“What the hell’s comin’ over you?” Howard turned to him momentarily, then fixed his eyes back on the road, where he saw what appeared to be two police cars in the distance, forming a roadblock.
“You just hush up for a while, you hear?”
“Certainly, I shall.”
In a moment Howard eased the car to a stop in front of the two Texas Rangers who manned the roadblock. He leaned out of his window, mopping his brow and squinting toward the horizon, though he hardly needed to.
“Howdy,” said one of the Rangers. “Sorry to be corralin’ y’all like this, but we got one heckuva brush fire on our hands.”
“Never seen nothin’ like it hereabouts,” said Howard.
“Ya don’t say. Had us a freak lightnin’ storm last night musta started it, and it’s been burnin’ ever since. You boys best take a little detour now. Where y’all headed anyways?”
“Well, we were aimin’ for Route 66 westbound.”
The Ranger consulted briefly with his partner, then came back and explained how to get to Vernon and Highway 5, which would take them on to Amarillo and Route 66. “Ain’t what you want to hear, I know, but beats the heck outta burnin’ in hell out here, if you know what I mean.”
“Figure I do,” said Howard.
“Y’all drive safe, now.”
“Appreciate it.” Howard backed up a short way, made a Y-turn, and returned the way they had come, much to Lovecraft’s displeasure.
“YA SEE THAT fella in the passenger seat?” said the Ranger.
His partner pulled a long face in imitation of the Yankee. “What necka the woods you s’pose he’s from, huh?” He laughed.
“It’s the weird shit always comes in threes,” said the Ranger. “Damnedest thing, ain’t it? Nothin’ out there but some post oak and mesquite. And I ain’t never seen a fire burn so long or hot across the desert without no wind to stoke it. And now I don’t like the looks of that Yankee we just seen.”
“That’s only two,” said the other Ranger. “What’s the third weird thing?”
“I s’pose we’ll just have to wait an see, huh?” He opened the flap pocket of his shirt and pulled out a pouch of tobacco. “Gimme some paper, why doncha, and we’ll have ourselves a little smoke. I don’t see a damned thing comin’ for quite a while.”
Above and behind the Texas Rangers, the boiling clouds and smoke began to flatten out, dispersing slowly into an anticipatory cairn through which something moved-something that looked like the shadow of a car.
5
NO WORDS PASSED between the two men for the next ninety minutes as the Chevy rumbled along the detour kicking up dust, rattling and squeaking. Occasionally there would be a jarring thump as the suspension failed to compensate for a pothole or a loud knock as a stone was thrown up into a wheel well. The noises punctuated the silence more than adequately, and Howard felt comfortable, though hot, as he jockeyed the wheel. Occasionally, he glanced over toward Lovecraft to see him gently patting at his sweating brow with a folded handkerchief.
Lovecraft’s upper lip seemed to perspire more heavily than the rest of his face, but oddly, Howard had never noticed him wipe it. It wasn’t until he was mopping his own forehead that he saw Lovecraft out of the corner of his eye; he was resting his handkerchief daintily against his brow, looking still, but he had stuck his tongue out, and with a long deliberate stroke, he expertly lapped up the sweat that dewed his upper lip as if it were a sweet nectar.
Howard winced in disgust and turned his eyes back to the road.
They were approaching a small town called Thalia. In a few minutes Howard pulled into the first gas station, a tiny one-pump operation across the street from a cafe.
The grease monkey who approached the car had crooked yellow teeth and an expression that looked like a wince frozen permanently on his face. “What’ll it be, mister?”
“Fill’er up. Ethyl,” said Howard. “And check the radiator for me, would ya?”
“Sure.”
Howard headed for the bathroom. “Why don’t you go over to the cafe and get yourself a Dr Pepper or somethin’?” he said to Lovecraft. “I’ll join you in a minute.”
Lovecraft stumbled as he stepped from the car. One of his legs had fallen asleep from the knee down. He leaned back in to grope for his satchel, and while the grease monkey pumped the gas, tossing curious glances his way, he went to the trunk and retrieved a can of pork and beans from his suitcase.
When the man sidled over to try to get a look into his open suitcase, Lovecraft hastily shut it and slammed the trunk with a little more force than necessary. Now the grease monkey grinned in embarrassment, exposing his yellow teeth, but Lovecraft took it as a look of rustic suspicion, like the misleading smile of a chimpanzee. He gave the man an annoyed stare and headed across the street toward the cafe.
When Howard emerged from the bathroom, wiping his wet hands on the legs of his pants, he noticed a flash of red. It was a young woman standing alone at the bus stop across the street, her arms folded primly in front of her, a single cheap suitcase at her feet. Her red hair waved like a warning flag in the breeze, its motion at odds with how still she stood, as if she were frozen in that posture. She was out of place here, obviously; he could see it from the cut of her dress, a city girl’s dress that accentuated her figure.
Howard heard a loud hiss and turned toward the car to see the cloud of steam billowing from under the hood. He stepped up to the grease monkey, who was leaning away from the radiator, where he had draped a grimy rag over the cap now bubbling with hot water.
“Shoulda waited a bit longer,” he said. “What do I owe ya?”
“That’ll be a buck fifty-five.”
Howard took his thick wallet out of his back pocket and unfolded it. He glanced across the street again. The redheaded woman hadn’t moved; she faced west, squinting a bit, and now a gust of wind blew the fabric of her dress against her body, outlining her full figure.
“She’s a right pretty one, ain’t she?” said the grease monkey. Howard turned to him and saw his repulsive, smarmy smile. “How much did you say?”
The man held out his tobacco-stained hands. “A buck fifty-five’ll do it.”
Howard paid him. “Yeah,” he said. “She’s all right, I guess.”
“Much better-Iookin’ than the ones we usually get driftin’ through this part of the belt.”
Across the street, the woman turned, impatient now, and the wind gusted again, throwing her hair across her face. She wiped it away like water.
“Want to know how much?” asked the grease monkey.
“Exactly what in the hell are you talkin’ about?” Howard said, his indignity a bit forced.
“I’m saying… ahem… her bus ain’t due for say… another hour?”
Without a word, Howard got into the car and slammed the door. He was glad to be obscured by the open hood, because he was both offended and interested by the lewd innuendo. He mopped a trickle of Sweat from his brow, and was just about to call out to the attendant when the hood came down with a slam, startling him. He looked up into the grease monkey’s leering yellow grin.
“Oh, by the way…” the man said through the windshield.