'Can your motorcycle ride the three of us?'
'You like camping out?'
They were in the barn loading the Slammer. Andy had packed a sleeping bag for Jessie. His mother gave Andy a hug and said, 'I'm sorry.'
'It's not your fault, Mom. They would've found her sooner or later.'
She hugged Frankie and Jessie like they were her own children.
'Paul,' Jessie said, 'I want us to live here with you and Jean.'
His father squeezed her shoulders.
'Honey, this is your home anytime you want to come back.'
'We can't come back,' Frankie said.
His father's eyes watered up.
'Andy, I can still shoot.'
'Thanks, Dad, but it's best we leave.'
Andy strapped the pack to the front handlebars and fired up the Slammer. Frankie and Jessie climbed on behind him. Andy drove out of the barn and down the trail leading to the back gate. They were invisible to the men at the front gate.
'I know a campground. Nice place, with cabins and a shower.'
Andy circled back around town and headed west into the sunset. Twenty minutes later, they rode into the Blanco town square. Four blocks south of the square was the Blanco State Park, straddling the Blanco River. Andy stopped at the park store and paid for a cabin down by the river. They bought food and supplies for the night then drove down to the river and found their cabin. Andy unpacked their gear; Frankie and Jessie went to gather river rocks for the fire ring. When they returned fifteen minutes later, Jessie was giggling and Frankie was soaking wet and covered in mud.
'I fell in.'
She went inside the cabin and returned wearing only a towel; she had nice legs. She hung her wet clothes over the railing of the cabin porch and sat down by the campfire. Andy was roasting hot dogs on wire hangers. She took a hanger, laid her underwear over it, and held it over the fire.
'I don't like wet undies.'
They were black.
It was early November, and the park was vacant even though the temperature wouldn't drop below forty that night. Winter didn't come to Texas until January. They ate the dogs then Frankie stood.
'I need a shower.'
She grabbed her undies-'All dry'-and the bar of soap and shampoo they had bought at the park store and walked over to the showers on the other side of the cabin. Andy watched her then turned to Jessie.
'You want another hot dog?'
'I'm stuffed.'
'Why'd you pick 'Jessie James'?'
'Because we're outlaws on the run.'
Andy impaled a wiener on the wire hanger and dangled it over the fire.
'You like camping out?'
'This is my first time.'
'Really? I love sleeping outdoors.'
'I never have.'
'I got the cabin for you and your mom.'
'Can I sleep out here?'
'If your mom says it's okay. But it's damp, so pull your sleeping bag close to the fire, so you don't catch a cold.'
'I won't.'
'That a girl.'
'I heard you tell my mom I might have a cancer gene.'
'Oh, honey, look, I was just worried and-'
'Don't worry. I don't have cancer. I never get sick.'
'You're lucky.'
She pulled up the right leg of her jeans.
'I can't get sick.'
Andy nodded. 'Just like trail biking. It's a mental game. You gotta believe you can't crash or you will for sure.'
'No, I mean I can't get sick. Ever.'
'You've never been sick?'
'No.'
'You're eight?'
'Unh-huh. Ouch.'
Her leg had a nasty bit of road rash.
'I fell at recess last week, scraped my leg. It's scabbing up now.'
'So you've never been to a doctor?'
'Oh, I've been to lots of doctors.'
She was picking at the scab.
'If you pick at it, it'll bleed.'
'It is bleeding.'
'So you were sick?'
'No, I was at a hospital.'
She reached to her neck and held up a pendant on a silver chain. Andy's twelve years of Catholic school qualified him to identify it.
'Saint Aloysius, the patron saint of children.'
'That was the name of the hospital.'
'So you were really sick?'
'No, I wasn't sick.'
'Then what were you doing in a hospital?'
'They were experimenting on me.'
'Were those doctors called 'psychiatrists'?'
'I'm not crazy, Andy.'
She was now digging in her mother's purse.
'But you weren't sick?'
'No.'
'So why'd they put you in a hospital?'
'To study me.'
'Why?'
'Because I can't get sick.'
'You mean, like research?'
'Unh-huh. It was a research hospital.'
She pulled something from the purse.
'And what did they find out?'
'I'm immune.'
'To what?'
She secured a big Band-Aid over her scab-the same kind of Band-Aid Andy had found in their trash-then she looked up at him.
'Everything.'
Andy yanked open the wood door to the shower. Frankie was wet and naked. She didn't flinch or try to cover up. She just stood there in the steam.
