(June–July 1999)
THE DAYS CONTINUED TO GET WARMER, AND ERIN RODE HER BIKE along the vacant stretch of Indian Highway. She could see the railroad tracks to her right, and the L. M. Clayton Airport to her left as she drew closer to the city. When she got to Route 25, she turned around and pedaled back in the opposite direction. It was the same stretch of road where they’d found her mother’s empty car, parked catty-corner across the eastbound and westbound lanes, its left two tires ripped apart and resting on the hubs.
Erin now came here every day, making the trip back and forth until her legs were too tired to pedal. On the first day she’d ridden her bike for forty minutes, but her muscles had gotten stronger since then and she’d built up her rides to two hours or longer. The sun beat down on her body, bleaching her hair and turning the skin on her arms and legs a deep bronze that was a bit darker than the shade of the earth on either side of the roadway.
She would sometimes talk to her mother as she rode. She couldn’t see her, and her mother never responded to the things Erin said or the questions she asked. It was more like writing a letter than having a conversation, but Erin told her about the things she was doing and reminded her that she was not forgotten. “If you can hear me, I want you to know that I’m coming,” she said. “I’m going to find you and bring you home. You won’t be alone forever.”
If she had been an adult, people might have assumed that she was training for something, or perhaps that she had gone a little soft in the head. She was going nowhere, but it didn’t matter to Erin. When she got thirsty, she drank from a plastic water bottle resting in a metal cradle attached to the frame of her bike. When she got tired or dizzy beneath the persistent rays of the sun, she stopped. And because she was going nowhere, it didn’t matter how long it took her to get there. She rode with the expectation that she would get there eventually, whether it took weeks or months or even years for it to happen.
Sometimes people passed her in their cars and trucks along the roadway. Occasionally they would slow down and ask if she was okay. She’d nod and continue riding, and because word traveled fast in Wolf Point, it didn’t take long for folks to start talking about the Reece girl, riding back and forth on her bike along the road where her mother went missing.
She continued on her quest for six and a half weeks before he finally came for her, just as she knew he would. He pulled up ahead of her and came to a diagonal stop across the road.
He was driving a white van, the color of heroes and good guys.
“Hey, girl,” he said, leaning through the open window. “Whatcha doin’ out here, riding around all day?”
“Nothing,” she said, and coasted to a stop about five feet in front of him.
He shielded his eyes against the sun. “People think you’re crazy. You know that, don’tcha?”
She shrugged.
He climbed out of the van, shut the door, and leaned up against it nice and easy. “It’s all right,” he said. “Sometimes they think the same thing about me. I guess that means we’ve got something in common.”
She looked at him and turned the corner of her mouth up in a half-smile.
He shook his head. “You are a little crazy, ain’tcha? No matter. It’s hot out here. I’m gonna head home where it’s nice and cool and get me something to drink. You wanna join me?”
She took a deep breath and nodded.
He looked surprised. “Yeah? You wanna go?”
She nodded again.
“Well, okay then,” he said, smiling. “Something cool sure would hit the spot right about now, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I think it would.”
The smile faded. “You’re all by yourself out here?” He stepped away from the van and took a look around.
Erin looked around as well. Her palms were sweaty. She wiped the right one on the side of her shorts.
“And you’re agreeing to go with me. Is that right?”
“Right,” she said, “for a cool place to get out of the sun and something to drink.”
He ran a hand through his short black hair and looked around again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t wanna get in any trouble. People might not understand, a kid going back to the house of a grown-up she don’t know.”
“I know you,” she said. “I’ve seen you around town before.”
“Yeah, okay. You know me. But still, people could get the wrong idea. Next thing you know, I’m the one who gets in trouble.”
She stood there, astride of her bike, unsure of what to say. She hadn’t expected him to react this way.
“I’m a nice guy, you know. I never did nobody no harm.”
She nodded.
“But people, they don’t understand when it comes to things like this. They wanna make me the bad guy.”
“So, we’re not gonna go?”
“No,” he said. “No, ma’am. It . . . wouldn’t be proper.”
“Then why did you stop?”
“Why did I . . . ?” He turned and paced a bit. “Well, to make sure you were okay, that’s all. There’s a lot of bad things that’ve happened. Not everyone can be trusted. You ought not to be riding out here by yourself.”
“I’m looking for my mother.”
He stopped and turned to her, his mouth halfway open.
“She disappeared on this road somewhere,” Erin told him. “I was hoping I could find her.”
He stared at her, as if she’d suddenly transformed into something he’d never seen before.
“She was driving her car on the way home. Something reached up from the earth and snatched her.”
“Snatched her,” he said. “What do you mean by that?”
“Gone,” she said, “just like the others.”
He looked down at the ground and shook his head.
“She was very special to me,” Erin told him. “I’m afraid I’ll never see her again.”
The man went back to pacing. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know nothing about that.”
“I’ve been out here looking for her. I was hoping . . . maybe you could help me find her.”
He snorted. “Me? How would I know where she is?”
“Please,” she said. “I have to find her.”
He stopped at the driver’s-side door to the van and looked at her once again. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I don’t know nothing about your mother.” He opened the door and climbed back up into the vehicle. “I’ve gotta be getting home,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out here. It’s not safe for a girl to be riding her bike all alone like this.” He slammed the door and started the engine. “Don’t be so eager to stop and talk to strangers.”
“You stopped and talked to me,” she said, but he wasn’t listening. Instead he put the van in gear and made a wide arc around her, his right tires bumping along the uneven shoulder. He glanced at her once more through the open window, turned his attention to the road in front of him, and drove off without another word.
Erin stepped away from her bike and let it clatter to the asphalt. She stood there for a long time, watching, as he disappeared into the distance.