laughed, his shoulders rocking as he watched the land go by. “Yeah, a messenger. I’m a messenger. Them Rasta dudes get high enough, I bet they see a little bit of God in me.” He turned, gave her that soft grin she’d seen when he’d first slipped into her truck. “What I mean is, we can all be messengers. We all got something the world needs to hear.”
“Yes,” she said, looking at the clock. She’d be home by dinnertime. Positive, she thought, think positive. The Lord didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but one of power and love and soundness of mind. It was scripture. Her mother kept it framed by her bedside table. Nice calligraphy, with a rose drawn in one corner. It was a pretty thing to wake up to, Katy guessed.
She thought of Dorothy, closing her eyes, petting little Toto, whispering, There’s no place like home. Yes, positive. They would take her truck and leave her, and she’d find her way to Randy’s house. He was always trying to get her to do reckless things, like take a plane to Vegas with him, Cancun. He lived the good life, all right. He called her a coward, teased her about being a good wife, said if she really had the nerve she liked to think she did, she’d say to hell with the good-wife thing. Maybe this guy jumping in her truck and asking her to take him out by Lake Waccamaw was a sign that Lake Waccamaw was where she was supposed to be. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that this guy was dangerous. Anyone could be dangerous. She glanced at him, tried to sound casual. “How about we stop somewhere for a six-pack? I could use a cold beer. Make it like a road trip.”
He laughed. “Drinking and driving. Don’t you know that’s against the law?” He smiled and waved the joint toward her. “Nah, we got this. You take me where I’m going, we’ll burn this together. Just you and me. Let Mike go tend his granny. You and me, we’ll do some shit. Then like Marley says, ‘Every little thing is gonna be all right.’”
“Mike? Who’s Mike?”
He looked at her. “Ronald Mike,” he said. “That’s his name. He likes to be called Mike, but I call him Ronald just to give him shit.” He kept his eyes on her. “Relax, girl. You’re going to Lake Waccamaw. You like the land out there. You like Randy. Now, why is it you really drive out there? Oh, yeah, the land, the lake, the sky, that’s right.”
“I do,” she said. “I love the easy pace. Yeah, I do like the land and lake and sky. I like to get away from the tourists. I like it where people know how to sit back, have a drink without sinning, look at the land and relax.”
“Is that what you want? A drink without sinning and relax? You’re just like all those other tourists.”
“No, I’m not,” she said. “You don’t know me.”
“Yeah, I do,” he said.
He looked at her, grinning. A guy with that kind of smile couldn’t be too mean, could he? No, he was just a little scary. “So you from here?” she asked.
He shook his head and stared out at the Datsun ahead of them.
“So where are you from?” she said again.
“Where am I from?” he said. “Let’s just call it burned bridges. You can understand that.”
Billy believed in burned bridges, said that was the only way you moved forward. He told her, “You’ve got to burn the past, leave it all behind.” He was talking about her daddy. But what he was really talking about was Frank. Billy was teaching her how to leave the past behind. If she could just choose him. Poor Billy didn’t have a clue about Randy. Billy didn’t have any idea he’d probably be one more burned bridge she left behind in time. “Billy,” she said. “My fiancé—I can tell you don’t like that word, but he likes to leave burning bridges behind too.”
He yelled, “I don’t give a damn about Billy, or Randy, or you, lady. I just want you to stay close behind that car and drive.”
She braked and pulled to the side of the road. “I’m not going any farther,” she said. “This doesn’t feel right. I’ve got other things to do.”
Jesse mashed the joint out on the dashboard. His eyes went dark. He turned, reached behind his back, then raised a gun between them. “Damn right you got things to do.” He poked the barrel of the gun into her ribs, but his face was casual, almost smiling. “We need your truck, you see. We need you to follow us to Whitwell. That’s all. You got that?”
She sat tight and trembling. Her body felt frozen. How could she move without cracking, without breaking to pieces all over the seat? She could feel the heat of his breath between them. She caught the scent of oil and metal. Katy sat back in her seat, tried to catch up with her breathing, which seemed to take off, running out ahead of her. She told herself to stay calm. “I don’t want to,” she said.
“You don’t have a choice.” He looked straight at her, and she saw a face she hadn’t seen back in the parking lot of the mall. His eyes, empty. She thought of the alligators that sunned themselves in swamps around Lake Waccamaw, still as logs on the water, dull eyes focused on the surface, patient, blending quietly into the landscape, certain what they wanted would come within reach in time. Billy had told her to be careful walking around Lake Waccamaw. More than one hunter had been taken down by a gator waiting in the reeds. Poor Billy; he thought she just drove out there for the lake. He didn’t know about the man named Randy, whom she’d met when she’d been bartender for a wedding at some rich man’s house out there. Randy was handing out coke to the wedding party. He slipped her a tiny bag for a tip. “Just a taste,” he said. “One little taste, and you won’t want to quit.” Then he grinned and said, “I’m not talking about the coke, darlin’. I’m talking about me.”
Jesse nudged her lightly, as if they were old friends and she’d just lost the conversation.
“Please,” he said. “How’s that? Please? I promise I’m not going to shoot you. That isn’t what this gun is about. Come on, we gotta stay behind Mike there. Get going and you can tell me all about your fiancé.”
“I don’t want to talk about my fiancé.”
He touched her arm lightly. “Look here. I apologize for my brutish behavior. All right? My momma, she brought me up better than that. She’s done a lot of work to teach me manners. I just slip now and then. You know how that is. Don’t tell me you’ve never slipped.” He gave her a smile again, as if they shared a secret. “Now, come on. We’re halfway there. Put me out and I’m taking back that hundred-dollar bill. I know you need the cash.”
Katy looked out and saw the Datsun stopped ahead. “I don’t like it, but I’ll do it,” she said.
“Well, neither do I,” he said. He sat back, more natural, relaxed. “You think I like having to take care of his ol’ granny? You think I don’t have better things do to with my day?”
He stared ahead, and they sat like two lovers worn out from a fight, caught in the lull of silence. A car rushed by on the highway, disappeared in the distance and left Katy behind. Tears ran from her eyes.
“Relax,” he said. “I’m really not gonna shoot you. All I’m asking is for you to follow my friend. Look at him up there. He’s waiting. We don’t have much farther to go. And then you can go see Randy.” He tucked the gun back in his waistband. “Now, please, this can be over in no time. And you get that hundred-dollar bill. Would you just put this truck in gear and go?”
He reached and relit the joint. “Just take a little hit and relax. There
