3 Nowhere to Go and All Day to Get There (3 page)

"Woman, be serious."

"I
am
being serious. Look at how he's treating that poor girl!"

"I don't have to look. I've been watching it, same as you. But you don't see that shotgun in 'back of that boy's window? What do you think would happen if I pulled up alongside 'im, tried to object to the way he treats his woman?"

It was a fair question to ask, and one I had no answer for. Obviously, were Joe to attempt such a thing, I'd likely be a widow—if not a corpse—before the next sunrise.

"If I thought she were in serious danger, I'd take the chance," Joe said, growling. "But she's not. That doesn't make what he's doin' to her right, but..."

"It isn't worth getting shot over. No. You're right, baby, it's not." I sighed. "I guess we'd better just stay out of it."

And with that, I closed my eyes. More to keep from witnessing any more mayhem in the Dodge than to try and drift off to sleep.

*     *     *     *

About fifteen minutes later, I emerged from a restless doze to find our truck and Lucille, the Airstream trailerhome we keep hitched behind it, parked in the lot of a dimly lit public reststop.

"You need to go?" Joe asked, his door already open in his hand. Obviously,
he
did.

I gave the question a little thought and nodded, then pulled myself upright and got out of the truck to join him. One thing life on the road teaches you quickly is, more so than "when you gotta go you gotta go," given the opportunity, you had
better
go before you
need
to go. Otherwise...

The other thing the vagabond life of the roaming, sixty-something retiree teaches you is, highway reststops are rarely the most cheerful of places. The facilities they offer are often a godsend, but other than that, most of them are dreadful in broad daylight, and just downright terrifying in the wee hours of the morning. This one was a prime example.

Like most of them, it was fronted by highway, and had an undeveloped wasteland at its back. Behind the two small mortar block buildings in which the restrooms and ubiquitous soda machines resided, dry brush faded into pitch black night, giving not a clue to what perils might lay in the distance. Adding to the spooky ambiance of the place was an almost unearthly silence. I hadn't really paid much attention to the parking lot upon leaving the truck, but it hadn't been empty; there'd been at least two big rigs sitting there, and one, maybe two other passenger vehicles as well. Yet Joe and I seemed to be the only living creatures moving about the grounds.

It all made for a scene I wanted to put behind me as quickly as possible.

And I almost made a clean escape. I was hurrying out of the ladies' room, my business done in record time, when the cowboy's woman stumbled in, sniffling and wiping her nose on the back of one wrist. We met in the doorway and all but collided with each other. I hadn't seen the big woman's face before now but I recognized her all the same. Through the back window of the Dodge pickup, I'd caught glimpses of the checkered blouse she was wearing and the long, dirty blond hair that ran halfway down her back, just like her man's.

"Pardon me," I said.

The cowboy's woman just nodded, red-eyed, and stepped quickly past.

Now, here is where my story could have ended without incident. This was my opportunity to simply turn and walk away, leave the lives of two strangers to whatever God's plan was for them. But Dottie Loudermilk has never been one to miss a chance to meddle. As Joe has grown fond of saying, I boldly trample in where others fear to tread.

"You shouldn't let him treat you that way," I said. Regretting the words even as they were traveling the short distance between us.

She looked at me for a moment, not at all sure she'd heard me right, and said, "What?"

"We saw him hitting you. My husband and I. We couldn't help it, your truck's been right in front of ours for the past thirty minutes."

She didn't say anything.

"I don't know your situation, so maybe I have no right to speak, but if I were you—"

"Yeah, I know. You'd leave 'im." She almost laughed when she said it, the idea was so outlandish to her.

"Yes. I would."

"Well, then. It's a shame you
aren't
me, isn't it?"

"Please. I didn't mean—"

"Lady, if I had somewhere else to go, I'd be there. But I don't. Okay?"

"I'm sure you think you love him. And that he doesn't always treat you that badly. But even so—"

"You don't know what you're talkin' about. He
does
always treat me that badly. Sandy's a twenty-four-hour jackass, all jerk, all the time." She was angry now. "But there ain't nothin' I can do about that 'cept try and run away again and get myself killed. Is that what you want me to do?"

"No, of course not. I just—"

"You just wish I had more respect for myself. Yeah, I know. That makes two of us."

She barely got this last out before she broke down completely, fled into the nearest stall and closed the door behind her before I could say anything more.

I thought about going after her, tapping on the stall door to further plead with her to save herself, but I knew that would only be compounding an already monumental mistake.

So I just said a hushed, "I'm sorry," and left.

*     *     *     *

"What happened?" Joe asked me when I returned to our truck. I wasn't going to say anything but he hasn't needed to be told when there's something bothering me for a long, long time.

"Nothing. Let's go," I said. "Please."

Now I could see that Sandy the cowboy's truck had been parked under a dark lamppost several spaces away from us all along. And it was empty.

"
Corrine! Hurry up in there, damnit, we gotta go!
"

He was standing right outside the ladies room door, all but sticking his head inside to bellow at her. He sounded like he was furious, but then, I had the sense he always did, at least when he was talking to Corrine.

"Jeez Loweez," Joe said sadly, disgusted by this sorry display of boorish manhood.

"Please, Joe. Let's go," I said again.

Not wanting to be there when the cowboy's woman finally found the will to obey him.

*     *     *     *

We weren't gone thirty minutes when I awoke to Big Joe shouting:

"Hey! What the—"

I looked up to see him struggling with the wheel, fighting to keep our truck and Lucille aimed in a straight line. His face was a study in pique and concentration.

"What happened?" I asked, working to sit up straight.

"The damn fool almost hit me, that's what! I hadn't seen 'im coming and pulled over..."

"Who?" I peered out the windshield at the dark highway ahead, trying to follow my husband's gaze.

"Our spousal abusing friend in the cowboy hat again, that's who. Crazy sonofagun's gotta be doin' eighty-five at least!"

And sure enough, he was right. There the familiar Dodge pickup was, wobbling from side to side as it rapidly shrank into the distance before us.

"Oh, my God. I wonder what happened," I said, suddenly wide awake.

"I don't know. But..." He didn't complete the thought.

"But what?"

Joe glanced at me, wearing the face he usually reserves for only the most dire occasions. "It looked to me like he was alone. At least, if his woman was with 'im, I didn't see her."

"Oh, Lord, no. You don't think—"

"Get the binoculars out of my bag, Dottie. I'm gonna see if I can't catch 'im before he disappears completely."

While I retrieved his gym bag from behind our seats as instructed, Joe stepped on the gas, urged our Ford pickup to haul us and Lucille down the Interstate with even greater urgency. It was only a matter of time before the two-truck race we'd just started came upon more northbound traffic, after which the cowboy's Dodge would almost certainly lose us for good, so I knew we had only seconds to steal a look into its cab before it was too late.

"Now, Dottie, hurry!" Joe said. "He's just come up on somebody, he's gotta slow down!"

And it was true. The other truck's taillights glowed bright in the distance as the driver applied its brakes, and it was now only twenty or so car-lengths ahead of us. I took Joe's field glasses from his bag and brought them quickly up to my eyes, spinning the focus controls madly to bring the Dodge into some measure of sharp relief. It wasn't in view for more than fifteen seconds before it used the shoulder of the road to spin around the car ahead of it and, just as Joe and I had feared, escape our reach for good—but that was long enough. Long enough to see that the cowboy in the Stetson hat and fur-lined jacket was alone in the cab now, and that his woman Corrine wasn't the only thing his truck was missing.

The hunting rifle that had been mounted outside its rear window was gone now, too.

"Oh, my God, Joe, what have I done?" I asked.

"What do you mean? You didn't—" He stopped when he saw my face, understanding immediately that I'd done something inadvisable yet again. "Oh, no. Don't tell me. Back there at the reststop..."

"I had a few words with her in the ladies room. As I was going out and she was coming in. I didn't mean to upset her, but..."

"No! Tell me you didn't!"

"All I said was that she should leave him. That she should find a way to get away from him, that's all."

"Aw, Jeez Loweez, Dottie! You went and stirred the poor child up! Two to one, she went back out to that man's truck and gave 'im some lip! Either got herself stranded back there, or...or
worse!
"

He was right, of course. I could see it all happen exactly that way in my mind.

"We have to go back, Joe," I said. "We've got to make sure she's all right."

"What?"

"Don't. Don't argue with me about this. Just turn this truck around right now and
go!
"

*     *     *     *

It took us a little over fifteen minutes to reach the reststop again, and it looked the same way now as it had when we'd last seen it: dark, desolate, and as creepy as a fog-enshrouded moor. There were still a few sixteen-wheelers parked in the darkest corner of the lot, but ours was now the only passenger vehicle around. Apparently, if this had been a hot dog stand rather than a reststop, its owners would have been forced into bankruptcy long ago.

There was no sign of Corrine anywhere.

Predictably, Joe stepped out of the truck and told me to stay put. The thought of being left there alone to imagine I could see all kinds of horrible things lurking in the shadows was unnerving, but I was too tired to join him, even if I had wanted to. I'd been awake now for over nineteen hours and at the tender age of sixty-one, adrenaline can only take a girl so far. Nodding my head and watching Joe start off toward the ladies room with only one of two eyes open was the absolute best I could do at this point.

"Hello! Anybody home?" Joe called out, standing just outside the door of the women's restroom in the same way Corrine's cowboy had done earlier. Receiving no response, Joe called again, and still no one answered back. My eyes drifted closed for a moment. I caught myself and sat up abruptly, just caught sight of my husband disappearing inside the bathroom.

I watched and waited for him to exit again.

And waited.

And waited.

How much time went by, I'll never really know. My guess now is that it wasn't much more than three or four minutes. But that was all the time my poor eyes needed to grow bored, flutter closed again—and stay that way.

The next thing I knew I was snoring. Head tilted back, mouth agape, body propped up against the passenger-side door. Had I not snorted myself awake, I might still be asleep today.

"Oh, my Lord, Dottie," I said.

I scanned my surroundings desperately, searching for Big Joe, but he was nowhere to be found. I was sure I had only been out for a minute or two, but the damage had been done. Four parking spaces to my right sat the cowboy named Sandy's blue Dodge pickup, its passenger cab as empty as the truck bed behind it.

He'd come back while I was dozing.

I leapt from the truck and started running as fast as I could toward the ladies room, giving no thought whatsoever to slamming the truck's door closed behind me.

"Joe!"

I entered the bathroom and found myself alone; neither Joe nor the cowboy was there. I went to the men's room next, just bolted straight in without warning, but again, the room was vacant. All the stalls were empty and silent.

I was now completely terrified.

I sprinted outside, spun around like a top looking for some sign of my husband, but there was no such sign to see. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

"
Joe! Where are you?!
"

And then I realized where he had to be: out there in the black void behind the reststop's boundaries, where Corrine's cowboy would have surely chosen to take her if, as Joe and I had feared, she'd said or done something, thanks to me, to finally make a murderer out of him.

I went around to the back of the two mortar block buildings and studied the black, irregular horizon. They were next to impossible to see, but they were there: one human figure advancing on another, the latter a good fifty yards away. The one in motion was wearing a cowboy hat; the other, whose silhouette was almost certainly that of my husband, was not.

And the one with the hat was carrying a rifle.

"Joe!
Look out!
" I screamed.

I started running even though I knew it was hopeless. I would never reach him in time on this old woman's legs. As I closed in on the pair, I could see that a body lay in the brush at Joe's feet. "Dottie, no!" Joe called back.

But it was too late. The cowboy with the rifle turned toward me just as I lost my footing and fell, slammed to the cold, hard earth like someone who was already dead. I heard the crunch of footsteps as they rapidly approached, looked up to see what I was certain would be the last human face I would ever gaze upon.

"Hey, are you all right?" the woman named Corrine asked.

*     *     *     *

"I swear, woman, I don't know how you do it," Joe said several hours later. He was almost laughing, but not quite.