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On the Run
They had been walking steadily for almost three hours, trying to get as far as they could before exhaustion forced them to stop.
As before, there was no conversation, but now it was from weariness. The ache in Marylee's leg had become a torture, but she was determined not to stop. If once she sat down, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to go any farther.
"Time for a rest," Petey said finally. His arms ached from carrying April, but he was more worried about Camper. The old dog was walking along stolidly, but he was whimpering frequently, his head hanging down.
"Just a bit farther," Marylee forced herself to say.
"No," Petey insisted flatly. He headed toward a tree. "Now."
Too weary to argue, Marylee limped over and sat down beside him, her back to the huge tree. Camper flopped down, his head and front paws over Petey's outstretched legs, and appeared to fall asleep instantly.
Marylee silently took the now sleeping April from Petey's aching arms and looked out at the stream.
In the hours they had been walking, the scenery had changed dramatically. Under their feet the concrete had gradually become older and more broken, until it had finally disappeared in a tumble of weeds.
The factories had also been left behind, replaced by tumbledown wooden houses in cluttered yards. The children from the houses had eyed them silently, indifferently, as they stumbled by. Later there had been a green schoolyard and then a long stretch of well-cared-for bungalows, a small park, and finally larger, more impressive homes.
These too had petered out, until now the trees crowded close to the stream and the undergrowth was thick and ragged. Through the trees they could see gaudy billboards announcing that the land was divided into lots, available for purchase – the site of the new Devonshire Estates.
But except for regularly placed survey stakes with fluorescent plastic flags, there was no sign that anyone was about to live there. Marylee thought the trees and shrubs seemed a bit desperate, as though they knew they were there by sufferance and would soon be destroyed. It seemed an unhappy place, not like the woods she had loved.
The stream had changed as well. It had lost its air of furtive decay and now flowed smoothly between overhanging banks. Occasionally it laughed and rushed over outcroppings of glistening rocks.
"It's going to rain." Petey broke into her thoughts. "We'd better find some shelter."
"It won't rain."
Petey said no more, but there was a sudden flurry of drops in the leaves of the trees. It had become so dark they could hardly see each other. "We've got to find some shelter," he repeated, exhaustion making his voice listless.
"Which way?" Marylee asked unsurely as they scrambled to their feet.
"There's nothing behind us," Petey answered, "and I can't see anything ahead in this blackness. Let's cut over to the road. Maybe there'll be a barn or shed or something."
They trudged toward the road as more and more raindrops splattered against them. Rivulets of water began to run over their faces and seep into their clothes. Marylee held April against her, trying to keep the rain off the baby's face. She hoped the plastic would keep her baby dry.
She looked behind and saw that Petey was carrying Camper, trying to protect him from the cold rain with his coat, while balancing their bundle of baby things in his other hand.
They walked on. The rain began to pound down, harder and harder. The road, when they reached it, was deserted, with no buildings in sight. They kept walking.
"I see something," Petey said finally. Marylee hardly heard him. Her mind was reeling with exhaustion and the pounding desperation of keeping April safe and warm.
It was a building – an old gas station, long since closed down when the main highway moved west of the road they were now on. The windows and door were securely boarded up, but grateful for any shelter, Marylee huddled with April in the narrow indentation of the doorway.
"Break in," she ordered Petey flatly.
He looked worriedly at Camper, then carefully laid him on the stoop, out of the rain. He pulled off his dripping jacket and laid it over the animal's heaving sides. Marylee crouched down beside the old dog and rubbed his head.
"I'll look after him," she said, hoping April would not wake up.
Petey nodded and disappeared.
She could hear him pulling at the securely nailed boards; then she saw him walking purposefully along the road. He reappeared a couple of minutes later with a bent piece of rusted metal about a yard long. Soon, from the other side of the building, she could hear scraping and banging through the dripping noises surrounding her.
There was a loud, snapping crunch; then Petey reappeared at Marylee's side.
"I broke the edge off the wood," he said briefly. "I think we can get in."
The break in the boards was jagged-edged and almost shoulder high. "We'll have to put April and Camper down," Petey told her. "I'll boost you up and hand them in to you. I'll be able to get in by myself."
"I can't put her down in the mud!"
"Then you can stand out here in the storm with her all night!"
They glared at each other through the dark and the rain. Then, reluctantly, Marylee laid April down beside the building, trying to put her in what little shelter the wall provided. Camper had not moved from the doorstep.
Petey made a cup of his hands, and unsurely Marylee tried to use them as a step. She had seen kids do this at school, but she had never tried it before. It felt terrifyingly unsteady.
"Hurry up!" Petey grunted.
"I'm trying!"
Her lame leg was unwieldy, but somehow she got it through the jagged break. Straddling the wall, she could feel the agony of broken splinters pressing against her legs through her jeans. Finally she drew her good leg through and balanced precariously, half sitting on the bottom edge of the hole.
"Jump!" Petey shouted angrily. Couldn't she do anything?
Marylee looked into the yawning blackness of the building. No light pierced the gloom.
"I – I can't!" she said hoarsely. "There's no light. I can't see what I'm jumping into. And besides I don't think my leg can take it."
"If you don't jump, I'm going to push you!" Petey said through clenched teeth.
"April and Camper have got to have shelter. Or have you forgotten your precious baby already?" Petey glared up at her. Marylee raised her arm as if to defend herself from his words.
Jump, she told herself. You've got to jump!
I can't! I can't! screamed through her mind. Then for a horrifying instant Marylee saw herself as one of the uncaring faces – one of the well-meaning people who really didn't care when it mattered. April...Did she really care about April?
Frantically she looked down at Petey and April. Then she peered into the blackness. She could feel her weak leg shatter as she fell on it. She could hear the snap and her own scream as she fell on and on into the blackness.
"I'll push you!" Petey shouted, putting a warning pressure on her back.
"No! no!" Marylee pleaded.
Then she looked back at the baby, and the love rose above her exhaustion and fears. April had to have shelter. She shut her eyes, swung her good leg out awkwardly, until it hung in the blackness, and pushed herself off.
She grunted painfully when her drawn up body hit the floor. It had been a short fall, only about a yard. With dull relief Marylee realized there had been no snapping bone, no permanently crippled body – only scrapes and bruises from her awkward fall.
Slowly she stood up and leaned her head and arms out the hole to take her baby. As Petey picked April up, a puddle of cold water cached in the plastic suddenly escaped and streamed over her face. She screamed, her cries louder and wilder with each second.
Wordlessly Petey handed her over. Marylee held the baby against her body, muttering soothing words, but she cried on and on, howling in outrage and rising hysteria. Reluctantly, Marylee laid her down to take Camper from Petey. Even when she was picked up again, April continued to scream. Uncertain what was wrong, Marylee felt the baby's clothes under the plastic – they were soaking wet and bitterly cold. Quickly she pulled them off, fumbling in the dark, trying to hold the wriggling, shrieking child. When the baby was naked, Marylee searched through her bundle for dry clothes and diapers. Everything was cold and dripping wet.
April's cries became more pitiful as she shook from the gathering chill. Marylee stretched out her baggy sweater and held April against her stomach, with the sweater and her coat wrapped around both of them, their skin pressed together, sharing warmth.
She sat unmoving in the dark, her back against the cold wall, willing her warmth to enter April's tiny body and stop the violent shivering. At last it stopped, and Marylee could tell by the sudden weight against her that the baby had fallen asleep, despite the shuddering sobs that shook her every few minutes.
During all this time, she had barely been aware of Petey's actions. She could hear him moving around inside the station, talking gently, sorrowfully to Camper. She could hear, too, the panting sounds made by the old dog, punctuated by low whimpering.
"We've got to have warmth," Petey said suddenly in the dark. "I – I can't stop Camper's shivering. There's an old wood stove in the corner. The burner things are gone, but I think it'll work. I've got some matches, but I'm going to have to find something to burn."
Marylee nodded, forgetting he couldn't see her.
"You'll look after Camper, won't you?" Petey asked, his voice sounding young and frightened. "I'll be real quick, but I think he's sick. You'll look after him?"
"I'll look after him," Marylee promised. "Camper's a great old dog, so – I'll look after him."
Petey hesitated a second or two longer, then quickly pulled himself through the hole in the boards.
He seemed to be gone a long time, but with nothing to do but care for April and Camper, Marylee couldn't be sure. Once when Camper was whimpering, she carefully leaned over and stroked his head. She could feel the damp material of Petey's jacket and shirt over the dog's back. Under her fingers, she could feel him shivering.
"Take it easy, fellow," she murmured softly. "Petey'll be back soon and then we'll feed you and get you warmed up.”
Camper whimpered slightly and licked her fingers. Marylee hesitated a moment, then carefully put her own jacket over the dog as well. Her arms felt the chill of the cold air instantly, but April would be kept warm by her body.
Twice Marylee felt a warm trickle of water running down her stomach as April urinated in her sleep. She hunched over in revulsion, but there was no way of preventing it and still keeping her baby warm. And she must care for her child.
She heard several thuds on the floor beside her, under the hole. Then Petey climbed in through the opening and crouched down beside her.
"Is Camper okay?" he asked anxiously.
"I'm not sure. I guess so," Marylee answered. The dog was still shivering and panting in the chill, dank air.
Petey struck a match, and in the brief flare of light Marylee saw that his hair was plastered to his head and the water was running down his face and bare back. Camper was lying on his side, mouth open, eyes half shut, sides heaving under the pile of clothes they had put over him.
Quickly Petey laid a fire inside the gaping stove. He used several matches before the soggy paper and wood scraps he'd found would light, and even after the flame caught, the fire smoked and sputtered, threatening every minute to go out. But there was a little heat radiating from it.
First spreading out his jacket for the old dog to lie on, Petey carefully moved Camper closer to the heat. When he had the dog lying as close to the stove as he dared, he laid his shirt and Marylee's jacket over him again.
"We'll need more wood," he muttered to Marylee.
She nodded, and again he hoisted himself out of the break in the wood. It didn't seem as long this time before he returned. There were several loud thumps as he dropped a large armful of kindling into the garage. After three more series of thumps, each about ten minutes apart, he crawled back into the station.
"I found a house a ways back on the road with a huge pile of firewood," he said with satisfaction as he crouched beside Camper again. "It's dry, and they had so much they'll never miss what I took."
"That's great," Marylee said quietly, but with little conviction. Everything's working out fine, she told herself – you're just tired. Just tired.
For a long time she sat without saying anything more, trying to keep her mind away from the dragging depression that was settling over her. She watched Petey crouch over his dog, talking to him, petting him, trying to get him to swallow a dog biscuit he had mixed with some of the milk they had brought for April.
Camper thumped his tail slightly, but the food Petey so gently placed in his mouth just dribbled out again. Twice, in the dim light of the fire, Marylee could see tears slipping from Petey's eyes. He didn't try to hide them and she said nothing. Through the numbness that had possessed her, Marylee felt his sorrow and fear and joined in it.
All the fierce joy and the wild emotions seemed gone from her now, carried away by the cold and the dark and the rain. Her love for the baby was still deep within her, but the bland contentment she had experienced in the warehouse was gone. With numb detachment, she sensed it would be gone forever. It was as if the world had suddenly become real to her again. Because of April, this reality was not so cold and hating as before, but it was as implacable as it had always been.
As the child stirred against her, a gentle smile flickered across Marylee's face. She watched Petey sitting, grieving beside Camper, and somehow she felt all the love he had for his dog. It was a mirror of the love she felt for April – a love of needing and giving. A giving of everything.
Then, unable to hold it away any longer, Marylee remembered the face of April's real mother pleading for her child – the terrible pain and the grief. Mixed with the woman's agony, she remembered the fluttering pink gingham and the gurgling laugh that would well up from April's round stomach. She remembered the hours of fear and frustration as she paced back and forth in the grey warehouse while April screamed and twisted, and the soft sighs that slipped from the baby as she nestled her head into Marylee's shoulder.
Then, as the dawn light began to filter into the dirty corners of the garage, she tried to see the future as it must be. Because of her numb exhaustion, Marylee was able to see it without the daydreams of smiles and games with April, surrounded by frills and flowers and warm breezes.
Petey could do no more for them, she sensed. Instead of the dreams, she saw what must be the reality – the grinding fear of being found with a baby the world said did not belong to her; the cold and the desperation as she tried to find a place where she and April could live, and money just to buy the food they needed.
It occurred to her that she could manage somehow...somehow. But what would that do to April? What would that kind of life do to her child?
An hour after sunrise, Petey stood up and lifted Camper into his arms. “I’m going,” he told Marylee. His face was grimy, streaked with tears.
She stared at him a moment, the old words of anger and manipulation already forming in her mouth, then April whimpered and butted her head against her stomach.
“If I don’t find a vet...I..I think he’ll die.” Petey’s voice stuttered his fear.
The numbness suddenly seeped away from Marylee’s mind and she realized she couldn’t do it again. She rose to her feet, and gently pulled Camper’s ear.
"It’s time to go home," she said slowly.
