The truck won’t start because he disconnected the battery when he took the spark plugs out this afternoon. He reconnects the cables now, tightens the terminal clamps with a wrench. He works quickly, watching his hands as if they were things separate from himself, efficient, swift, solid, unaffected by the nebulous sense of dread that has the rest of him shaking, that prompted him to grab the .22 he’d left just inside the door. He lowers and latches the hood and looks at his wife. “Wish you’d tell me what’s going on,” he says. His voice is reedy. “This have to do with that boy?”
Ora stands in the garage doorway, fierce. She wipes loose hair from her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Tell you when I get back,” she says.
“You think you’re going anywhere alone, you got another think coming.”
“I don’t ask a whole lot, Dale.”
“No you don’t.”
“Dale—”
“You’re not driving anywhere alone.” His tone is harsher than he means it to be. “Not at this hour of the night, you’re not.” He looks at Ora, can see her jaw grinding, the rising of her shoulders, the familiar angles of her bones. It occurs to him that this is it, that Ora is all that he has left. He inhales deeply through his nose, then gestures with his chin toward the truck. “Get in,” he orders, reaching for the rifle and putting it into the truck bed.
Ora’s eyes flicker. She crosses the garage and climbs into the passenger side of the truck. The door slams behind her. Dale gets in behind the wheel and gently shuts the door.
“One thing, Dale,” Ora says, looking straight ahead, into the shadows of the garage. “If you’re coming with me, you’re coming with me. You best not get in my way.”
Dale turns the keys in the ignition. The engine growls to life.
“You hear me, Dale,” Ora says, raising her voice. “You’re part of this now.”
Dale looks at his wife and gives a single nod. He agrees, though he doesn’t know to what. He puts the truck in gear and backs out of the garage, where he pauses. “Where am I going?” he asks.
“State road.”
Dale steers the truck across the parking lot until he is window to window with Benny’s truck. Benny gives him a puzzled look. He’s holding a knife and a piece of wood up in front of him, but he’s stopped whittling. Dale can hear voices talking on his radio, a gentle murmur.
“We’ll be gone a spell,” Dale says through the window.
Benny looks at him. “Everything OK?”
Dale nods. “Be back.” He puts the truck in gear and pulls up to the highway; in the rearview, he can see Benny watching them, still just holding the knife and wood. He looks at Ora. “State road whereabouts?”
“Somewhere east of Bileaud. Toward St. Martinville.”
Dale turns onto the highway. He and Ora ride in silence. Outside, fields whip by in the moonlight.
“Maybe down here,” Ora says, pointing toward a dirt path through a pair of fields, one of several byways that lead from the highway to the state road, which runs parallel.
Dale slows the truck and turns onto the path, which is so rutted that they could nearly walk faster than Dale can drive them. They bounce and lurch; the headlights leap, illuminating field, road, nothing, sky, in flashes Dale finds sickening. “What are we doing, Ore?” he asks. “Please tell me what’s going on.”
He glances over at her. She’s gripping the door handle, her gaze as focused on the road as if she were the one driving. “Man needs our help,” she says.
Dale waits for her to explain, but she does not go on.
“OK,” he says. “What man? What help? And how do you know?” The truck bounces over a particularly deep rut, and Dale’s head slams into the door frame. “Damn it!” He rubs the spot on his head.
He glances again at Ora, who finally turns her head to look at him. “Help we can give,” she says, her tone final. She faces forward again. “Got to give help where you can.” The state road is just up ahead. “Take a right, here, I’d guess,” Ora says.
Dale obeys, and is grateful at least for a level road. “Help we can give,” he repeats. He blinks. He is beat, doesn’t have the energy to say another thing.