Russell lit another cigarette off the one that was dying. A car pulled into the rest area and a small boy got out of the backseat and raced toward the restrooms and his father got out and ran after him, telling him to hold it hold it.
“Maybe if you told me what was going on I could figure out a way to help,” Russell said.
“Maybe Jesus will come down from His high horse and cook us supper.”
“Maybe.”
“But probably not.”
“But maybe.”
“I did something that anybody else would’ve done and it’s over and that’s that.”
“Would you do it again?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Then stop worrying about it.”
“You and me both know it ain’t like that.”
He unloaded the bullets from the chamber and he handed the pistol back to her. He put the bullets in his shirt pocket.
“The thing is you don’t know what I can do and what I can’t. Either I can help or I cannot. That’s all there is. But you’re not gonna find out like this. Don’t seem like you got a whole lot to lose.”
The girl finished her candy bar and she hopped off the table and walked toward the truck. She looked at her feet and placed one foot in front of the other as if she were balancing on a high wire. Maben turned and looked at Russell. He was scratching at his beard.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“About six blocks from where you stuck that thing in my ear.”
“I used to live in McComb.”
“I saw you mopping at the café. You must still live there.”
“We walked into town yesterday. Or the day before.”
“Walked?”
“Walked in. Ran out. Ain’t been back in years. Since long before her.”
“What’s your name?”
She leaned over and put the pistol in the duffel bag at her feet. “All I want you to do is drive us. If you don’t want to that’s fine. We’ll call it right here. But I’d appreciate it if you could take us on farther.”
Russell nodded. Annalee made it to the truck and Maben held her drink as she climbed over her mother and sat between them.
“I’m guilty of a lot of things, but leaving you and her out here ain’t going to be one of them,” he said and he cranked the truck. “I can go on a little farther.”
“Can I have that book back?” the girl asked. Maben handed it to her. Away from the lights of the rest area there was only dark ahead of them as the lightning from the coming storm flashed in the night sky behind.
30
THEY DROVE NORTH ON I-55. AROUND MIDNIGHT THEY PASSED through Jackson and he turned east on I-20. Once they were out of the city lights and back into empty miles of interstate the child put her head in her mother’s lap and went to sleep. Russell rolled the window down halfway and tossed out the bullets. After miles and miles of quiet and after she was sure the child wouldn’t be listening Maben said you have to promise you won’t tell nobody. Her voice was close to a whisper. Her eyes ahead on the headlights.
“Tell nobody what?”
“What I’m about to tell you.”
He had been thinking that he was glad she hadn’t told him. He had been thinking that he was better off that way. That soon he would put them out somewhere and drive on back and forget about it. I got enough to think about already. Don’t ask her anything else. Just drive. He had been thinking that he was glad he never had a kid. He looked at Annalee and wondered if she had ever been to school.
“There was a sheriff man killed,” she said.
Jesus Christ, he thought. Jesus Christ almighty. You were right, you son of a bitch. You could’ve shut her up but you let her keep talking and Jesus Christ almighty. Russell twisted the steering wheel in his hands as if to wrench what she had said back into her mouth but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it now and still he wrenched harder and harder. She could have said anything. A crazyass boyfriend or money she owed or he would have even taken that she had kidnapped the little girl. Anything.
“I heard about it,” he said.
“This is his gun.”
She then stopped. More miles passed on.
“You can put us out wherever,” she said.
“I know.”
“It probably ain’t gonna matter anyway.”
“I imagine there’s a lot of people looking for that thing,” he said.
“Then I guess you see why I’m running off with it. I guess you see what somebody might think if they found me with it.”
“I can guess that.”
“And I bet you think you know something right now. But you don’t.”
“I didn’t say I knew anything. I’m driving.”
They came upon the exit for Forest and he said he had to get gas. He turned off and stopped at a gas station and filled up. Maben sat still and the girl didn’t wake. When he was done he paid inside and he came out with a new pack of cigarettes and beer. He drove back onto the interstate and he opened a beer and set it between his legs. Then he opened another and handed it to her.
“You don’t look like a killer to me,” he said.
“That’s because I’m not.”
“I been around some. Killers, that is. And worse. Killers aren’t even the worst. But I know what they look like. They look like they mean it. You don’t look like you mean it.”
“I don’t see how you can mean or not mean something you didn’t do.”