She dreamed of being decked out in filmy petticoat-trousers, waiting for the Sultan.
Abruptly she was awake. Harem! That was what Gus and Thatch had been planning! Obvious all along, but she had somehow blinded herself to it. Nothing so ambitious as an empire—just making time while the sun shone.
She peered out at the rain. Sun?
That faceless girl—left behind to die, just because she had pride and spunk.
Zena was on her feet. “Turn around!” she screamed, rushing up the passage.
Gus and Gordon, nodding in the dining alcove, snapped alert. “What?” Gus demanded.
“You left a girl out there to die,” Zena accused him. “Now turn about and go back and pick her up!”
“Are you crazy? That was an hour ago!” Gus said.
“Twenty-five minutes ago,” Gordon corrected him, looking at his dainty feminine watch.
“I don’t care how long ago!” Zena yelled, sounding hysterical in her own ears. “Thatch, you turn around.”
“Uh-uh,” Gus said. “She didn’t want to come.”
“Because you threatened her with—turn it, Thatch!”
“She’s got a point,” Gordon said. “I haven’t felt easy about that myself. At least we could have given her a lift to high ground.”
“Look,” Gus said reasonably. “We never threatened her with anything. You’re not even interested in women, are you? She jumped to a conclusion.”
“Then we should have disabused her of that conclusion,” Gordon said, the color rising to his face.
Gus raised his two hands in demurral. “Don’t forget— she was black.”
“Black!” Zena cried. “You turned her away for racial—”
“No!” Gus said. “I’m no racist, and neither is Thatch. Especially not about young women. But she must have seen our white skins and been afraid. No way she’d set foot inside this bus! If I were a white girl invited aboard with three black men, I’d feel the same.”
“Race never entered my mind,” Gordon said. “But your point is well taken. Even Gloria would hesitate. In retrospect, I think we are guilty. We should have reassured her, or tried to.”
“We’ll lose time,” Gus said. “We could all drown!”
But the vote was now two to two. Gus pondered a moment, then capitulated. “All right, Thatch. They’ll just have to learn the hard way.”
Obediently, Thatch turned. They made their way back in silence.
It was difficult to locate the precise spot where they had left the girl, because the interstate was largely featureless in the rain. They cruised for thirty-five minutes—more than far enough—but didn’t see any figure on the street. The pouring rain and thickening fog made a wider search impossible. The girl was gone.
“She could have flagged us down, if she had wanted to,” Gordon said.
Gus was disgusted. “All that time and gas wasted. And the water getting deeper all the time. We could have used the break to forage for caulking materials, too. Are you satisfied now?”
“At least we tried,” Zena said. “We aren’t savages.” But over an hour had been wasted, which meant another inch of rain and possibly another six inches of channelized flooding. Had she prejudiced their own chances by her foolish quest?
“Have we passed the Suwannee River yet?” Gordon inquired.
“No,” Gus replied. “Why the hell do you think I’m in such a hurry?”
That hardly helped Zena’s conscience. The worst flooding would be in the Suwannee River valley, naturally—no peaceful stream of folklore and song today!
They moved on north, glumly. One hour, two hours, slowly because of the deteriorating visibility. Gus began to hum “Way down upon the Suwannee River …” and it was all Zena could do to resist the baiting. She began to nod again—and the bus slowed.
Flooding again? She held her breath. No, Thatch had spotted another person. A woman in a yellow cape, trying futilely to fix the motor of her car.
“I’ll talk to her!” Zena cried. “You men keep your big mouths shut!”
Gordon smiled, Gus frowned, and Thatch seemed to be indifferent. Zena got out, ignoring the harsh beat of water on her head, hair, and third set of dry clothes, and approached the woman. She felt like a procurer, and it made her sick. But the alternative—
“We have a man who might be able to start it for you,” Zena called.
The woman faced her, the fine lines of her face set off by the fringe of rain-bedraggled hair outside her rain cape. “It’s out of gas and the battery’s dead. I just wanted you to know I was in trouble. I waited in the car for hours, knowing the highway had been closed to traffic, hoping—until I heard you come. Are you a rescue vehicle?”
“No such luck,” Zena said. “But we’ll help you.”
“You saved my life!”
For a fate worse than death? “Look, we’re a party of four, at the moment. Three men—and one of them seems to have notions of picking up grateful girls. You know. I hit him, and I think he’s harmless. But with this flooding—we may be trapped together for days.”
“Nothing could be worse for me than being trapped here.”
“That’s what I thought. But—”
“I don’t think this rain is ever going to end!”
“Not soon, I’m afraid. We’ve already passed through serious flooding, and the worst is coming. Frankly, I think you’d better hitch a ride with us. I just wanted you to know—”
“I understand. There won’t be any trouble. Usually I travel with my husband, but he’s in California right now. I don’t think you appreciate how grateful I am for the chance to get moving again.”
“You don’t have to be grateful—but it will help if you pull your weight. We’re all dead tired from hauling this tonnage out of a flooded section.”
“I understand,” the woman repeated firmly. “I’m Karen Jimson.”
“Zena Emers.” They shook hands formally, while the rain beat down on both their heads. “Let’s get the heck inside!”
They went up to the bus and climbed in. “Karen, this is Gus, Thatch, Gordon,” Zena introduced. “Men, this is Mrs. Jimson. She’s out of gas, so will ride with us—until the rain stops.”
Karen nodded in turn to each of the men. The light of the interior and the clinging wetness of her clothes under the cape showed her to be a young, buxom girl, not quite running to fat. “I have to fetch some things from the car,” she said.
“Married!” Gus expostulated the moment Karen was out of earshot.
“Why, whatever difference does that make?” Zena inquired sweetly.
Soon Karen was back with two small suitcases. “We’re all tired,” Gordon said. “Why don’t we park here and sleep? I can start the motor in the morning—and delay is better than cracking into something from fatigue. Thatch hasn’t had a break since we started, has he?”
“I don’t think we’d better stop,” Zena said, still conscious of the delay she had caused. “The water is still rising.”
“Then let me drive,” Gordon said. “Thatch has to have relief.”
Even Gus had to agree to that. “You girls take the back bunks,” he said. “A bed pulls down above the driving compartment, but we can’t use that while we’re in motion. Thatch and I can use the dining alcove.”
There was no protest. The men folded down the alcove-bed, and Zena closed off the rear section, forming it into a room. She stripped, dumped the dripping things in the sink on top of the last batch, found an oversized negligee in the female closet, donned it, and lay down. She expected sleep to come rapidly, but instead she lay tired and awake.
Karen removed her wet garments more slowly. Zena had not meant to snoop, but couldn’t resist. Karen’s figure, unlike Gloria’s, was genuine; she was a well-fleshed woman.
Karen opened one of her suitcases and removed something. Zena could not make out what it was. The woman leaned over, did something, and finally straightened.