Desperation Road(57)

God only knows what might happen if they find her out at Dad’s place, he thought. What she’ll say to stay free. She’s already killed one man when cornered and I’m not going back. Goddamn fingers are already pointing at me and I didn’t even do nothing.

He poured the coffee down the drain and stood there watching the boy in the sprinkler and he knew that rough lives got rougher and he hated it for the girl and he hated it for Maben. And he hated that there wasn’t going to be a happy ending and then he wondered how much longer he was going to have to keep that shotgun loaded.


He took a shower and then he drove out to his dad’s place to see about them. He got out of the truck and as he walked around the house he saw them out by the pond. His father and Consuela and Annalee. No Maben. The Virgin Mary with the sun on her face. His father waved to him and he walked out. It seemed to be getting hotter and brighter every day and he had broken a sweat by the time he reached the pond. The three of them wore fishing caps to keep the glare from their eyes, the child’s hat too big and hanging down across her eyebrows.

“Catching anything?” Russell asked.

Annalee peeped out from under the hat. “I got two. One big one.”

“Nearly dragged her in,” Mitchell said.

“And you,” said Consuela.

“I was wondering when she was gonna say something,” Russell said.

“She can say a lot. She likes to listen mostly,” Mitchell answered.

“Where’s your mom?” Russell asked.

“Up there.”

“Still sleeping, I reckon,” Mitchell said.

Russell left them and walked to the barn and up into the room. The room was cold after a full day of air-conditioning and Maben was asleep with a blanket pulled up to her chin. Russell sat down in a chair across the room and watched her. Trying to figure out what to say. How to say it. From outside he heard the child cheer at having caught another fish. A half hour passed and he sat and waited. Crossed and uncrossed his legs. Finally she stirred. First turning over and then sitting up and yawning and stretching and the blanket falling to her waist. She looked over and saw Russell sitting in the chair.

“I’m so tired,” she said.

“I thought you’d be.”

“Tired like I can’t do no more. You ever been tired like that?”

“Sometimes.”

“Where’s Annalee?”

“Out at the pond.”

“With who?”

“My dad and Consuela.”

She stretched again. Yawned again.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the shelter?” he asked.

She licked at her lips. Dry and chapped. “How you know about that?”

“A friend of mine. A deputy. Came to see me this morning.”

“For what?”

“I was riding around out there the night it happened. Figured they had to come and ask me about it. Told me they got nothing. But the shelter lady had called the cops about some woman with a gun who had run out of there.”

“They got nothing?”

“They got nothing. Right now anyhow. Said they might start looking you up if nothing else comes along. How much did you tell them at the shelter?”

“I told them Maben and then I made up a last name and whatever else they asked me.”

Russell scratched at his chin.

“What you think?” she asked.

“Probably about the same thing you do.”

He took a cigarette and lighter from his shirt pocket. She got up from the bed and he gave her one. She walked over to the window and looked at Annalee. She was standing on the bank, a catfish hopping on the end of her line and the old man trying to unhook it.

“Lot of fish out there?” Maben asked.

“A shitload.”

“I think she likes it.”

“It’s a lot more fun when you catch something.”

She turned away from the window. “When you want us to leave?”

“I don’t want you to,” he said. “But you’re gonna have to.”

She walked back to the bed and sat down on the edge.

“I’ll take you wherever you want,” he said.

She began to nod. Not only with her head but from the waist up she rocked back and forth. A steady rhythm. A faraway look in her eyes as if she were looking across to the other side of a canyon that was miles and miles away.

“I’m so tired,” she said again and she kept rocking. Her cigarette burned down and a long gray ash hung and waited to fall.

“They don’t have nothing and they don’t have a gun. You won’t have to stay low forever. But I can’t let you stay out here with them looking at me.” His words held no meaning for either of them. As if they hadn’t been spoken. The ash from her cigarette fell onto the top of her bare foot and she stopped rocking. Lost her faraway stare. She looked at him. Wiped at her forehead with the palm of her hand. Began to smoke again. When she was done with the cigarette she rolled over and stubbed it out in an ashtray on the bedside table.

“I almost left out of here last night. Probably should have.”

“No, you probably shouldn’t have. Don’t start walking to nowhere with nothing. That’s how you got here in the first place.”