Desperation Road(51)

Russell reached down and picked the tip of a grass blade and he tossed it aside. “You remember when I used to bring home a dog every now and then?”

“Them old strays. I remember. Your momma hated that.”

“Why’d she hate it?”

“She hated it cause they always run off after some days and you’d get all pissed off about it.”

“That’s my point. The one I’m about to make. Those two out there are like that. Like those strays. Don’t matter what hell they’ve been through. Don’t matter how hungry. Give them food and a soft bed and they still got to run off sooner or later. That’s what she’s gonna do so just let them stay out there and I guarantee you she’ll be gone one morning dragging that girl with her. And that’s why I’m not gonna tell you nothing more other than I found them and they need somewhere and you know why they can’t stay at the house with me.”

Mitchell stepped back onto the porch and sat down again. Consuela came out of the kitchen with a tray of ham and cheese sandwiches and crackers and Cokes. She walked out to the barn and disappeared up the stairs. In a minute she came out and returned to the house and passed the men as if they weren’t there. Russell thought of telling his father who the woman was but decided to keep it to himself. Then he stood up and went across the yard and up the stairs and he found them sitting on the bed together. Shoes off, mouths chewing.

“When you get done with that, I want you to wrap that thing up and come with me. Annalee can go in the house and watch TV.”

Maben nodded. Swallowed hard from a full mouth. Russell looked around the room. He and his dad had put it together when he turned seventeen against his mother’s wishes. His own place out of the house but within reach. He thought of the girls he had snuck across the backyard in the middle of the night. He thought of shooting at deer across the pasture from the window. He thought of sitting and drinking with his buddies until they passed out. He thought of how he had joked with Sarah that this would be where they would live once they were married and no it wasn’t Sarah and no he wasn’t married but he had accidentally been right as here he was with a woman and a child to try to take care of. At least for now. Annalee coughed and the sound shook him free and he again told Maben to come down when she was done. With that, he said and pointed. She stopped chewing and said I know it’s a gun and she knows it’s a gun so why don’t you call it a gun.





35


WHEN THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER CAME OUT WITH THE DETAILS IT was all anyone could talk about. Deputy murdered sometime in the middle of Thursday night. With his own pistol, which was not at the scene. No witnesses. No trace of evidence. No idea what he was doing where they found him. Nothing certain but that he was dead. They talked about it over coffee and they talked about it in the grocery store aisles and they talked about it in the waiting room in the hospital and they talked about it while they pumped gasoline. During the morning church services the Baptists and the Methodists and the Catholics and the Episcopalians and everyone in between had moments of silence. Said prayers for the fallen deputy. Prayed for his soul. Prayed for his family. Prayed for justice and for mercy on the wandering evil that was capable of such godless violence. Women in dresses cried that there were such monsters alive in their community and men in suits shook their heads that there seemed to be no clue as to what had actually happened. When the amens were said across the town and the congregations poured out and onto the front steps some people said that they were amazed that something like this could happen around here. And some people said they weren’t.





36


ANNALEE FOLLOWED CONSUELA INTO THE HOUSE AND RUSSELL AND Maben got in the truck with Maben carrying the pistol wrapped in a pair of socks. Mitchell stood in the yard and watched them drive away but he didn’t wave back when Russell waved to him.

“He don’t want us out here either,” Maben said when they hit the highway.

“He don’t care.”

“Looks like he does.”

“He doesn’t.”

She held the pistol between her legs and she kept her legs closed. Russell drove through town and passed over the interstate and in a few miles he left the highway and turned onto a road that was something between asphalt and gravel. The windows were down and Maben’s hair was wild in the wind and Russell reached behind the seat and grabbed a Peterbilt cap and handed it to her. She put it on and pushed her hair behind her ears. Away from town and away from other cars she took the pistol from underneath her legs and set it on the seat between them. At a stop sign he looked over the weeds growing headhigh along the fence line on each side of the road and turned left. Maben rode along without talking, tapping her fingers on her leg to the song in her head. There were more twists and turns and then the road wasn’t much more than a sidewalk and the trees thickened and reached over the road to one another and it seemed as if they had driven into a tunnel. The air was cooler beneath the trees and flowery vines of something purple grew thick in the shade and ran along with the road. The road turned left into a wide and looping curve and then it straightened and went uphill and Russell slowed down as he got closer to the top of the hill. Maben sat up and leaned toward the dashboard. When the truck reached the top Russell stopped. At the bottom of the hill sat Walker’s Bridge.

The truck idled roughly. An afternoon breeze gave a rustle through the trees. She stared. Russell stared. Waited to see if she would say something.