“I’ve still got a couple hundred,” Lee said. “Soon enough, I’ll be rolling in cash, I’ll be fixed up just fine.” They both looked at him, but said nothing. He hoped he was right, hoped the stolen money was still where he’d buried it. “I’ll take you to the airport in the morning, then I’m on my way.”
In the Blakes’ small room, Lee and Morgan sat in the two faded armchairs, Becky and Sammie on the bed leaning against the limp pillows. This last night together they were all uncomfortable, reluctant to say good-bye, knowing they might never see each other again. Lee hated partings, hated to string things out. With their long ordeal ended, parting was harder than he’d imagined. He itched to move on, and at the same time he wanted badly to stay with them, to head for Georgia, to be with his family and with Sammie, see Sammie grow up. He couldn’t explain that if he stayed in the U.S. he might soon be back in the joint. When Sammie slid down from the bed and crawled in his lap, he wondered for one unrealistic moment if he could go back to Rome and never get caught for the post office heist. Sammie leaned against him, wanting him to stay. When he could no longer stand her sadness he stood up, hugging the child to him, and set her on her daddy’s lap. “We need to be up early, need to head for the airport by six. Maybe we can grab a bite of breakfast near there.” Not looking at Sammie again, quickly saying good night, he headed for his own room.
Crawling into the lumpy bed, he slept fitfully. He dreamed of crossing the desert on horseback, choking on dust, dreamed of thirst, of fighting rank and unbroke horses. He woke wondering why he’d dreamed that. At five-thirty, he showered and dressed and headed for the Blakes’ room.
They left the motel in darkness, the air cold and damp with mist. As they hurried through a greasy breakfast in a tiny café near the airport the sky began to grow light, to brighten the dirty windows. In the airport, checking Becky’s bag and the canvas duffel Morgan carried, they moved out to the tarmac behind the terminal where the DC-3 sat waiting, the metal stairway being rolled into place by four sleepy Hispanic men.
In the cold dawn they endured a last, tearful good-bye. Lee watched them ascend the metal stairway among a dozen passengers. He waited, shivering in the cold morning, until the plane backed around, revved up a little, and headed for the runway. Watched it taxi away to the far end of the strip, thinking how the man-made birds had helped to shape his life. Planes not yet invented when he was a boy: helped him steal, helped him escape, carried him to prison, and now carried away the child he loved. Far down the field the engine roared, the plane turned in a tight circle, came back nearly straight at him, lifted over him into the sky. He watched until it had vanished among the clouds, then turned away, a heavy knot in his belly.
He gassed up the Chevy near the airport and headed south out of L.A., taking the inland route against the green hills, direct for San Bernardino and on toward Blythe. All the while, part of him longed to turn around and follow the Blakes back to Rome, to live among his own family. The pain of parting was wicked, of learning to care for someone and then turning his back on them. Walking away as if he didn’t give a damn, when in fact it took all he had to do that. The distress of leaving Sammie, just as he had abandoned Mae, was nearly unbearable.
Passing through the little towns separated by stretches of orange and avocado groves, he thought about Sammie’s smile, so like Mae’s. Such vital little girls, Sammie so filled with joy after the trial when he and Morgan had been freed—but then, at the airport, Sammie smearing angrily at the tears she couldn’t stop.
But in Sammie’s dark eyes he had seen something else as well. He’d seen a power that startled and then cheered him. In that moment, something in Sammie had shone out as strong as steel—she was born of Russell Dobbs’s blood. No matter what turns her life took, no matter what occurred in the years ahead, Sammie would prevail. And maybe he would see her again, maybe somehow he would manage that. The ties that had begun with his memories of Mae and that had led to Sammie, those ties could not be broken.
Moving on past San Bernardino, he pulled up at a little cluster of houses and stores, parked the Chevy before a pawnshop. How many pawnshops over the years, all with the same black iron bars protecting their tangles of old watches, dusty cameras, tarnished jewelry, and used guns. At the counter he chose a .357 Magnum with a shoulder holster that fit nicely beneath his heavy jacket, and ten boxes of ammunition. He picked up a frying pan, a used sleeping bag, a good knife, all the necessities for a meager kit, then he stopped in a little grocery for canned beans and staples.
Leaving the store with his box of groceries he spotted, on down the street, a tiny Mexican café. Stowing his purchases in the car, he stepped on in. He bought four burritos and four tacos, which the accommodating waiter wrapped in a red-and-white-checked napkin and dropped into a brown paper bag with two cold beers.
Driving south again munching on a taco, heading for Blythe, Lee’s thoughts turned to the moves he’d have to make slipping in and out of the area, easing up the hills unseen to where he’d buried the cash. That got him thinking about the gray gelding he’d ridden up the mountain when he buried the money, had ridden back down to connect with the crop duster that lifted him fast over into Nevada. Not until the plane had appeared had he turned the gray loose, watched him gallop away over the desert bucking and kicking. Lee knew when the horse got thirsty and hungry he’d head for the isolated ranch that stood below on the empty desert.
The gray had been a good and willing companion; Lee missed him. He didn’t like this sadness of being alone, this was new to him, this hollow loneliness.
What he’d planned to do was buy the gray back, if he had been taken in by that ranch, buy him if they’d sell him, and take off on horseback for Mexico. But a little thought, a few questions asked, and he knew the land along the Colorado, down into Baja, would be way too hard on a horse. Little if any grass for miles across the desert, little if any water, and much of the Colorado River inaccessible where it ran deep between ragged stone cliffs. Even if he bought a trailer, maybe traded the Chevy for a pickup, it would still be a hard journey, hard to care for a saddle horse. He didn’t have any real destination, didn’t know where, in Mexico, he’d end up. Somewhere along the gulf, but how much feed could he buy there, how much water could he count on? He’d be smarter to wait, to buy some Mexican cayuse later on.
Well, hell, the first thing was to get the money. If it was gone, he couldn’t buy a flea-bitten hound dog.
Parking beside an orange grove he unwrapped a burrito and opened a beer. It was then, as he ate the rest of his lunch, that Misto was suddenly beside him, grinning up at him, yellow shaggy coat, ragged ears, ragged, switching tail. How often had it been this way over their long friendship, Misto abruptly appearing pressing against him, loud with rumbling purrs. Lee stroked his rough fur and offered him a bite of burrito, but Misto sniffed and turned his nose away. Too much hot sauce.
He stopped once more before he reached Blythe, to gas up the Chevy again and use the restroom. The attendant was young and shy, he looked at his feet when Lee addressed him. “Can you tell me the name of that ranch out on the old road to Amboy?”
The young man glanced up at him, turned, and headed for the office. Lee could see him ringing up the sale. Bringing Lee his change, still he didn’t look at him. “That would be the Emerson place,” he mumbled. “It sets just beyond the little airstrip.”
Lee nodded. “That’s the only ranch out there?”
“The only one,” the young fellow said shyly, studying his boots. But he stood watching as Lee pulled away. The ghost cat had disappeared. The car seemed filled with emptiness as Lee headed for the road to Amboy.