Either way, kid, past your bedtime. Let’s see if we can’t commandeer you a nice car seat to sleep on.
Which way? North or south?
South, I expect. He’ll certainly have people watching the border crossings into Canada. We’ll have a better chance to get lost in the crowds if we try to make it down to Albany or maybe even the city.
Of course nothing comes with guarantees. If only Charlie hadn’t deserted us.…
The short descent to the bottom of the slope seems more painful than the entire afternoon’s walk. The baby seems to have gained a lot of weight. The blister is raw and burning; the knees keep wanting to buckle; the small of her back feels broken; there are aches in all her ribs; her arms are like weights; her neck is in agony; she can’t stand the smell of herself.
Whiplash Willie, where are you now that I need you?
For a long time she stands by the side of the road. All she can hear is the baby’s breathing and the occasional halfhearted whoo-whoo of an owl.
A single headlamp appears on the hill to the south and approaches soundlessly. Can’t tell if it’s a motorcycle or a one-eyed car. Anyway it’s in the opposite lane heading in the wrong direction. Better hunker down anyway; don’t take chances. Make the lowest possible silhouette.
There’s a wide grass divider between the roadways here; not much chance of being seen from way over there. The headlight turns out to be a boxy old car with one lamp blown out. It thunders under the overpass, throwing back a raspy broken-muffler echo; it rushes away into the night, tail-lights glowing an angry red. The silence it leaves behind makes things lonelier than before.
63
High beam headlights bear down, blinding her, and she stands in the garish brightness with her arm raised, palm out, cradling the baby in the other arm and thinking: If this is Bert or some cop then we’ve had it but we can’t stay here forever.
Aren’t those lights very high off the ground?
When she hears the first hissing sigh of air brakes she knows it’s not a car.
He’s braking hard and gearing down but it takes more distance than that to stop such a huge object and the juggernaut goes rumbling past her at a pretty good clip, turn indicators flashing. Semitrailer rig. Eighteen wheeler. Big high square monster. It’ll be a way down the road before it stops. What do we do now-climb out of sight? Run for it? Hide?
I can’t. Too tired. The bones and muscles just won’t do it any more. I just can’t.
She looks back along the road. Anything else coming? No. No reprieves there. Not a light in view.
With the handbag appended to her forearm from its strap and the sack of baby things over her shoulder like a hobo’s swag and Ellen’s weight sweetly painful in her arm she walks forward to catch up to the truck and find out what fate awaits her.
64
She trudges into the light with a stoic readiness to accept whatever will be.
He jumps down from the passenger side of the truck-a tall narrow stick of a man. His back is to the light so she can’t see his face. He’s got shaggy hair like a hippie from the sixties; he’s bony and angular in some sort of windbreaker.
She says, “Thanks for stopping. We could use a lift.”
He’s getting a look at her now. “What happened to you?” His voice is soft and pleasant; no special accent but he talks very slowly, measuring the words.
“We’re all right. We just need a ride.”
“I’ve got a first aid kit in the cab. You’d better paint those scratches. Here, let me give you a hand with the baby.”
“I’d rather-can you take these things?”
He takes the sack from her. “You’re holding the baby in the wrong hand.”
“What?”
“For climbing into the truck. You need your left hand free.”
“Oh.”
He swarms up into the cab and for a moment he’s out of sight. Then he reappears, head down near the seat cushion-he’s leaning across from the far side and now he extends his arm down and points. “Grab that chrome rail with your left hand. Put your right foot on that step. Okay, that’s good. Now hike on up and swing your left leg into the cab. Come on.”
He’s got a grip on her arm and it’s a good thing because there’s a moment’s disequilibrium hanging in midair when she feels as if she’s going to pivot right out and fall.
He pulls her in onto the seat. Under the dome light she peers at Ellen, whose face is screwed up into a comical squint against the brightness; she’s pawing at the air with both tiny hands.
“Okay Sluggo,” she says, “calm down a minute. Everything wet under there?”
She looks at the driver. “I didn’t realize these things were so high. It’s like climbing to the second floor. Where’s that bag of things? I need a diaper.”
“Right behind you.” He reaches around and produces it.
It surprises her to see a rumpled bed-sheets and blanket and pillow-arranged crosswise behind the seats.
While she rummages for a diaper the driver is pulling a professional sort of first aid kit out from under the dash. “Any cuts on the baby?”
“I don’t think so.”
She removes the old diaper and wipes the baby with a tissue and rolls the baby over to examine her from all angles. Now ladies and gentlemen I want you to look very carefully and you’ll see what is truly meant by the expression Mother Love. I think I broke my Goddamn arm and forty-’leven other bones but there isn’t a single bruise on this kid’s delicate skin and I want that to be entered into the books by whoever’s keeping score up there when it comes to parceling out that term in purgatory.
The trucker says, “You look like you lost an argument with two miles of barbed wire.”
She replies with the first thing that pops into her mind. “My husband had too much to drink. He beat me up and threw us out of the car. I hope he drove into a tree.”
She fastens the clean diaper and settles Ellen in her lap. “Right, Sluggo. That better now?”
The driver takes a bottle of alcohol out of the first aid kit and opens it to soak a cloth pad. He waits until she takes it from him and begins to dab her face; he points toward the huge outrigger mirror beyond her window and she’s surprised to see that it’s at an angle where she can see herself in it. She begins gingerly to wipe at the scratches.
He says in a soft dry voice, “Your husband must have about sixteen real long fingernails.”
It makes her look at him-really take a look-for the first time. He’s younger than she thought at first. No more than her own age; no more than early thirties; perhaps even younger. The long hair is coal black. He’s got a narrow blade of a face but attractive in its way. All his bones seem unusually long; perhaps it’s only because he’s so thin. He has large hurt eyes.
She meets his gaze. “I got into a bramble patch.”
“I can believe that, lady. My name’s Doug. What’s yours?”
“Jennifer Hartman. This is Wendy. Say thank you to Doug, Wendy. What’s your last name?”
“Hershey. Douglas V. Hershey. Like the candy bar or the town in Pennsylvania. No relation to either. Where you from, Jennifer the Mauled?”
“Baltimore. We took a vacation in Canada. Some vacation. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Frank’s
