Desperation Road(47)

He nodded. He understood her argument and thought to give the other side of it but decided to let her determine her own fate.

“You’re making a square,” she said.

“You didn’t tell me not to.”

“Don’t take us back there.”

“We’re still a long ways off. Sooner or later we got to stop.”

“I told you a while back you can let us out wherever.”

“You need a better plan than that.”

“You the one who said you could help. Now you know it ain’t so simple. I bet you thought I was running away from some asshole who smacked me around.”

“Hoping is more like it.”

“No sense in that.”

“In what?”

“Hope.”

“I’d say where you and that girl are concerned that’s the only damn thing that matters.”

They continued on in quiet until they approached a sign for a campground off the next exit. Russell looked over to ask Maben if she wanted to stop for the night but she was asleep, slumped against the door and her head against the window. Russell took the exit and turned right and followed the highway for half a mile and he turned at the plywood sign for the campground. The campground was a couple of acres that had been thinned out and the camping spots were bare patches of dirt within a scattering of trees and a circle of stones sat in the middle of each spot for a fire. He drove along and the campground was mostly deserted. He passed an old Volkswagen van and then he passed a truck with a camper on the back and an old man and woman sat around a fire. When he was clear of others he picked a spot and parked the truck. He turned off the headlights and got out. The sky was covered with clouds and the only light was that of the fire, an orange speck fifty yards away.

He flicked his cigarette lighter and walked around to the passenger side. Then he reached into the cab and he tapped her on the shoulder. She lifted her head and looked at him and he whispered we stopped. In the middle of nowhere. Lay down for a while. She opened her door and slid out from under the child and she walked around and climbed back in on the other side and lay alongside the child with her feet hanging off the end of the seat. Russell followed her and when he pushed the door half shut and bumped her foot she raised up.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Maben,” she said.

“What?”

“Maben. That’s my name,” she said and she lay back down.

He came around to the back of the truck and climbed over into the bed. He had planned to lie down but instead he sat with his back against the tailgate. A faint breeze blew and he watched the fireflies blink across the woods. Watched the fire across the way. Watched the bodies sitting close to it. They looked gray.

He had only known one person named Maben. And he hadn’t really known her. He had known who she was. He had watched her at the sentencing, crying and shaking as if she had understood something about the boy who died that no one else could understand. He thought about the Maben who was sleeping in his truck and he started to do the math but it wasn’t necessary. She looked older than she probably was and that was about right. He laughed a little but not much. He had seen enough in his life to not be surprised by a damn thing.





31


IN HER DREAMS SHE STOOD ON A HILLSIDE AND LOOKED DOWN ACROSS the meadow. The child stood in the midst of the waisthigh wildflowers that swayed with the wind and seemed to move in circles, her hair being lifted and let go and lifted again by the cool air. She stood with her arms folded as she watched the child who held her arms out and her hands were open and she traced her palms over the tips of the flowers and smiled as they tickled the tender center of her hands. Pinks and blues streaked across the horizon and the clouds moved across the sky like a slow train.

She saw it coming off in the distance, crawling or maybe slithering, only its tail visible. Rising high and waving in an S, thick and reptilian like something ancient. As it crept closer the wind gained strength and began to howl, blowing sharply into her face and she began to call out to the child. Come this way. Right now come this way but the child didn’t hear her. The tail moved closer and she began to scream and when the child still didn’t hear her she screamed louder and louder and she tried to move but her feet were buried in the ground and that thing was within striking distance now and the child never saw it coming and as it raised the top of its head from the wildflowers Maben woke with a shriek and she fell off the seat and onto the floorboard. The child woke up and began to cry when she saw that there was only the dark and another strange place and her mother held on to her and said I am here. I am here.





32


BOYD HAD PUT IT OFF. WAITING TO BE TOLD YOU HAVE TO GO OVER there and talk to him about it. A dead deputy on a desolate road. The only vehicle to come upon the scene driven by a man who had been out of prison for about five minutes. A loaded shotgun in the vehicle. An expired driver’s license. When asked what he was doing out there he had said he was riding. It didn’t matter if he knew the man or not it was too much to ignore and they had nothing else and were looking for a road to follow. He couldn’t dance around Russell any longer.

So Boyd checked in at the office and drank his coffee. He made a couple of calls that weren’t answered and he realized it was Sunday morning. He then drank a second cup and he figured he might as well get it over with and he told the dispatcher he’d be back around lunch. It was an eight-mile drive from the department office in Magnolia to McComb and he didn’t take the interstate but instead went along the highway with its log trucks and flashing yellows at crossroads. Anything to slow him down.