get through. Fenwick left his own car at Ellerbee's.
It was still raining lightly as the truck sloshed and slewed through the muck that was hardly recognizable now as a road. For an hour Sam fought the wheel to hold the car approximately in the middle of the brownish ooze that led them through the night. The three men sat in the cab. Behind them, a litter and first-aid equipment had been rigged for Baker. Sam told them nothing would be needed except soap and water, but Fenwick and Ellerbee felt it impossible to go off without some other emergency equipment.
After an hour, Sam said, "He's close. Just around the next bend. That's where his car went off."
Baker loomed suddenly in the lights of the car. He was standing at the edge of the road. He waved an arm wearily.
Fenwick would not have recognized him. And for some seconds after the car had come to a halt, and Baker stood weaving uncertainly in the beam of the lights, Fenwick was not sure it was Baker at all.
He looked like something out of an old Frankenstein movie. His clothes were ripped almost completely away. Those remaining were stained with blood and red clay, and soaked with rain. Baker's face was laced with a network of scars as if he had been slashed with a shower of glass not too long ago and the wounds were freshly healed. Blood was caked and cracked on his face and was matted in his hair.