Bent Road - Lori Roy [2]
“No,” Daniel says. “Out in the field. Something is out there.”
Mama locks her elbows. “I can’t look right now. What is it?”
“I see it,” Evie says. “Two of them. Three maybe. What are they?”
“There,” Daniels says. “Coming toward us. They’re getting closer.”
Outside the passenger side window, two shadows race toward the car—round, clumsy shadows that bounce and skip over the rolling field. Behind them comes a third. The shadows grow, jumping higher as they near the road. The wind picks up the third and tosses it ahead of the second. They’re several times the size of watermelons and gaining speed as they draw closer.
“What do you see, Daniel?” Mama asks.
“Don’t know, Mama. I don’t know.”
Nearing another shallow valley, Mama eases up on the brakes.
There they are again. As the car begins another climb, the front end riding higher than the back, the shadows return, running along the side of the road, gaining on the car as the hill slows it down. The shadows skip into the moonlight and turn into round bunches of bristle, rolling, tumbling.
“Tumbleweeds,” Evie shouts, rolling down her window. “They’re tumbleweeds.” The wind rushes into the car, drowning out the last of her voice.
“Daniel, do you see your father?” Mama tries to shout but there’s not much left of her voice. It barely carries over the noise of the wind. She leans forward, like she’s willing the car up the hill, willing Dad’s truck to reappear. “Close that window,” she says.
The rush of air slows as Evie cranks her window shut. On her small, chubby hands, tiny dimples pucker over each knuckle. Outside the car, the tumbleweeds are trailing them, gaining on them. It’s almost as if they’re hunting them. Up ahead, near the top of the hill, the road curves.
“Daniel, look. Can you see him?”
“No, Mama. No.”
A tight swirl of dust, rising like smoke in the yellow light, marks the road ahead. Mama drives into the cloud that is probably dirt kicked up by Dad’s truck. The road bends hard to the right and disappears beyond the top of the hill. Mama jams her palms against the steering wheel, leans into the door. The wind slams into the long, broad side of the station wagon.
“Hold tight,” she shouts.
Daniel thinks it’s another tumbleweed at first, coming at them from the other side. A large dark shadow darting across the road in front of the car. But those are arms, heavy and thick, and a rounded back. Two legs take long, clumsy steps.
“Mama,” Daniel shouts. “Look out.”
Mama yanks on the steering wheel, pulling it hard to the right. The car slides toward the dark ditch and stops, throwing Daniel and Evie forward. Outside the front window, the running shadow stumbles, rolls down into the ditch, disappears. The round weeds spin and bounce toward them, tumble over one another and fall into a bristly pile, snagged up by a barbed-wire fence strung between limestone posts.
Slowly unwrapping her fingers from the steering wheel, Mama shifts the car into park. Beneath them, the engine still rattles. Headlights throw cloudy light into the field. The dust settles. Mama exhales one loud breath. Leaning over Evie, Daniel presses his hands to the side window. The road drops off into a deep ditch and rises up again into the bare field that stretches out before them. At the bottom of the dark valley they have just driven out of, a pond reflects the full moon. The shadow is gone.
Evie shoves Daniel aside and takes his place at the window. “Mama, look at all the tumbleweeds,” she says. “Look how many. They’re all stuck together.”
“Did we hit him?” Daniel says. “Did we hit that man?”
Evie looks back at him. “There’s no man, silly,” she says, starting to roll down her window so she can stick her head out. “Those are tumbleweeds.”
“No, don’t.” Daniel slaps her hand away. “Didn’t you see him?”
This isn’t at all what Evie thought Kansas would look like. Mama said it would be flat and covered with yellow wheat. She tosses her arms over the front seat and stands on the floorboard for a better look. At the top of the hill, a fence