Maben nodded and handed her the key and the girl said thanks but Maben didn’t answer. She turned to walk out and noticed two men sitting at the counter, one with his glasses on top of his head and rubbing at his eyes while he waited on the other man in a black suit to finish talking on the phone. Maben hurried out and across the lot and Annalee was standing in the motel room door. Maben stepped around her and picked up the garbage bag containing all they owned and said let’s go.
“I’m thirsty, Momma.”
“Come on. We’ll get something down the road.”
“Why can’t we get something here?”
“Because I said so.”
She had wrapped the deputy’s pistol in a shirt and buried the shirt in the middle of the rest of the clothes. They walked out of the parking lot and to the interstate and turned north. Four miles to McComb. Not far after that. The morning sun met them without regard and they were both redfaced within a mile. Cars passed on their way to work. Or to wherever. She kept thinking of tossing the pistol into the weeds or into a ditch but there was too much traffic and she didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to be noticed or remembered. And she hadn’t completely convinced herself that having a pistol was a bad idea no matter who it belonged to or how she got it. Maben and Annalee walked on and gusts brought the wind to them but it also brought dust and sometimes rocks with the wind. In a little more than an hour they saw the exit sign for McComb. One mile.
“Is that it?” the girl asked.
“That’s it.”
“Where are we going when we get there?”
“Somewhere. Just keep on.”
She had lain awake the rest of the night wondering what to do. And she still didn’t know. So they were heading toward the shelter. It was another two miles along a four-lane. They walked on past used car lots and hardware stores and liquor stores and Maben finally let them stop at a gas station that had a picnic table at the side of it. The table was in the shade of the building and mom and child sat down with cold drinks and powdered doughnuts. They finished up and walked on again, Maben promising the girl that it wasn’t much farther. Another half hour and they could see the downtown buildings and Maben thought she remembered Broad Street being the street closest to the rails. The bag was getting heavier with each step and Maben’s shirt was soaked through with sweat. The child’s forehead was red and wet and her face seemed stuck in a squint.
Maben hadn’t noticed it but creeping up behind them in the southern sky had been thick gray clouds and still blocks away from the shelter they were startled with a snap of lightning and then came the thunder. The sunlight disappeared almost instantly and a moodiness fell around them and at a street corner Maben looked down to the left and she saw a pavilion and playground equipment and she pulled the child and said hurry on this way. They walked as fast as their tired legs would take them as the wind kicked up and then the first drops fell, fat drops that hit the pavement like nickels. They were nearly there when the bottom fell out and by the time they had made it under the pavilion they were as wet as if they had been dipped into a pool. Maben set the garbage bag on top of a picnic table and she shook her arms and head and the child did the same.
Gray hovered in every direction and it looked like they would be there for a while. Maben realized they were next to the cemetery. The rain washed the footprints from the playground slides and seesaws and puddles began to form in the holes that had been dug in the sandbox. Annalee walked over to the edge of the concrete where the drip from the roofline hit in tiny claps and held out her arms and let the water splash on her wrists. Maben sat down on top of a picnic table with her hand propped under her chin. She watched the rain bounce off the swing seats and then she turned and stared across the graveyard that sat next to the playground and she wondered whose bright idea it was to put the playground next to the graveyard. The gravestones looked slick in the rain and the red dirt of a fresh grave was turning to mud. The thunder roared and roared and there were quiet flashes of lightning and then the rain came harder and an unexpected gust of wind brought it to them. Annalee squealed and she ran over to her mother and Maben helped her up onto the table next to her and the rain beat on the pavilion roof and the sound of their desolation was even greater than it had been before.