When the food was ready, he brought them each a spoon and a bowl filled with portions from all three reconstituted bags: beef stew, macaroni and cheese, and chicken and dumplings.
“Y’all can sit on yer beds if ya want, a bit more comfortable.”
They came forward, away from the dark shadows. Tilda and Imogen took a minute to blow up their mattress pads. As they sat back down they let out audible sighs of relief; it felt like days since they’d rested on anything soft. All three of them sat crisscross applesauce at the foot of their beds, with their bowls on the ground in front of them to accommodate eating with bound hands. The food was utterly delicious. Gale even placed a canteen within easy reach, and by all appearances he’d divided the meal equally among the four of them.
“Thank you,” Beck said. “This is really good.”
“Really good,” Imogen agreed. “Thank you.”
“Yer welcome.”
For several minutes they enjoyed the feast. The rain had started strong but didn’t last; it brought cooler temperatures, but beyond the overhang the cloud banks were starting to drift home, disappointed by the brevity of the party. Finally, Gale let out a contented sigh.
“See? This is better. You girls have the wrong idea about me.”
Was this really his idea of better? Imogen regretted ever thinking anything charitable about him if three tied-up hostages was his concept of more agreeable company.
“What I’m thinking is…I’ll take tonight to sleep on it, make sure it still seems like a good idea in the morning. But I’m thinking we head west. More private there, ya said?”
“Hardly anyone goes out to Slate,” Beck confirmed.
“It far?”
“Five miles, about a two- or three-hour hike.”
“Good. Good, that’s what we need. I wanna take yer advice and let the arm heal up a bit better. Lay low another day or so, where nobody’s gonna be. Then maybe…” He chewed as he pondered. “Mexico might be better. Much as I wanna see Crystal, she’s probly already being harassed by cops. Get to Mexico, lay low there…Maybe later I can try heading north, when things’ve calmed down.”
Gale did his polishing act, cleaning his fork with his tongue. Imogen stopped chewing, absorbed in analyzing his every word. The trip to Slate sounded like a we; after Mexico it was I. Was he planning to let them go at Slate? Or leave them behind (kill them) in Mexico? She wanted to ask, but didn’t. His answer wouldn’t matter anyway; they knew they needed to get out of the Canyon and away from him.
“I want you to know…It’s important to me that you understand the difference about killing someone.” Tilda nearly choked on the water she was drinking. Their dinner suddenly wasn’t as tasty and they set their utensils down, their eyes fixed on Gale. Perhaps it was the intensity of their attention, but he wouldn’t look at them.
“Here’s what people don’t understand: you don’t want to kill someone. Like I said, only a serial killer feels good about that—they got nothing in their souls but a devil. But most of the time it’s just a quick-flash decision to stop one bad thing from getting worse. Sometimes it ain’t even that but self-defense.”
Imogen wasn’t completely sure that was true; Gale fed on his indignation the way a firecracker consumed a flame, thrilled to reach the point of detonation.
“The long ’n’ short of it is, most people don’t sit up planning to hurt someone. It’s just a moment. And maybe you get angry—too angry. Or yer afraid what’s gonna happen if you don’t carry through. But it’s still just a mistake and you’d be wrong to think nobody feels it. The authorities—cops and judges and lawyers—think they got it all figured out, armed robbery and rape and first-degree murder and second-degree, depending on how it all goes down. But they’re assholes, they don’t get it. They don’t think about bad timing or the whole chain of events that led to that fucked-up moment. They just judge you by one shitty minute of yer life.
“Now I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying you do know right from wrong, yer not some savage animal. But it starts this chain—one small fuckup, and another, and they’re gonna lock you up, bad egg, not fit fer society. And then ya get madder, and badder, and ain’t fit fer normal life when ya get out, even if that’s whatcha really want. And even if ya do try, you try and fix the situation…Sometimes you only know ways to fix things that are just new ways a fucking up. And no one ever factors in the trying, the wanting to do it better.”
Imogen nodded, because once again she understood him. Gale was the hero of his own journey, and every setback, every obstacle—even in human form—was a threat to his goal. Ultimately, if he succumbed to a quick-flash impulse to kill them, would he feel okay about it because he really did like them and didn’t really want to do it? If Imogen played by those same ruthless rules, what would she have to do to be the hero of her own journey?
“I know my future now,” he said. “Got no illusions. What I done to the cop…that’s the needle in my arm. Texas’ll kill ya fer a lot less. There’s no other outcome, if they catch me. You girls get that? This is my last bit a life.”
A heaviness settled around them, as dense as ash. Imogen was afraid to breathe, afraid to get it in her lungs. She felt the closing of a door, saw the spinning of the lock as if on a vault. Gale couldn’t have said it more plainly. She heard Nothing left to lose. She heard You won’t get in my way. Her blood turned to sludge; her meal curdled in her throat.
“I can’t letcha rob me a that. This is all I got left.”
This was his last bit of life—and maybe theirs, too. He wasn’t going to let them go. Even a twenty-four-hour head start wouldn’t be enough, not for a man who wanted every minute, every second, of his remaining time. If set free, Imogen, Beck, and Tilda would click the stopwatch, turn over the hourglass—initiate the beginning of his end.
“But what about Crystal?” Beck asked, her voice foggy, her future tottering toward a void as she reached the same conclusion Imogen had drawn. He couldn’t be won over now; Imogen’s more compliant approach didn’t stand a chance if he’d given up on seeing his daughter, his granddaughter.
He shrugged. “Maybe she don’t want me showing up. Disrupting everything—again. Disappointing her—again. Maybe she’d think I was just putting little Diamond in danger. I’ll think on it, sleep on it. But it might be better fer everyone if I disappear.”
Did he mean for them to disappear with him? Beside her, Tilda and Beck turned to stone.