Ben watched Vivi trudge into the brush toward a rotting blanket, a litter of plastic bottles and tin cans, a school desk whose laminate top had been shredded. The backpack on the ground was smashed and slick with pooled raindrops.
“Don’t touch it! That’s not it.”
But she didn’t listen. She stubbornly inched past a faded Burger King wrapper and stepped over a white sock patterned with daisies.
“Watch out for needles.”
“We should have worn gloves.” She pinched up the pack and unzipped it even though mold grew on its strap. She dropped it back on the trash heap.
It was empty, as he’d expected, but a gentle warmth filled him at her determination to find the gun.
They returned to the fire road. “How do you suppose Dwayne got that gun?” she asked, her voice flattened with disappointment.
“Previous robbery.”
“Probably.”
Thoughts snaked through Ben’s mind. Had Dwayne used the gun before? Did he pull the trigger then?
One squeeze and his head could have been blown off. The thought infuriated him. Separated from death by a finger. And the shithead could go free.
Beside the fire road, the brush tangled into an impenetrable mass—brush woven together with wild berry vines. Vivi was walloping it with her walking-stick branch. “If he went charging into there,” she said, “he’d get scratched up and poison oak to boot.”
“He could have shoved everything into the pack and hurled it.” Frustrated, Ben sped ahead. But Vivi had a point. He scouted for paths into the foliage, a spot for Dwayne to hide stuff.
“Dwayne steals to get money for something,” she called after him. “Maybe drugs, but it could be something noble like baby formula for all we know.”
“Nothing about Dwayne struck me as noble,” he muttered back at her. “He intended to kill me.” He was here, scuffing at this road, because of dumb luck. Why didn’t Vivi get that?
She caught up and took his hand. They walked for a moment in silence. Then she said in that pondering way she had, “A gun seems like a valuable score. But he didn’t sell it.”
“Exactly.” He released her hand. “He kept it to threaten people—like me.”
To him, the idea they might find the gun was growing more ridiculous by the minute. He focused on the side of the fire road that sloped away gently, allowing access into the brush.
Down the road, a beaten footpath entered overgrown weeds. He veered onto the trail. Then he halted and lifted his arms to maintain his balance and stretched them to block Vivi’s path. “Don’t take another step.” Ahead of him, the brush moved.