The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [25]
All this was going on in the dark, and I was still feeling that kiss, and feeling the pinch of this cold air in my lungs, me running in the middle of the night through woods, hoping this would all end up with Unc.
I saw her jump a few yards ahead of me, and I wondered what that was all about in the same second I fell into the ditch, maybe three feet deep.
I landed on my knees, felt cold and wet weeds right in my face and beneath my hands. I struggled up, climbed out of the ditch, the front of my pants soaked through.
I ran, crashed through and crashed through weeds, until I was out in Lancaster Park, standing on a street no different from Storie, no different from any of the houses that trailed along the freeway in this part of North Charleston.
Dorcas stood on the sidewalk, a few houses past her a streetlight, so that she was lit from behind. She was bent over, hands on her knees. I could see her shoulders shake, like she was crying.
Then she stood up. She put a hand to her mouth, her shoulders still shaking, the other arm pointed at me.
She was laughing at me. No sound at all.
I looked down, saw in the weird purple light from the streetlight my pants wet from my crotch down to my shins.
I looked up at her. Now she was pointing down the street from us, her eyes on me.
There, just past the streetlight, was the Luv.
We climbed in, me on the driver’s side, like we’d planned it all a year before. She gave the door over there a hard pop with her fist, too, the way you had to to get the thing open, her move so quick and perfect I realized right then she’d ridden through more miles on this thing than I ever would, and for a second I pictured Benjamin Gaillard driving all around the Lowcountry with his deaf-and-dumb little sister, running for groceries, say, to Hollywood, or to the Solid Rock I Stand AME Church out past Gardens Corner, or just out to one of the roads that ran along the Ashepoo.
She reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out my keys. I nodded, put out my hand, and she dropped them. Our fingers never touched, and we looked at each other a long couple of seconds. Then she looked away, sort of pushed herself into her seat a little deeper. She put her hands together and between her knees, her shoulders up: she was cold, all movement and silence.
The engine turned over the first time, like every time. I patted the dash, and she smiled. Then I turned on the headlights, and she nearly jumped, quick opened the glove box. Before I could even put the truck into gear, she’d pulled out a small tablet of paper, peeled off the top sheet, held it out to me.
I looked at it in the pale light from the streetlight, made out the words Leave off the lights until we’re at least two blocks from here. Take surface streets as far as you can. She’d written this out in the same perfect printing before she’d come for me.
I turned off the headlights, nodded at her. But she’d already pulled off the next sheet, held it out to me.
Don’t drive as though we’re in a hurry to get anywhere. We don’t want to be stopped by anyone. Once we get to the railroad tracks at Hungry Neck, I’ll tell you which turns to make.
She was faced forward again, hands between her knees again.
I knew where she lived. I knew: the haint purple half trailer, half shanty up on Hutcheson Road. I knew that.
I motioned to her for something to write with.
She stared at me a second, then let out a hard breath, reached into the glove box, and pulled out a pen. But instead of handing it over to me, she started writing on it, hard and fast. She tore off the sheet, pushed it at me.
You turn where I say, she’d written. And we go NOW.
She was leaning into the corner of the cab, her mouth in what looked like a snarl, the way you look when you can’t believe how stupid someone could be.
Me.
I crumpled up the paper, let it drop to the floorboard. She was right, and this was new, all