Blaze

“No.”

“If you don’t, I’m in the breeze.”

“Go, then.”

“You think you’re going to keep him, don’t you?” In the bathroom, George laughed. It sounded like a chuckling drain-pipe. “You poor sap. You let him live and he’ll grow up hating your guts. They’ll see to it. Those good people. Those good rich asshole Republican millionaires. Didn’t I never teach you nothing, Blaze? Let me say it in words even a sap can understand: if you were on fire, they wouldn’t piss on you to put you out.”

Blaze looked down at the floor, where the terrible pillow lay. He was still shaking, but now his face was burning, too. He knew George was right. Still he said, “I don’t plan to catch on fire, George.”

“You don’t plan nothing! Blazer, when that happy little goo-goo doll of yours grows up to be a man, he’ll go ten miles out of his way just to spit on your fuckin grave. Now for the last time, kill that kid!”

“No.”

Suddenly George was gone. And maybe he really had been there all along, because Blaze was sure he felt something — some presence — leave the shack. No windows opened and no doors slammed, but yes: the shack was emptier than it had been.

Blaze walked over to the bathroom door and booted it open. Nothing there but the sink. A rusty shower. And the crapper.

He tried to go back to sleep and couldn’t. What he’d almost done hung inside his head like a curtain. And what George had said. They’ve almost got you. And If you don’t blow this shack, they’ll have you by noon tomorrow.

And worst of all: When he grows up to be a man, he’ll go ten miles out of his way just to spit on your fuckin grave.

For the first time Blaze felt really hunted. In a way he felt already caught…like a bug struggling in a web from which there is no escape. Lines from old movies started occurring to him. Take him dead or alive. If you don’t come out now, we’re comin in, and we’re comin in shootin. Put up your hands, scumbucket — it’s all over.

He sat up, sweating. It was going on five, about an hour since the baby’s cries had awakened him. Dawn was on the way, but so far it was just a faint orange line on the horizon. Overhead, the stars turned on their old axle, indifferent to it all.

If you don’t blow this shack, they’ll have you by noon.

But where would he go?

He actually knew the answer to that question. Had known for days.

He got up and dressed in rapid, jerky gestures: thermal underwear, woolen shirt, two pairs of socks, Levi’s, boots. The baby was still sleeping, and Blaze had time only to spare him a glance. He got paper bags from under the sink and began filling them with diapers, Playtex Nurser bottles, cans of milk.

When the bags were full, he carried them out to the Mustang, which was parked beside the stolen Ford. At least he had a key for the Mustang’s trunk, and he put the bags in there. He ran both ways. Now that he had decided to go, panic nipped his heels.

He got another bag and filled it with Joe’s clothes. He collapsed the changing table and took that, too, thinking incoherently that Joe would like it in a new place because he was used to it. The Mustang’s trunk was small, but by transferring some of the bags to the back seat, he managed to cram the changing table in. The cradle could also go in the back seat, he reckoned. The baby dinners could go in the passenger seat footwell, with some baby blankets on top of them. Joe was really getting into the baby dinners, chowing down bigtime.

He made one more trip, then started the Mustang and turned on the heater to make the car nice and toasty- warm. It was five-thirty. Daylight was advancing. The stars had paled; now only Venus glowed brightly.

Back in the house, Blaze lifted Joe out of his cradle and put him on his bed. The baby muttered but didn’t wake. Blaze took the cradle out to the car.

He went back in and looked around rather wildly. He took the radio from its place on the windowsill, unplugged it, wrapped the cord around it, and set it on the table. In the bedroom he hauled his old brown suitcase — battered and scuffed white at the corners — from under the bed. He piled the remainder of his clothes in, helter-skelter. On top of these he put a couple of girly magazines and a few comic-books. He took the suitcase and his radio out to the car, which was starting to get full. Then he went back to the house for the last time.

He spread a blanket, put Joe on it, wrapped him up, and put the entire bundle inside his jacket. Then he zipped the jacket up. Joe was awake now. He peered out of his cocoon like a gerbil.

Blaze carried him out to the car, got in behind the wheel, and put Joe down on the passenger seat.

“Now, don’t go rolling around there, Skinner,” he said.

Joe smiled and promptly pulled the blanket over his head. Blaze snorted a little chuckle, and in the same instant he saw himself putting the pillow over Joe’s face. He shuddered.

He backed out of the shed, turned the car around, and trundled down the driveway…and although he didn’t know it, he was beating an area-wide necklace of roadblocks by less than two hours.

He used back roads and secondary roads to skirt Portland and its suburbs. The steady sound of the motor and the heater’s output sent Joe back to dreamland almost immediately. Blaze tuned to his favorite country music station, which came on at sunrise. He heard the morning scripture reading, then a farm report, then a right-wing editorial from Freedom Line in Houston that would have sent George into paroxysms of profanity. Finally came the news.

“The search for the kidnappers of Joseph Gerard IV continues,” the announcer said gravely, “and there may be at least one new development.”

Blaze pricked up his ears.