Betsy started up with a sudden roar and her wheels spun gravel that hit the police car like machine-gun fire. She lurched forward and crashed through the picket fence, curving into the road. She smashed into the lilac thicket and went through it.
I was brushed off.
I lay there, all tangled up with the smashed-down lilac and watched Betsy hit the road and keep on going. She done the best she could, I consoled myself. She had tried rescue me and it wasn't her fault that I had failed to hang onto her. Now she had to make a run for it herself. And she seemed to be doing pretty well. She sounded and went like she had the engine off a battleship inside her.
The two state troopers jumped into their car and took pursuit and I settled down to figure out how to untangle myself from the lilac thicket.
I finally managed it and went over to the front steps shack and sat down. I got to thinking about the fence, and decided it wasn't worth repairing. I might just as well give up and use what was left of it for kindling.
And I wondered about Betsy and what might be happening to her, but I wasn't really worried. I was pretty sure she could take care of herself.
I was right about that, for in a little while the state troopers came back again and parked in the driveway. They saw me sitting on the steps and came over to me.
'Where's Betsy?' I asked them.
'Betsy who?' Slade asked.
'Betsy is the car,' I said.
Slade swore. 'Got away. Travelling without lights at a hundred miles an hour. It'll smash into something, sure as hell.'
I shook my head at that. 'Not Betsy. She knows all the roads for fifty miles around.'
Slade thought I was being smart. He grabbed me and jerked me to my feet. 'You got a lot to explain.' He shoved me at the other trooper and the other trooper caught me. 'Toss him in the back seat, Ernie, and let's get going.'
Ernie didn't seem to be as sore as Slade. He said: 'This way, Pop.'
Once they got me in the car, they didn't want to talk with me. Ernie rode in back with me and Slade drove. We hadn't gone a mile when I dozed off.
When I woke up, we were just pulling into the parking area in front of the state police barracks. I got out and tried to walk, but one of them got on each side of me and practically dragged me along.
We went into a sort of office with a desk, some chairs and a bench. A man sat behind the desk.
'What you got there?' he asked.
'Damned if I know,' said Slade, all burned up. 'You won't believe it, Captain.'
Ernie took me over to a chair and sat me down. 'I'll get you some coffee, Pop. We want to talk with you. We have to get you sober.'
I thought that was nice of him.
I drank a lot of coffee and I began to see a little better?things were in straight lines instead of going round in circles?things I could see, that is. It was different when I tried to think.
Things that had seemed okay before now seemed mighty queer?like Betsy going home all by herself, for instance.
Finally they took me over to the desk and the captain ask me a lot of questions about who I was and how old I was and where I lived, until eventually we got around to what was on their minds.
I didn't hold back anything. I told them about the jets and the skunks and the talk I had with the colonel. I told them about the dogs and the friendly skunk and how Betsy had got disgusted with me and gone home by herself.
'Tell me, Mr. Bayles,' said the captain, 'are you a mechanic? I know you told me you are a day labourer and work at anything that you can get. But I wonder if you might not tinker around in your spare time, working on your car.'
'Captain,' I told him truthfully, 'I wouldn't know which end of a wrench to grab hold of.'
'You never worked on Betsy, then?'
'Just took good care of her.'
'Has anyone else ever worked on her?'
'I wouldn't let no one lay a hand on her.'
'Then you can't explain how that car could possibly operate by itself?'
'No, sir. Betsy is a smart car, Captain…'
'You're sure you weren't driving?'
'I wasn't driving. I was just taking it easy while Betsy took me home.'
The captain threw down his pencil in disgust. 'I give up!' He got up from the desk. 'I'm going out and make some more coffee,' he said to Slade. 'You see what you can do.
'There's one thing,' Ernie said to Slade as the captain left. 'The skunk…'
'What about the skunk?'
'Skunks don't wave their tails,' said Ernie. 'Skunks don't purr.'
'This skunk did,' Slade said sarcastically. 'This was a special skunk. This was a ring-tailed wonder of a skunk. Besides, the skunk hasn't got a thing to do with it. He was just out for a ride.'
'You boys haven't got a little nip?' I asked. I was feeling mighty low.
'Sure,' said Ernie. He went to a locker in one corner of the room and took out a bottle.
Through the windows, I could see that the east was beginning to brighten. Dawn wasn't far away.
The telephone rang. Slade picked it up.
Ernie motioned to me and I walked across to where he stood by the locker. He handed me the bottle.
'Take it easy, Pop,' he advised me. 'You don't want to hang one on again.'
I took it easy. About a tumbler and a half, I'd reckon.
Slade hollered, 'Hey!' at us.
'What's going on?' asked Ernie.
He took the bottle from me, not by force exactly, but almost.
'A farmer found the car,' said Slade. 'It took a shot at his dog.'
'It took a what?a shot at his dog?' Ernie stuttered.
'That's what the fellow says. Went out to get in the cows. Early. Going fishing and was anxious to get the morning chores done. Found what he thought was an abandoned car at the end of a lane.'
'And the shot?'
'I'm coming to that. Dog ran up barking. The car shot out a spark?a big spark. It knocked the dog over. He got up and ran. Car shot out another spark. Caught him in the rump. Fellow says the pooch is blistered.'
Slade headed for the door. 'Come on, the both of you.'
'We may need you, Pop,' said Ernie.
We ran and piled into the car.
'Where is this farm?' asked Ernie.
'Out west of the air base,' said Slade.
The farmer was waiting for us at the barnyard gate. He jumped in when Slade stopped. 'The car's still there,' he said. 'I been watching. It hasn't come out.'
'Any other way it could get out?'
'Nope. Woods and fields is all. That lane is dead end.'
Slade grunted in satisfaction. He drove down the road and ran the police car across the mouth of the lane, blocking it entirely. 'We walk from here,' he said.
'Right around that bend,' the farmer told us.
We walked around the bend and saw it was Betsy, all right. 'That's my car,' I said.
'Let's scatter out a bit,' said Slade. 'It might start shooting at us.' He loosened the gun in his holster.
'Don't you go shooting up my car,' I warned him, but he paid me no mind.
Like he said, we scattered out a bit, the four of us, and went toward the car. It seemed funny that we should be acting that way, as if Betsy was an enemy and we were stalking her.
She looked the same as ever, just an old beat-up jalopy that had a lot of sense and a lot of loyalty. And I kept
