‘Where’s Montgomery County?’ Claude asked.
‘Arizona,’ Ralph said, before either Howie or Alec could reply. ‘Another matter. Nothing to do with this.’
‘What exactly are we going to do about this?’ Lovie asked. ‘Do you have any idea how to catch this fella? My son is all I got, you know.’
Holly came back in. She went to Lovie, bent, whispered in her ear. When Claude leaned over to eavesdrop, Lovie made a shooing gesture. ‘Go on in the kitchen, son, and bring back those chocolate pinwheel cookies, if they ain’t melted in the heat.’
Claude, obviously trained to mind, went out to the kitchen. Holly continued to whisper, and Lovie’s eyes widened. She nodded. Claude came back with the bag of cookies at the same time Yune came in from the porch, stowing his phone back in his pocket.
‘That was—’ he began, then stopped. Holly had turned slightly, so her back was to Claude. She raised a finger to her lips and shook her head.
‘That was nothing,’ he said. ‘They picked up a guy, but not the one we’ve been looking for.’
Claude put the cookies (which did look sadly melted in their cellophane bag) on the table and glanced around suspiciously. ‘I don’t think that’s what you started to say. What’s going on here?’
Ralph thought that was a good question. Outside on the rural route, a pickup truck trundled by, the lockbox in the bed reflecting bright spears of sun that made him wince.
‘Son,’ Lovie said, ‘I want you to get in your car and drive to Tippit and get us some chicken dinners at Highway Heaven. That’s a pretty good place. We’ll feed these folks, then they can go back t’other way and spend the night at the Indian. It ain’t much, but it’s a roof.’
‘Tippit’s forty miles!’ Claude protested. ‘Dinners for seven people will cost a fortune, and be dead cold when I get back!’
‘I’ll heat everything up on the stove,’ she said calmly, ‘and those dinners’ll be good as new. Go on, now.’
Ralph liked the way Claude put his hands on his hips and looked at her with humor and exasperation. ‘You’re tryin to get rid of me!’
‘That’s it,’ she agreed, butting her cigarette in a tin ashtray heaped with dead soldiers. ‘Because if Miss Holly here is right, what you know, he knows. Maybe that don’t matter, maybe all the cats are out of the bag, but maybe it does. So you be a good son and go get those dinners.’
Howie took out his wallet. ‘Allow me to pay, Claude.’
‘That’s all right,’ Claude said, a trifle sullenly. ‘I can pay. I ain’t broke.’
Howie smiled his big lawyer’s smile. ‘But I insist!’
Claude took the money and tucked it into the wallet chained to his belt. He looked around at his guests, still trying to be sullen, but then he laughed. ‘My ma usually gets what she wants,’ he said. ‘I guess you figured that out by now.’
7
The Boltons’ byroad, Rural Star Route 2, eventually led to an actual highway: 190 out of Austin. Before it got that far, a dirt road – four lanes wide but now falling into disrepair – branched off to the right. It was marked by a billboard which was also falling into disrepair. It depicted a happy family descending a spiral staircase. They were holding up gas lanterns that showed their expressions of awe as they peered at the stalactites suspended high above them. The come-on line below the family read VISIT THE MARYSVILLE HOLE, ONE OF NATURE’S GREATEST WONDERS. Claude knew what it said from the old days, when he’d been a restless teenager stuck in Marysville, but in these new days all you could read was VISIT THE MARYSV and ATEST WONDERS. A wide strip, reading CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE (itself faded) had been pasted over the rest.
A feeling of lightheadedness came over him as he drove by what local kids called (with knowing sniggers) the Road to the Hole, but it passed when he kicked the AC up a notch. Although he had protested, he was actually glad to be out of the house. That sense of being watched had faded away. He turned on the radio, tuned to Outlaw Country, got Waylon Jennings (the best!), and began to sing along.
Chicken dinners from Highway Heaven was maybe not such a bad idea. He could have a whole order of onion rings to himself, eating them on the way home while they were still hot and greasy.
8
Jack waited in his room at the Indian Motel, peering out between the drawn drapes, until he saw a van with a handicap plate pulling out onto the road. That had to be the old bag’s ride. A blue SUV followed it, undoubtedly full of the meddlers down from Flint City.
When they were out of sight, Jack went up to the café, where he ate a meal and then inspected the items for sale. There was no aloe cream, and no sunblock, either, so he bought two bottles of water and a couple of outrageously overpriced bandannas. They wouldn’t be much protection from the hot Texas sun, but better than nothing. He got in his truck and drove southwest, in the direction the meddlers had gone, until he came to the billboard and the road leading to the Marysville Hole. Here he turned in.
About four miles up, he came to a weather-worn little cabin standing in the middle of the road. It must have been a ticket booth when the Hole was a going concern, he supposed. The paint, once bright red, was now the faded pink of blood diluted in water. On the front was a sign reading ATTRACTION CLOSED, TURN BACK HERE. The road had been chained off beyond the ticket booth. Jack went around the chain, jouncing along the dirt hardpan, crunching tumbleweeds, swerving around sagebrush. The truck took a final bounce and then he was back on the road … if you could call it that. On this side of the chain it was your basic mess of weed-choked potholes and washouts that had never been filled in. His Ram – high-sprung and equipped with four-wheel drive – took the washouts easily, spitting dirt and stones from beneath its oversized tires.
Two slow miles and ten minutes later, he came to an acre or so of empty parking lot, the yellow lines of the spaces faded to ghosts, the asphalt cracked and heaved into plates. To the left, backed up against a steep brush-covered hill, was an abandoned gift shop with a fallen sign he had to read upside down: SOUVENIRS AND AUTHENTIC INDIAN CRAFTS. Straight ahead was the ruin of a wide cement walk leading to an opening in the hill. Well, once upon a time it had been an opening; now it was boarded over and plastered with signs reading KEEP OUT, NO TRESPASSING, PRIVATE PROPERTY, and COUNTY SHERIFF PATROLS THIS AREA.
Right, Jack thought. They maybe take a swing-through once every February 29th.
Another crumbling road led away from the parking lot, past the gift shop. It went up one side of a slope and down the other. It took him first to a bunch of decrepit tourist cabins (also boarded up) and then on to some kind of service shed, where company vehicles and equipment had probably once been stored. There were more KEEP OUT signs on this, plus a cheery one that read WATCH FOR RATTLESNAKES.