He had his head down against the wind, so he almost didn’t see the car, sitting half off the road, until the man swung the door open as he was passing, and said, “Excuse me, sir, I wonder if I could ask you something?”
Victor jumped, startled, and took a quick step backward, his foot sliding in the snow, so that he almost fell.
“What the hell?” he swore aloud, his arms windmilling to keep his balance.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” the stranger said. He was short, and thin, and needed a shave, and his clothes looked like he had been sleeping in them. “It’s just, my family and me, we got stuck, we were on our way to my wife’s family, for Christmas, only we run out of gas, and we got no money, and I was wondering if you could spare a dollar or two?”
Victor’s fingers automatically clenched the wad of ones in his pocket. “No, I got nothing,” he said. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” the man said resignedly. “It’s hard times, ain’t it?” He turned back to the car, and then looked at Victor again. “You look powerful cold, in just that little jacket. Maybe you ought to sit here in the car with us for a spell. There’s no heat, except from our bodies, but it’s out of the wind, at least.”
“No, I,” Victor started to say, but a fierce gust of wind swept over him just then, seemed to go right through him. How far was it to those motels, anyway? A mile? Two miles. Maybe a rest would do him good.
“Yes,” he said instead. “I’d be grateful.”
“Glad to share what we can,” the man said. He opened the back door for Victor to slide inside. A small boy sat in the far corner, eyeing him warily as he got in. The man got into the front seat, behind the wheel and closed his door. There was a woman in the front seat, too. It was eerily quiet inside, as if they had shut out not just the wind, but the sound of it, too.
“My name’s Don.” He offered his hand across the seatback and Victor shook it. “Mine’s Victor,” he said.
“This is my wife, Ellie, and that’s our boy, Robbie.” The wife nodded and smiled wanly at him. The boy only continued to stare at him from his dark corner.
“Where were you headed?” Victor asked, more to make conversation than because he really cared.
“Pennsylvania,” Don said. “My wife’s mom, she’s got a farm there, told us we could live with her a bit if we could make it there. We started out yesterday, figured we had enough for the gas, but then a tire went, and we had no spare, so we had to replace that, and there went the last of our gas money. It’s a good sixty miles or more yet. I could probably make it, walking, but Ellie, she’s expecting, she’d never make it, nor the boy, and I can’t just leave them here.”
Victor saw the boy’s crutch, then, shoved into the corner behind him, and he looked down at the one shriveled leg. No, of course, you couldn’t walk sixty miles on a crutch, with one bad leg.
The boy—Robbie, was that it?—saw him glance at the crutch and gave him back a scornful look. “Daddy, I’m hungry,” he said.
“I know, son, I know,” Don said. “We’ll just have to wait until...well, we’ll just have to wait, is all.”
“I’ve got some food,” Victor said impulsively. He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it was too late to take them back. Husband and wife looked over the seat at him, but Robbie stared meaningfully at the white paper bag under Victor’s arm.
“It’s just some old rolls and stuff,” Victor said. He shoved the bag at the boy, feeling resentful, and somehow outmaneuvered, although he didn’t exactly understand how, or by whom. “Here. Take it.”
Robbie snatched the bag from his hand and tore it open. “There’s all kinds of rolls and things, Ma,” he said. He started to take one, and looked at his mother. “It’s okay, ain’t it? He said we could.”
“You sure?” she asked, looking directly at Victor. He wanted to change his mind, say, no, I think I will keep them for myself after all, but her voice and her look were so plaintive, that he nodded his head and said, ““It’s okay. Someone gave them to me, so I guess I’m just passing them on.”
The boy took a big cinnamon roll, and handed the sack to his mother, and she took some kind of scone, and passed the bag on to her husband. He wolfed down a Danish and the bag went round again.
“You don’t want none?” Don asked, crumbs stuck to his lips.
Victor swallowed. “No, I ate just a little bit ago, I’m stuffed, thank you. You folks go ahead.”
They did, eating in silence, chewing frantically. He wondered how long it had been since they ate. The bag was empty in a minute or so. He watched regretfully as Don crumpled it up and dropped it on the floor by his feet.
“Well, I reckon we won’t starve, at least,” Don said. “We are surely grateful to you for sharing.”
“Yes, we thank you mightily,” Ellie said, and fixed her eyes on her son. “Robbie?”
“Thank you,” he mumbled with no sign of sincerity, licking the last ghost of flavor off his fingers.
“This place you’re going, in Pennsylvania,” Victor said, “How much gas do you think it would take to get there?”
“Not too much. This old bus, she eats gas, but even so, I expect ten dollars worth would see us there,” Don said. He sighed, and looked at the frosted over windshield. “Might as well be ten thousand, though, I guess. There’s nobody out tonight. You’re the first person to come by in an hour or more.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Victor thought of the money in his pocket, and those motels across town. Even if he could get to them, there was no guarantee that anyone would rent him a room for the money he had, and once he got there, he would be that much further away from anywhere else. If he went the other direction, he could probably make it to the Seven Eleven. He could get hot coffee there, and a hot dog, and probably they would let him hang out for a while, maybe the rest of the night, if he caused no trouble.
He took the crumpled bills out of his pocket. “I’ve got,” he said, and paused to count them, as if he didn’t know exactly how many there were. “I’ve got eleven dollars here. I could let you have seven of them, if you think that will be enough.”
Don’s eyes widened hopefully. “I expect it might. Anyway, if we got within a couple of miles, we might be able to hoof it the rest of the way, or maybe I could get there and bring somebody back for them. Her mother’s got an old pickup, or she might even have a can of gas. For sure we could get close enough. Only....” He took his eyes off the money and looked at Victor. “Only, it don’t seem right, taking your money. I mean, we already ate your food, and seeing as that’s all you got.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter, I’ve got someplace I was headed, I just have to get there. Here.” He handed Don seven dollars, and then added another one to them. That left him three. That would get him a coffee and a hot dog, or a donut, anyway.
“Well, if you’re sure?” Don gave his wife a look. She licked her lips and held her breath. “I’ve got a gas can in the back, I’ll walk to that Sheetz station we passed a bit ago, and get enough
