The Stories of Richard Bausch (26 page)

“What were you in prison for, anyway?”

Her voice startled him, and for a moment he couldn’t think to answer.

“Come on,” she said, “I’m getting bored with all this quiet. What were you in prison for?”

“I—beat up a guy.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, that’s all.” He couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.

“Tell me about it.”

“It was just—I just beat up a guy. It wasn’t anything.”

“I didn’t shoot that man for money, you know.” Mcrae said nothing.

“I shot him because he made a nasty remark to me about the hot dogs.”

“I didn’t hear any nasty remark.”

“He shouldn’t have said it or else he’d still be alive.”

Mcrae held tight to the wheel.

“Don’t you wish it was the Wild West?” she said.

“Wild West,” he said, “yeah.” He could barely speak for the dryness in his mouth and the deep ache of his own breathing.

“You know,” she said, “I’m not really from Maine.”

He nodded.

“I’m from Florida.”

“Florida,” he managed.

“Yes, only I don’t have a southern accent, so people think. I’m not from there. Do you hear any trace of a southern accent at all when I talk?”

“No,” he said.

“Now you—you’ve got an accent. A definite southern accent.”

He was silent.

“Talk to me,” she said.

“What do you want me to say?” he said. “Jesus.”

“You could ask me things.”

“Ask you things—”

“Ask me what my name is.”

Without hesitating, Mcrae said, “What’s your name?” “You know.”

“No, really,” he said, trying to play along.

“It’s Belle Starr.”

“Belle Starr,” he said.

“Nobody
but,”
she said

“Good,” he said.

“And I don’t care about money, either,” she said. “That’s not what I’m after.”

“No,” Mcrae said.

“What I’m after is adventure.”

“Right,” said Mcrae.

“Fast living.”

“Fast living, right.”

“A good time.”

“Good,” he said.

“I’m going to live a ton before I die.”

“A ton, yes.”

“What about you?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Me too.”

“Want to join up with me?”

“Join up,” he said. “Right.” He was watching the road.

She leaned toward him a little. “Do you think I’m lying about my name?”

“No.”

“Good,” she said.

He had begun to feel as though he might start throwing up what he’d had of the hamburger. His stomach was cramping on him, and he was dizzy. He might even be having a heart attack.

“Your eyes are big as saucers,” she said.

He tried to narrow them a little. His whole body was shaking now.

“You know how old I am, Mcrae? I’m nineteen.”

He nodded, glanced at her and then at the road again.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Do you believe people go to heaven when they die?” “Oh, God,” he said.

“Look, I’m not going to shoot you while you’re driving the car. We’d crash if I did that.”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, Jesus, please—look. I never saw anybody shot before—”

“Will you
stop it?”

He put one hand to his mouth. He was soaked; he felt the sweat on his upper lip, and then he felt the dampness all through his clothes.

She said, “I don’t kill everybody I meet, you know.”

“No,” he said. “Of course not.” The absurdity of this exchange almost brought a laugh up out of him. It was astonishing that such a thing as a laugh could be anywhere in him at such a time, but here it was, rising up in his throat like some loosened part of his anatomy. He held on with his whole mind, and it was a moment before he realized that
she
was laughing.

“Actually,” she said, “I haven’t killed all that many people.”

“How—” he began. Then he had to stop to breathe. “How many?”

“Take a guess.”

“I don’t have any idea,” he said.

“Well,” she said, “you’ll just have to guess. And you’ll notice that I haven’t spent any time in prison.”

He was quiet.

“Guess,”
she said. Mcrae said, “Ten?”

“No.”

He waited.

“Come on, keep guessing.” “More than ten?”

“Maybe.”

“More than ten,” he said.

“Well, all right. Less than ten.”

“Less than ten,” he said.

“Guess,” she said.

“Nine.”

“No.”

“Eight.”

“No, not eight.”

“Six?”

“Not six.”

“Five?”

“Five and a half people,” she said. “You almost hit it right on the button.”

“Five and a half people,” said Mcrae.

“Right. A kid who was hitchhiking, like me; a guy at a gas station; a dog that must’ve got lost—I count him as the half—another guy at a gas station; a guy that took me to a motel and made an obscene gesture to me; and the guy at the diner. That makes five and a half.”

“Five and a half,” Mcrae said.

“You keep repeating everything I say. I wish you’d quit that.”

He wiped his hand across his mouth and then feigned a cough to keep from having to speak.

“Five and a half people,” she said, turning a little in the seat, putting her knees up on the dash. “Have you ever met anybody like me? Tell the truth.”

“No,” Mcrae said, “nobody.”

“Just think about it, Mcrae. You can say you rode with Belle Starr. You can tell your grandchildren.”

He was afraid to say anything to this, for fear of changing the delicate balance of the thought. Yet he knew the worst mistake would be to say nothing at all. He was beginning to feel something of the cunning that he would need to survive, even as he knew the slightest miscalculation would mean the end of him. He said, with fake wonder, “I knew Belle Starr.”

She said, “Think of it.”

“Something,” he said.

And she sat further down in the seat. “Amazing.”

He kept to
fifty-five miles an hour, and everyone else was speeding. The girl sat straight up now, nearly facing him on the seat. For long periods she had been quiet, simply watching him drive, and soon they were going to need gas. There was now less than half a tank.

“Look at these people speeding,” she said. “We’re the only ones obeying the speed limit. Look at them.”

“Do you want me to speed up?” he asked.

“I think they ought to get tickets for speeding, that’s what I think. Sometimes I wish I was a policeman.”

“Look,” Mcrae said, “we’re going to need gas pretty soon.”

“No, let’s just run it until it quits. We can always hitch a ride with somebody.”

“This car’s got a great engine,” Mcrae said. “We might have to outrun the police, and I wouldn’t want to do that in any other car.”

“This old thing? It’s got a crack in the windshield. The radio doesn’t work.”

“Right. But it’s a fast car. It’ll outrun a police car.” She put one arm over the seat back and looked out the rear window. “You really think the police are chasing us?” “They might be,” he said.

She stared at him a moment. “No. There’s no reason. Nobody saw us.”

“But if somebody did—this car, I mean, it’ll go like crazy.”

“I’m afraid of speeding, though,” she said. “Besides, you know what I found out? If you run slow enough the cops go right past you. Right on past you looking for somebody who’s in a hurry. No, I think it’s best if we just let it run until it quits and then get out and hitch.”

Mcrae thought he knew what might happen when the gas ran out: she would make him push the car to the side of the road, and then she would walk him back into the cactus and brush there, and when they were far enough from the road, she would shoot him. He knew this as if she had spelled it all out, and he began again to try for the cunning he would need. “Belle,” he said. “Why don’t we lay low for a few days in Albuquerque?”

“Is that an obscene gesture?” she said.

“No!” he said, almost shouted. “No! That’s—it’s outlaw talk. You know. Hide out from the cops—lay low. It’s—it’s prison talk.”

“Well, I’ve never been in prison.”

“That’s all I meant.”

“You want to hide out.”

“Right,” he said. “You and me?”

“You—you asked if I wanted to join up with you.”

“Did I?” She seemed puzzled by this.

“Yes,” he said, feeling himself press it a little. “Don’t you remember?”

“I guess I do.”

“You did,” he said.

“I don’t know.”

“Belle Starr had a gang,” he said.

“She did.”

“I could be the first member of your gang.”

She sat there thinking this over. Mcrae’s blood moved at the thought that she was deciding whether or not he would live. “Well,” she said, “maybe.”

“You’ve got to have a gang, Belle.”

“We’ll see,” she said.

A moment later, she said, “How much money do you have?”

“I have enough to start a gang.”

“It takes money to start a gang?”

“Well—” He was at a loss.

“How much do you have?”

He said, “A few hundred.”

“Really?” she said. “That much?”

“Just enough to—just enough to get to Nevada.”

“Can I have it?”

He said, “Sure.” He was holding the wheel and looking out into the night.

“And we’ll be a gang?”

“Right,” he said.

“I like the idea. Belle Starr and her gang.”

Mcrae started talking about what the gang could do, making it up as he
went along, trying to sound like all the gangster movies he’d seen. He heard himself talking about things like robbery and getaway and staying out of prison, and then, as she sat there staring at him, he started talking about being at Leavenworth, what it was like. He went on about it, the hours of forced work, and the time alone; the harsh day-to-day routines, the bad food. Before he was through, feeling the necessity of deepening her sense of him as her new accomplice—and feeling strangely as though in some way he had indeed become exactly that—he was telling her everything, all the bad times he’d had: his father’s alcoholism, and growing up wanting to hit something for the anger that was in him; the years of getting into trouble; the fighting and the kicking and what it had got him. He embellished it all, made it sound worse than it really was because she seemed to be going for it, and because, telling it to her, he felt oddly sorry for himself; a version of this story of pain and neglect and lonely rage was true. He had been through a lot. And as he finished, describing for her the scene at the hospital the last time he saw his father, he was almost certain that he had struck a chord in her. He thought he saw it in the rapt expression on her face.

“Anyway,” he said, and smiled at her.

“Mcrae?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Can you pull over?”

“Well,” he said, his voice shaking, “why don’t we wait until it runs out of gas?”

She was silent.

“We’ll be that much further down the road,” he said.

“I don’t really want a gang,” she said. “I don’t like dealing with other people that much. I mean I don’t think I’m a leader.”

“Oh, yes,” Mcrae said. “No—you’re a leader. You’re definitely a leader. I was in the air force and I know leaders and you are definitely what I’d call a leader.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. You are leadership material all the way.”

“I wouldn’t have thought so.”

“Definitely,” he said, “Definitely a leader.”

“But I don’t really like people around, you know.”

“That’s a leadership quality. Not wanting people around. It is definitely a leadership quality.”

“Boy,” she said, “the things you learn.”

He waited. If he could only think himself through to the way out. If he could get her to trust him, get the car stopped—be there when she turned her back.

“You want to be in my gang, huh?”

“I sure do,” he said.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to think about it.”

“I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned it to you before.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, really.”

“Were you ever married?” she asked.

“Married?” he said, and then stammered over the answer. “Ah—uh, no.”

“You ever been in a gang before?”

“A couple times, but—but they never had good leadership.” “You’re giving me a line, huh.”

“No,” he said, “it’s true. No good leadership. It was always a problem.”

“I’m tired,” she said, shifting toward him a little. “I’m tired of talking.”

The steering wheel was hurting the insides of his hands. He held tight, looking at the coming-on of the white stripes in the road. There were no other cars now, and not a glimmer of light anywhere beyond the headlights.

“Don’t you get tired of talking, sometimes?”

“I never was much of a talker,” he said.

“I guess I don’t mind talking as much as I mind listening,” she said. He made a sound in his throat that he hoped she took for agreement.

“That’s just when I’m tired, though.”

“Why don’t you take a nap,” he said.

She leaned back against the door and regarded him. “There’s plenty of time for that later.”

“So,” he wanted to say, “you’re not going to kill me—we’re a gang?”

They had gone for a long time without speaking, a nervewrecking hour of minutes, during which the gas gauge had sunk to just above empty; and finally she had begun talking about herself, mostly in the third person. It was
hard to make sense of most of it. Yet he listened as if to instructions concerning how to extricate himself. She talked about growing up in Florida, in the country, and owning a horse; she remembered when she was taught to swim by somebody she called Bill, as if Mcrae would know who that was; and then she told him how when her father ran away with her mother’s sister, her mother started having men friends over all the time. “There was a lot of obscene goings-on,” she said, and her voice tightened a little.

“Some people don’t care what happens to their kids,” said Mcrae.

“Isn’t it the truth?” she said. Then she took the pistol out of the shawl. “Take this exit.”

He pulled onto the ramp and up an incline to a two-lane road that went off through the desert, toward a glow that burned on the horizon. For perhaps five miles the road was straight as a plumb line, and then it curved into long, low undulations of sand and mesquite and cactus.