But truth could be lies.
She’d hiked only a half-mile or so up a dirt side road before finding a small farm with its own gas pump just outside a tractor shed. A collie had run up to her, barking and snarling, but she’d pretended to have something in her hand and the dog had wagged its tail until jumped on its back and slit its throat. She’d carried a couple gallons back to the truck in a bucket she’d discovered in a tool shed, and made a funnel out of a tattered newspaper she’d peeled from the wall of the snack bar.
In the middle of the night, Tony and the teacher had awakened to the sound of a siren out on the road. Tony had held her breath, counting, not moving even to scratch the lice. The cruiser passed the drive-in, lights flashing, the wailing key of the siren shifting lower as it got farther away.
“After a speeder,” Tony’d said.
“Possibly,” said the teacher.
They’d awakened hungry. But there was no money, no time, and Tony didn’t want to do anything but get to Lamesa. They could eat then. They could fucking wait to eat. The kid whined about wanting something to eat until Tony started telling stories about the ranch.
In the town of Carbon they’d stopped at a Shell station and took turns drinking out of the water hose that was turned on a bed of flowers beside the lot. The water had tasted funny, like it had rocks in it, but it was cold and it was wet.
While Mistie was sucking from the hose, a gangly teenaged cowboy pulled up to the tanks and began to fill his pickup with high octane. Tony thought he looked like a real cowboy. She wondered if he knew about Burton Patinske’s ranch. He probably did. A girlfriend in the passenger’s seat leaned out the window, holding a hot dog dripping in chili. “Bo, want a bite?” she teased.
“Want a bite of you, baby,” he said. The girl had laughed, burped around a bite of the dog, and the boy had kissed her full and wet on the lips. Tony had turned away, not wanting to see.
Back in the truck, the teacher mentioned they were down to a quarter tank of gas. Tony brushed it off; a quarter tank of gas in a big old truck like the one they were riding in could likely last to Lamesa. The map said it was about one hundred seventy miles from Carbon. And Tony didn’t want to stop one more time, not for shit, not for water, not for God Himself.
Well, except for a stoplight, but that was a done deal and they were rolling again.
Tony let her fingers play the air of Farstone. “Know what?” she called back inside to Mistie. “If I’d had my gun, I’d-a shot that roadrunner back there. I hear they taste good as chicken.”
“I’m hungry,” said Mistie.
“Shit, I was kidding.”
They passed the shacks and the sleeping dogs and the dusty trees. Then, as they reached the western boundary of the town, the truck coughed, shimmied, and went dead.
“Out of gas,” said the teacher. It was nearly a whisper. She sounded horrified.
The truck coasted to a stop in front of a trailer with a business sign by the door that read, “Madame Rose. Palm Reader and Advisor. Closed Until Further Notice.”
Tony looked at the needle on the gas indicator. It was below E. She looked at the teacher, who didn’t look back.
“No shit out of gas,” said Tony. She opened the truck door and stepped down. She scanned the road in both directions. The last thing they needed was some curious mayor or preacher to drive up and ask if they needed assistance. Not that Farstone would have a mayor. It didn’t even look like they had a church, unless they prayed in singlewides.
“Goddamn it!” said Tony. She drove the bottom of her foot into the side of the truck.
“We’re stuck,” said the teacher.
“We’re not stuck,” said Tony. She leaned in with her knife and cut the ties on the teacher’s wrists. “Get out.”
The teacher stood on the side of the road with her hands on her hips. She looked like one of those women in the pictures Tony had seen at school about the Dust Bowl. Eyes that were cooked dry, dirty arms, skinny legs. Mistie rolled out and leaned back on the truck cab, her hands tucked inside the front of her jumper.
“Let’s walk,” said Tony.
“Lamesa’s a good two hours away by car,” said the teacher. “How soon until we’d dehydrate? How easy would it be for us to be caught out in the middle of nowhere? You’ve made it clear you want the thrill of the chase. I don’t.”
“I was kidding. God, you think I’m stupid. I’m not stupid.”
“We have to get off this main street. Quickly.”
They hurried down the alley that ran alongside the fortune teller’s trailer and back another block for good measure, then sat close in the ratty grass in the shade of a hen house. A couple of Hispanic girls walked past on the alley, one holding tightly to the leash of a bouncing shepherd puppy. The girls glanced over, then whispered something and giggled. Tony was sure those girls didn’t know who they were. The girls were probably laughing at the teacher’s overalls. They were way pathetic.
“I’m going to the lounge,” the teacher with a tip of her head. “You two wait here.”
“What you gonna do, whore yourself out for a ride?”
“I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Damn! That’s a hoot!”
“Really, Tony? Call it what you will. Just don’t let Mistie out of your sight.”
“I don’t think I’ll let you go. I think you’ll be in there sobbin’ some story, tellin’ them all the bad things I did and how you’re all innocent.”
The teacher took Tony’s chin and Tony didn’t pull away. Her fingernails were rough where they’d broken off at different lengths. The woman’s breath was rank. “I’ve made my course. Trust me or not, I will get us to Lamesa.”
Tony shrugged then jerked from the teacher’s grasp. “Fine with me. But you got ten minutes, or each minute after that little old Mistie here gets a new piece of a tattoo. I think she’d look cute with a little angel, don’t you think? Down her back, between those bony shoulders, give the angel wings, a halo, oh, there’s lots of minutes to use up if I need them.”
“You won’t hurt her,” said the teacher. “And I will be back in less than ten.”
“We’ll see,” said Tony.
“You won’t hurt her.” The teacher was up, and hobbling toward the street.
“We’ll see, won’t we Mistie?” Tony said. She looked at the child, who had found a handful of grass with seedpods, and was rocking back and forth and popping the pods off with the wrap and snap of the stems.
59
“We aren’t open yet. It’s not even five yet.”
Kate squinted in the darkness, her heard turned toward the sound of the voice.
“I’m sorry,” said Kate. “I was just hoping for some help.”
“What kind of help?” The voice was male, and decidedly young.
“A ride.” God, to say it aloud, in that was the danger. In that the connection could be made if the news had reached this far.
Just get the ride, get out of here, two hours tops and we’ll be safe.
“Ain’t no bus service in Farstone, sorry,” said the voice. The darkness of the room began to shimmer away, and in the center of Kate’s sight she could see a single shaded lamp sitting atop a bar counter, and a boy behind the bar, counting dollar bills. “No taxi, neither. You ain’t from here. You lost?”
Kate could see well enough to walk to the counter without tripping on table or chair legs. She hoped her limp wasn’t terribly obvious, but knew it was. “No, I’ve run out of gas.”