“Tell him yourself, sometime,” she said, and the screen door creaked and banged shut as she left. Before I could enjoy my own bitterness, I fell back into sleep.
I learned Sandy’s special motive on Monday when it was almost noon and we were a mile east of Brackettville on 90, swinging high and clear on Dr. Golden’s encapsulated joy, thumbing the cars that whined by, trailing dust devils. Sandy reached over and patted Nan on the firm seat of her slacks in a proprietary way and said, “Did this chick do you right when I sent her to you last night, Kirboo, or did she drag?”
“She... she was fine,” I lied, feeling uneasy.
And I had to turn and look at Shack. His face had turned a swollen red and he was staring at Sandy, and looking as if he had lost his last friend. He looked as though he would break into tears.
“Jeez-Chri, Sandy!” he said. “How come it’s okay for him, but you never...”
“Don’t we have to teach this upstanding young man all about life and reality, Shack? Would you deprive him of an education?”
“I figured you just didn’t want to share, and that was okay, but if you’re going to do like that, I’m going to...”
“You’re going to what?” Sandy demanded, moving close to Shack.
“I just meant...”
“You want to go to New Orleans, or do you want to go back to Tucson, Hernandez?”
“I want to come along, Sandy, but...”
“Then shut up. Okay?”
Shack gave a long and weary sigh. “Okay. Anything you say, Sandy.”
The scene had elements of the bull ring in it. Hernandez could have snapped Sandy’s spine in his hands. The girl was the cape, spread in front of the black bull, then whipped gracefully away as he charged. I knew Sandy was testing his own strength and control. But when the scene was over, Shack looked at me in a way that made me entirely uncomfortable. Up until then he had been indifferent toward me. But now I could sense that he wanted to get those big hands on me.
We finally got another lift in a truck, this time a pickup, with two weathered men in the cab, and the four of us in the back. This time we made forty miles. To Uvalde. After food and cabins, slightly better than before, we didn’t have much money left. We sat in Nan and Sandy’s cabin and pooled all we had. Not quite nine dollars.
“Going along like this,” Sandy said, “we’ll have long beards the time we get to Burgundy Street, man. Or we’ll starve.”
“We can stop and work some,” Shack said.
“Never use that word in front of me again, sir,” Sandy told him.
“It’s on account of we’re too many,” Nan said. “I’ve been telling you. We can split up and you and me, honey, we could make it all the way through in a day, honest to God. I know.”
“We’re all too happy together to break it up,” Sandy said.
“This is happy?” she asked sullenly.
“Shut up,” he said. “This is hilarious like. Anyhow, I’ve got an idea. For tomorrow. We’ve got to start being shrewd like. Use all assets and talents. We need a car of our own, children.”
“Grand theft auto,” Shack said darkly.
“Maybe we can just borrow one.”
“How?” I asked.
“Watch and learn,” he said. “Watch and learn, college boy.”
The next day was Tuesday, the twenty-first of July. That’s the day they say we started our “career.” He slugged us so hard Monday night, we weren’t stirring until noon, and then he hopped the three of us high and far, and got what was left of the tequila into Shack. He made us walk east on 90 until we were dragging. It was a blinding, dizzying day. The coaching didn’t start until he found a place that suited him.
It went off exactly the way he planned it. Nan stood on the shoulder of the road with her hatbox. We lay flat behind rocks and brush. A man alone, in a blue-and-white Ford station wagon, a new one, came to a screaming stop fifty yards beyond her and backed up so hastily you could guess that he thought he’d better get her before the next guy stopped. She got into the front seat with her hatbox. She smiled at him and suggested he set the hatbox in back. He took it in both hands and strained around in the seat. While he was in that position she stuck the point of her little knife into the pit of his belly, puncturing the skin just enough, and told him that if he moved one little muscle, she’d open him up like a Christmas goose. She convinced him. He didn’t even let go of the hatbox. She held him there until two cars went by. When the road was clear in both directions, she gave a yell and we scrambled up and hurried to the wagon and got in. Sandy and I got into the back. Shack went around and opened the door on the driver’s side, took aim and chunked the man solidly under the ear with his big fist. The man sagged. Shack bunted him over with his hip and got behind the wheel and in a moment we were rolling along at a legal speed. Nan checked the glove compartment. She found a .32-caliber automatic and handed it back to Sandy. He shoved it into his rucksack.
“I do like station wagons!” Sandy said reverently, and suddenly we were all laughing. No reason.
I felt no slightest twinge of guilt or fear. It didn’t seem to me then that we had done anything serious. It was all like a complicated joke.
The man stirred and groaned and lifted his head. “What are you people doing...”
Nan put the knife against his short ribs. “No questions now, Tex,” Sandy said. “Later.”
After we’d gone maybe five miles, Sandy told Shack to slow it down. The road was clear. We turned off onto a sandy road that was hardly more than a trace. We crawled and bumped over rocks until we had circled around behind a barren hill, completely out of sight of the road. Sandy had Shack turn it around so we were headed out. Shack took the key out of the switch. We got out. In the sudden silence we were a thousand years from civilization. A lizard stared at us and ran. A buzzard circled against the blue, high as a jet. You could hear the hard high whine of the cars, fading down the scale as they went by on the invisible highway.
There was a pile of rocks twenty feet from the car. Nan and Sandy sat on the rocks. I sat on my heels not far from them. Shack took a half cigar from his pocket and lit it, and stood leaning against the front fender. The man stood beside the open door of the car. He rubbed his neck and winced. He was maybe thirty-five, with blond hair cut short and a bald spot. He had a round, earnest, open face, pale-blue eyes, a fair complexion. His nose, forehead and bald spot were red and peeling. He wore a light-blue sports shirt, sweaty at the armpits, and gray slacks, and black-and-white shoes. He had a long torso, short, bandy legs, and a stomach that hung over a belt worn low. He wore a wide gold wedding band and, on the little finger of his right hand, a heavy lodge ring.
He tried to smile at all of us, and said, “I thought the little lady was traveling alone. My mistake.”
“What’s your name, Tex?” Sandy asked.
“Becher. Horace Becher.”
“What do you do, Horace?”
“I’m sales manager of the Blue Bonnet Tile Company out of Houston. I’ve been making a swing around the territory. Checking up.”
“Checking up on girl hitchhikers, Horace?”
“Well, you know how it is.”
“How is it, Horace?”
“I don’t know. I just saw her there...” He visibly pulled himself together. His smile became more ingratiating. You could almost hear him telling himself that he was a salesman, so get in there and sell, boy. “I guess you folks want money and I guess you want the car. Everything is insured, so you go ahead and take it. I won’t give you a bit of trouble, folks. Not a bit. I’ll wait just as long as you say before I report it, and I won’t be able to remember the license number when I do. Is that a good deal?”