Now it was almost nine and he’d penetrated deep into the near-desert. His lights tunneled a path through the blackness; a path which could end in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil — he had enough money to go anywhere, to start fresh when he got there. Eight thousand seven hundred dollars; his life’s savings; Margaret’s, too, for that matter. He had emptied their joint bank account at one thirty this afternoon. He had taken it in cash, and put it in the money belt fastened around his waist under his clothing. Now he was driving toward the Rio Grande, about three hours away. Now he was heading for a renewal of brightness and youth. Or so he hoped, and the hope was strong enough to keep him smiling and humming.
Until shortly after the gaudy Cadillac hard-top passed his Lark sedan, passed it so quickly that he failed to catch even a glimpse of the occupants. It shot ahead some hundred feet, slowed, and stayed there, matching his own sixty to seventy miles per hour. Together they streaked along the smooth, straight road, through the cloudy-night darkness, deeper into arid country.
Five minutes later, the Cadillac swerved far to the left, across the white line and into the opposite lane of the two-lane road, to smash a jack rabbit that was attracted by its lights.
Ed Gaines was immediately sickened. He’d lived in Texas all his life; he’d traveled its roads and knew the habits of the jack rabbit and had no particular love for the stupid creature which often ran mothlike into the lights of night-traveling autos. But he’d never met anyone who deliberately ran them down. What was more to the point, he had never been so captive an audience to the results — his eyes and senses were offended by the red-and-brown splotch steaming on the night-cool pavement. And within the next sixty seconds, the driver of the Cadillac swung even farther left to destroy a second rabbit. And again the bloody mess came under Ed’s headlights.
He turned on the radio, made himself hum, made himself go back to planning the good life. A store of his own. A beautiful woman to arouse and satisfy passion. Leisure time...
Twenty minutes later, the road bulged around a huge malpais rock formation, then straightened. During that brief turn, Ed glimpsed the interior of the car before him — a split-second view of two shadowy shapes in the front seat.
He wondered what it was like to be traveling with the kind of man who enjoyed smashing out life at seventy miles per hour. He wondered if the second shadow was a wife, and felt quick pity.
They approached a gas station, small, dark, dead, with a dim light showing from behind drawn shades on the second floor. Someone lived up there; and someone’s dog ran out barking to meet the Cadillac. Ed never did see what sort of dog it was, only that it was small. And while it was a foolish mutt to chase after cars, it wasn’t quite so foolish as to cross in front of the hurtling vehicles. But the driver of the Cadillac swung hard right as soon as the dog appeared. The dog tried to reverse field, but the Cadillac plunged off the road, churning up hard-packed sand and scrub grass, hunting it down. The dog was sent spinning up and over the hardtop’s roof to land in a mangled, intestine-smeared clot near the pavement.
Ed shouted and pounded his horn and pressed his gas pedal to the floor boards, raging to catch the Cadillac and do something to the man who was driving. But the Cadillac swung back onto the road and shot out ahead, picking up speed much faster than the six-cylinder Lark could. And continued to streak away at what must have been close to a hundred miles an hour, its tail lights dwindling rapidly in the darkness, until Ed was again alone on the road to Mexico — except for a bloody little clump some five miles farther on.
It was a few minutes to ten when he pulled off the road onto the blacktop of the Green Circle Tavern, which maintained a dozen cabins in addition to its wine-and-dine facilities. He tinned left to park within white guide lines, radiator first against a low wire fence. Walking back toward the road and the entrance to the tavern, he counted four other cars beside his own. The last one made him stop. It was the Cadillac hard-top.
The Green Circle’s taproom held three separate couples at three separate tables. Ed Gaines walked to the bar, took a stool and glanced into the long mirror. To his right, near the door and just visible past the barrier of his own reflection, were two middle-aged women chatting over the remains of a meal. To his left was the greater part of the room, and the other two couples. The one nearest him — just a few feet away — immediately claimed his attention. The man was big and heavy and graying, but it was his face that made Ed feel a swift return of the rage he’d experienced on the road. He quickly cautioned himself about judging people by their looks, and moved his eyes to the woman. She created another quick surge of emotion. She was slender, yet fully fleshed; small-boned and curved and catlike; a dark, sleek girl with wide-set eyes. And those eyes rose, as if in response to his, and searched his face in the mirror. They looked at each other a moment, and in that moment, Ed knew she was full of sickness, full of despair. As if to point to the reason for this despair, her glance flicked to the man beside her. The man laughed, and said quite distinctly, “Would you like him for your Prince Charming, Cecily?” She paled, picked up a cocktail glass and drank. The man laughed and drew on a cigarette and looked at Ed in the mirror. Ed’s first impulse was to drop his eyes, but he controlled it. He stared back at the thick-faced, hard-faced, cruel-faced man. And something made him move his eyes slowly, deliberately, to the lovely woman and smile at her. The man laughed again.
Ed examined the last couple — youngsters; honeymooners, probably; wrapped up in each other. He made himself consider the possibility that they, or the middle-aged women now rising from their table, were the occupants of the Cadillac. Or a person or persons not present. But then he returned his eyes to Cecily, and she was again looking at him, and her sickness, her hatred of the man beside her, again came through. And the soft, thick laughter again sounded, and the deep, taunting voice said, “He’s definitely the Prince Charming type, Cecily.”
Ed turned and looked at the lovely girl. “You and your friend driving to Mexico?”
The man laughed. “I told you, Cecily.” He nodded at Ed. “We are. Or we were. But we’ve had a few discussions, my lovely wife and myself, and we’re undecided now.”
The bartender finally made his appearance. Ed ordered beer and a ham sandwich. His heart was pounding wildly, and he wondered why he was doing this. And said, “That your Cadillac in the parking lot?”
Cecily’s eyes remained on the table; her face remained deathly pale. Her husband looked surprised. “That’s right.” Then his smile grew and a note of vindictive delight entered his voice. “You’re the one we passed, aren’t you? You’re the one who blew his horn.” He slapped his hands on the table. “He’s the one, Cecily. I tell you—”
She jumped up, whispering, “Let me go, Carl! Let me go!” She stopped then. The young couple was staring.
Ed’s mouth was dry, but he said, “My name’s Ed Gaines. Mind if I join you?”
Cecily looked at him. There was surprise in her face, which was quickly replaced by a childish surge of pure hope.
“By all means,” her husband said, and he was shaking his head and laughing heavily, consistently.
Ed walked to their table. As he sat down, one clear thought emerged. This girl was the beauty and passion he’d wanted all his life!
Cecily was still standing. Ed examined her, openly, not hiding a thing from the heavy-set man. She wore a simple, tight sheath; pale-blue, sleeveless, perfect because her body was perfect He smiled at her. She sat down.