The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [94]
The rain was still coming down when she woke the next morning. Eating breakfast with Sandy at the truck stop, he wondered if any of the drivers sitting around them had ever killed a hitchhiker. It would be an excellent job for that sort of thing if a person was so inclined. As they started on their third cup of coffee, the rain let up and the sun popped out like a big, festering boil in the sky. By the time they paid the bill, wisps of steam were already rising up off the blacktopped parking lot. “About what happened yesterday,” Carl said, as they walked back to the car, “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Like I said,” Sandy told him, “don’t lie to me no more. We get caught, it’s my ass in the sling just as much as yours.”
Carl thought again about the blanks he’d stuck in her gun, but decided it would be better not to say anything about that. They would be home soon, and he could replace them without her ever knowing. “Ain’t nobody gonna catch us,” he said.
“Yeah, well, you probably didn’t think one would ever get away, either.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, “that won’t ever happen again.”
They drove around Atlanta and stopped in a place called Roswell for gas. They had twenty-four dollars and some change to get home on. Just as Carl was getting back in the station wagon after paying the cashier, a gaunt man in a worn black suit timidly approached. “You wouldn’t be headin’ north by any chance, would you?” he asked. Carl went ahead and picked his cigar up out of the ashtray before he turned to look the man over. The suit was several sizes too big. The cuffs of the pants were turned up several times to keep them from dragging on the ground. He could see a little paper price tag still attached to the sleeve of the coat. The man was packing a flimsy bedroll; and though he could have easily passed for sixty, Carl figured the wayfarer at least a few years younger than that. For some reason, he reminded Carl of a preacher, one of the real ones that you seldom run into anymore: not one of those greedy, sweet-smelling bastards just out to take people’s money and make a fat fucking living off God, but a man who truly believed in the teachings of Jesus. On second thought, that was probably taking things a bit too far; the old boy was probably just another bum.
“Might be,” Carl said. He looked over at Sandy for some indication that she was on board, but she just shrugged and put her sunglasses back on. “Where you going?”
“Coal Creek, West Virginia.”
Carl thought about the one who got away last night. That big-dicked sonofabitch was going to leave a bad taste in his mouth for a long time. “Aw, hell, why not?” he told the man. “Get in the back.”
Once they pulled out on the highway, the man said, “Mister, I do appreciate this. My poor feet are ’bout wore out.”
“Been having trouble getting rides, huh?”
“I’ve did more walking than riding, I can tell you that.”
“Yeah,” Carl said, “I don’t understand people who won’t pick up strangers. That should be a good thing, helping someone out.”
“You sound like you a Christian,” the man said.
Sandy choked back a laugh, but Carl ignored her. “In some ways, I suppose,” he told the man. “But I have to admit, I don’t follow it quite as close as I used to.”
The man nodded and stared out the window. “It’s hard to live a good life,” he said. “It seems like the Devil don’t ever let up.”
“What’s your name, honey?” Sandy asked. Carl glanced at her