“Tony, we’re this close to Lamesa! You could have gotten with your dad!”
“I still will, but its better this way!”
“You’ve lost your mind!”
“You think I ever really had it, bitch?”
Kate looked over her shoulder at the road. How long until they have photos of the missing Mistie from Pippins? How long until they check out the story on the Exxon robbery? “You didn’t give them my name?”
“Sure.”
This will be FBI. This will be federal. God. God.
“The truck we’re driving?”
“I said it was a tan truck. I’m not stupid enough to tell them everything like thelicense plate or anything, shit, they gotta do some of the work.” Tony grinned, wiggled her eyebrows. “Guess we should get going. How far’s Lamesa?”
God, we have to hurry!
Tony put out her hand as she slammed the passenger’s door behind her and turned on her butt to Kate at the wheel. “And I hope you got something good to eat in that store back there.”
57
The aspirins tasted okay, the crackers tasted okay, and her head didn’t ache as much as it had, but Mistie wanted to go home. She was tired and she hated this truck. She wanted to see Mama, to see Daddy. Daddy did stuff she didn’t like but she still liked Daddy. He never hit her like one of the old men did his little boy Jake back at MeadowView. Daddy never “punched out her lights” like that other Daddy did his boy.
Mistie rubbed her crotch until it grew real warm. She licked cracker crumbs off her hand and then whined because she was really, really thirsty and the teacher hadn’t gotten anything to drink back at that store.
“What’s the matter, Mistie?” asked the teacher. She was driving. Her hands were tied up again, one on the wheel and the other on the stick thing on the floor.
“I’m thirsty. I want to go home.”
“I’ll look for a water fountain soon. There has to be one in one of these towns.”
“I want to go home.”
“She wants to go home,” said the girl with the knife.
“Honey, I can’t do that. It would be wrong. I’m going to make the wrong right.”
Mistie put her hands over her ears and repeated, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off, Mama had a baby and its head popped off.”
“Shh, Misite, it will be okay,” said the teacher.
“Mama had a baby and its head popped off.”
“Shhh.”
58
Farstone looked like a real Texas town. Tony had her head out the window, blinking in the warm wind and sucking it all in. Clinging to Route 180, the town was three blocks long and four to five blocks wide, with trailers and shacks and two greasy-windowed lounges (the “Gila Monster” and “Blue Star Lounge, Adults Only”) making up the bulk of the place. This was the kind of town Tony would have expected to see sheriffs with hip holsters and horses tied to hitching posts and tumbleweeds careening along wooden walkways like runaway rabbits. Here, Tony could have expected to see Tony Perkins standing with his arms crossed beneath an elm tree on a high and dusty knoll, one boot propped up against the base of the trunk, his head turned out across the vast stretch of barren land, not a single emotion showing on his face.
There were no gun-slinging sheriffs or hitching posts here, but there could have been. The town was dusty and brown and even the air tasted like cattle and barbed wire. The landscape was flat, the dogs sleepy, and the trees bent and haggard. This, Tony knew, was the Wild, Wild West.
“Look,” Tony said to Mistie, nudging her with her elbow as they entered the town limits and passed a cluster of little white houses surrounded by billowing clothes on clotheslines. “I think that’s a roadrunner out there, see? You like T.V., you’ve seen the roadrunner, right? Beep beep!”
Mistie looked out the window and nodded at the small blur of brown that darted across the rocky ground between the white houses. She didn’t seem so sick anymore, not since they’d stopped for a drink from a gas station water hose back about an hour ago in town called Carbon. The kid had eaten the whole pack of peanut butter crackers the teacher had stolen from the store and then half the crackers in another pack. She had listened with what seemed like a real interest in the stories Tony wove about her father and the Lamesa ranch.
“When we get there,” Tony had told the girl, “my dad will probably let you stay a little while. If you’re good. You can’t be fussing or anything, though, you hear me? And you can’t be doing that rubbing thing, it’s gross. Okay?”
Mistie had nodded.
“He has horses. You ever ride a horse? They’re wild, you know? Maybe he has a pony. A pony would be better for you.”
Mistie had said, “I like ponies. Princess Silverlace has a golden pony.”
The stories of the ranch at Lamesa seemed to keep the kid’s mind off being hungry and tired. It was worth it to Tony to bullshit with the kid so she wouldn’t start whining again.
There was a stoplight in the center of Farstone, and it was red. The teacher slowed the truck and waited. There were no other cars to be seen, save the few parked along the main stretch through town, but here was a stoplight. It was mid-afternoon, and dry, and very warm. Nobody was outside except some dogs, and they were hiding in the shade under bushes. Maybe this was a town full of Mexicans. Mexicans took siestas.
“Guess some city council had to fight hard to get that stoplight put up,” said the teacher.
“Whatever,” said Tony. “How far we got left?” Tony nodded at the trip-o-meter. “Looks like another hundred thirty miles. Not bad.”
A motor scooter with a white-haired old lady at the handlebars putted up the road on the left and crossed over to the other side.
“Now I see why they got the light,” said Tony. “Heavy traffic.”
“They’re looking for us now, you know,” said the teacher. “One hundred thirty miles across open land isn’t good odds for anyone trying to stay hidden.”
“We’ll get to the ranch,” said Tony. “Texas cops ain’t much brighter than Virginia cops, I’ll bet. But they know who we are, all right. I bet we’ll make the news tonight. Interstate crime. Try that radio again.”
The stoplight turned green. The teacher worked the clutch and the gas, grimacing as she did. The truck picked up its pace again.
“Radio!” said Tony.
The teacher turned on the radio and pushed the “search” button. Nothing but country music and a pop station. “It’s not the top or bottom of the hour,” the teacher said. “News comes on then.”
“Might be a flash bulletin.”
“Maybe.”
The music was some kind of twangy music with banjos. Tony waved her hand. “Cut that shit off.”
The teacher cut the shit off.
They’d left Nacogdoches yesterday, sneaking out of the city by way of every skeezy alley and strip mall back lot they could find. Last night had been spent parked behind the crumbling brick snack bar of the “Clifton Drive-In,” which no longer had a big white screen and no longer had ground-mounted speakers but still boldly proclaimed its name on a sky-high white and blue sign that still offered the double feature of “Ghostbusters” and “Ghostbusters II.”
Tony had secured the teacher and kid inside of the truck and had gone on a little scavenger hunt. The teacher had said, “I’m not running away, Tony. You no longer need to tie me up. I will go with you to Lamesa. I’ll help you get there.” Tony’d laughed at the woman, but it was odd because the teacher had really seemed to be telling the truth.