at the same instant that jack sawyer had jammed the burning coin into the forehead of a monstrosity in the territories , reuel gardener , who had been afflicted with relatively harmless petit mal epileptic seizures ever since the age of six ( the same age at which osmond 's son had begun to show signs of what was called blasted lands sickness ) , apparently suffered a grand mal seizure in the back of a wolf-driven cadillac on i-70 , westbound to california from illinois .