Clyde Watkins leaned across the seat and opened the pickup truck's passenger door. "Hi, Sarah."
Sarah climbed in and fastened her seat belt hurriedly. ("I feel naked without it," she had explained more than once.) She turned her head, attempted a smile. "Hi, Clyde. Thanks for stoppin'. I woke you up, didn't I?"
"It ain't the first time, Sarah." He put the truck in gear.
"Where we goin', Clyde?"
"Yer husband took my thirty-ought-thirty, Sarah, so I got a fair idea where he is." He punched the accelerator; the pickup lurched away from Sarah's mobile home.
"Why didn'tcha tell me about the rifle before, Clyde?" she said.
"He didn't borrow it, Sarah, he took it. Right outa this truck." He inclined his head toward the empty gun rack behind them. "I didn't find out till I come to get you."
Sarah looked confusedly at him: "You mean he's huntin', Clyde? Then why's he been gone so long?"
Clyde chose not to answer. He knew that Sarah would realize the answers to her questions soon enough. She did. "Oh my God!" she whispered.
Clyde reached across the seat and patted her hand. "Now, Sarah, don't go imaginin' things, it won't do no one no good."
"Clyde, he's shot himself, I know it. That damn fool's shot himself, just like your Uncle Winston–"
Clyde braked hard for a flashing red light; he looked left and right, saw no headlights; he hit the accelerator. "We don't know he's shot himself, Sarah, and until we do—" He stopped in midsentence. Sarah had begun to weep.
"We're gonna find him all shot up, ain't we, Clyde? With a great big hole in his chest or in his head, ain't that right, Clyde?"
He turned the pickup sharply left. "You calm down right now, Sarah, or I'm lettin' you out."
She continued to weep. She made no reply.
Lorraine Graham thought, I'm losing control of those boys. They need Stan—he's firmer than I. And she rolled quickly in the bed, from her back to her side, as if that physical movement would put her mind on something else, something that didn't turn around and bite its own tail, as her thoughts of her dead husband invariably did.
She let her eyes open. "Bastard!" she said. "Bastard!" to leave her with two young boys who giggled too much, and with the awful job of finding someone new for them, and for herself (and in the meantime to be what she could never be—both mother and father to the boys).
And "Bastard!" because she spent her nights so very much alone and so very much in need . . .
She focused on the closed bedroom door, only a vague, whitish outline in the dark, and she imagined Stan pushing it open, imagined him crossing the room to her. Touching her. Holding her.
"Bastard!" she said again, because he'd extracted that damned promise from her that this house would be where Robin and Robert "turned into men."
"Bastard!" for that idealism and that chauvinism, because this house was really no different, was it, than a city apartment? There were still the (displaced) city people, only far fewer of them (and she wanted to be alone, yes, yes, but not that alone). . . . Christ! If only the lousy bastard were here with her now!
Sarah asked, "Where you takin' us, Clyde? Is this where you and Manny used to hunt?"
"Uh-huh," Clyde answered. "Up the road a bit." He nodded.
Because of a heavy overcast, the darkness beyond the pickup truck and its headlights was nearly total. Sarah held her watch up so she could read it by the light from the dashboard: 3:55. "Shit, Clyde—what we gonna do out there, now? We gotta wait till the sun comes up."
"I got a couple flashlights." He reached, opened the glove compartment; there was a large silver-colored flashlight in it. "There's one," he said. "And I got another one in a tool chest back there." He indicated the bed of the pickup, then closed the glove compartment.
"I can't do that, Clyde."
He looked questioningly at her. "Can't do what?"
"I can't go prowlin' around out there in the pitch dark."
"You wanta wait in the truck?"
"Yes, Clyde—'less you got some objections."
"I got no objections, Sarah. Maybe yer husband will, but I don't." He turned his head briefly and grinned at her.
He saw her straight-arm the dashboard suddenly: "Clyde, look out!"
He turned back. "Oh Jesus!" And hit the brake hard, pulled the wheel to the left. He heard the grating, shrill screech of metal against metal as the pickup connected with the back end of Manny's Chevy. A half second later, the pickup shuddered to a halt. "Christ almighty!" Clyde muttered. His hands were shaking; he gripped the steering wheel hard; he looked at Sarah; "You okay?" She was rubbing the side of her head, had obviously hit it against the passenger window. "Yeah, I guess." She winced, turned to look at the car they'd hit. "That's our Biscayne, Clyde—that damned fool husbanda mine parked it right in the middle of the road! What'd he do that for, Clyde?" She was on the verge of hysteria. "What in hell would he go and do that for, Clyde, why would he–"
Clyde slapped her; her hysteria ended abruptly. He looked her squarely in the eye. "I'm gonna go check the damage to the truck, Sarah. You understand me? I'm gonna go check the damage, and I want you to wait right here."
She nodded once, quickly, her eyes wide. "I'm sorry, Clyde."
"No need." He got the flashlight from the glove compartment and climbed out of the truck. "Stay put, for now," he called. He aimed the flashlight at the truck's left rear tire. He groaned. "Christ almighty!" He shone the flashlight on Sarah; she put her hand up against the glare. "Clyde!" she protested. He turned the light off. "Whole damned wheel's about six inches back of where it should be, Sarah, and the tire's flat besides." He turned the flashlight on again and aimed it at the rear end of the Chevy, where it had connected with the pickup. "Yer car looks like it might be okay, considerin'. Little bit of a gas leak—"
"Is Manny in the car, Clyde?"
"'Course not," he answered, and shone the flashlight briefly into the car's interior. It was empty. "Why would he be in it, Sarah?" She didn't answer. He poked his head into the cab of the pickup: "Ground's hard, Sarah, but I think Manny coulda left some tracks. I'm gonna take a look. Yer stayin' here, right?"
"Can't you wait a minute, Clyde? Till there's some light."
"What if Manny's hurt, Sarah? The quicker I get to him the better. You'll be okay, here. Just lock the doors." He stepped away from the truck, walked to the front of the Chevy, looked back, heard Sarah open her door and scramble out. "Clyde?!" she called, "I'm coming with you, Clyde."
He aimed the flashlight at the front of the pickup. "Over here, Sarah."
She ran to him, and grabbed his arm: sudden fear had made her breathless. "It's . . . awful dark, Clyde. And cold."
"Not's cold as it was. Winter ain't on us yet." He played the flashlight beam on a couple square yards—of ground near the Chevy's driver's door.
"Clyde, that door don't work," Sarah told him.
He went around to the passenger side. He found Manny's footprints quickly and followed them off the road, Sarah still clinging to him.