A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(11)

“Where did you get a gun?”

“It was my dad’s,” he said. “I guess that makes it my mother’s now. It’s only a twenty-two, but it holds nine rounds. He was going to take me out shooting cans and things, but I didn’t get old enough in time.” Since Jimmy and Jane had both lost their fathers, she was familiar with the feeling that she hadn’t grown up fast enough to do things with her father that she would never do now.

“Can I see it?”

She could tell he was reluctant, but he knew he had to acquiesce because Jane was his friend, and he could hardly bring out a gun and then refuse her. As he held the revolver out, he turned the barrel downward toward the concrete floor and left the cylinder open. “See?” he said. “You always look to be sure the cylinder is empty.” His right to state the rules was all he insisted on keeping for himself.

Jane took the pistol. Engraved on the barrel was EUREKA SPORTSMAN MODEL 196. She swung the cylinder in and aimed the gun at the Tampax dispenser mounted on the wall across the room. Then she slowly turned the cylinder and appreciated the clicks as it reseated each of its chambers between the hammer and barrel. “It’s cool,” she said. “If my mother knew you had this, she wouldn’t have let me out of the house.” She gave the gun back to him, her carefulness displayed as respect for its powerful magic.

“I wasn’t planning to take my gun out, so nobody would ever know unless I needed it.”

“For what? Are you suddenly afraid of bears?”

“This wouldn’t kill a bear,” he said. “But it might sting him enough to make him leave us alone.”

Jane smiled. “Or maybe you could just bravely hold him off while I run two or three miles to the next town.”

Jimmy laughed. He finished wiping the gun down, used a separate rag from a plastic sandwich bag that smelled like oil, and then reloaded it and put it into its own pocket inside his pack. Jane couldn’t help memorizing its exact position, because knowing was power too.

They sat in the dim light, listening to the rain.

Jane couldn’t remember when she first became aware that there was trouble. Afterward she thought that she had heard trouble in the sound of the car coasting off the highway into the rest area. The engine was too loud, a burbling sound that meant it had a rusted-through muffler. There were deep puddles in the rest stop lot, and when the car went through them she could hear the spray whishing up against the thin sheet metal, and an occasional squeak of springs. The headlights were bright, stabbing through the small, high window and lighting the women’s restroom.

They saw the light go out, then heard the car door creak as it opened and then slammed, and then a man’s footsteps splashing a few steps to the shelter. They heard him enter the men’s room, and then there was silence for a time as he was, she imagined, relieving himself.

Jane and Jimmy didn’t need to tell each other to remain still and silent. There had been only one set of footsteps heading into the men’s room. That was good. In a minute or two maybe they would hear him leave. They listened, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the door of the women’s restroom swung open, and the spring pulled it shut.

“Well, well.” A man’s voice, not young. It sounded slightly raspy and cracked, and they could smell cigarettes. There was a slightly Southern elongation of the two words that told Jane he was from the Pennsylvania side of the road, a few miles south. “Where did you two come from?”

Jimmy said, “If you need to use the bathroom, we can go next door and give you privacy.”

“Me?” The man laughed. “No. I just did that, and I’m not shy.” He took out a cigarette and flicked his lighter. The flame cast an eerie wavering light like a weak candle, but the glow made his eyes gleam. He was about forty, but he had long hair that was longer in the back, and a tattoo on his left hand. “Oh, my Lord,” he said. “A girl too. And you’re both all wet.” His lighter snapped shut, throwing the room back into darkness. “You two run away from home?”

“No,” said Jane. “We were just walking and the rain got worse. We don’t live too far from here.”

The man said, “Yes you do. Nobody who lived close by would choose to spend the night in a shit house.” There was no rancor in his voice, but no kindness either. It was simply an observation, a fact.

“We figured the rain will stop before long,” she said.

“You’re probably right,” the man said. “Tell you what. I’ll hang out for a while, so you’ll be safe, and when it stops, I’ll give you a ride.”

“We’re fine,” Jimmy said. “We don’t really need a ride.”

The man chuckled. “Hell, the two of you sitting in here shivering wet, you need some adult supervision. First thing you got to do is get some dry clothes. That hand dryer over there work?”

“Yes,” said Jimmy. “But we’re fine.”

“I wasn’t thinking of you so much as her,” said the man. He kept talking as though nothing they said mattered, looking straight at Jane. “A young girl like you could catch her death sitting all night in wet clothes.” He leaned forward to look at her. “I’ve seen that happen. What’s your name?”

Jimmy said to Jane, “I think the rain’s slowing down. Let’s go.” He began rolling his sleeping bag.