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I waited.
“Martha, come back!” He sounded like a little boy. “Martha!”
What was I to do? I had hardly any money, no place to go, no way to get anywhere, and only one shoe. Even the short run had exhausted my panic, and now there was something touching in hearing my name called like that. I took a deep breath and stood up. He saw me across the clover and waved. Now we were really in this together, I thought. Once you cross the line, the biggest misfit, the worst outlaw is your ally. Who else do you have? Walking back, I paused to snap off a clover stem and chew on the sweet flower. Already, the sun slanting over the horizon felt hot on my neck. Anyway, I thought, I’m not scared of Elro. I knew I could cope, even if Sissy couldn’t. Poor Sissy—maybe she really was a cock-tease, though I’m sure she didn’t even know what the word means. She probably just got hit with some strong feelings. Even out there in Jesus-land, you can’t escape the feelings. Elro may have been right—she wanted it, but she didn’t, she was pulled both ways. Well, that wasn’t my problem. Getting frightened and running had cleared my mind. I owed Elro one. He’d helped me escape, and now he had a right to collect. I’d pay off, at least once. Sorry, Sissy, I thought, but nothing I can do will bring you back.
“That was stupid,” said Elro, as I clambered up the bank to the pickup. His hair was damp from sweat, and he was chewing a giant wad of gum.
“I lost my shoe.”
He turned his back and walked around to the cab. “Serves you right.”
I had to step over the vomit to get in the truck. “It wasn’t as stupid as drinking half a bottle of whiskey,” I said.
He started the pickup off hard, kicking up dust and gravel. “It only happened ’cause I had to run. If you hadn’t got crazy, I’d’ve been fine.”
A few miles down the road, he picked up the bottle with what was left of the whiskey in it and flung it sidearm out the
window. “There,” he said.
THIRTY-TWO
We bumped along for the next hour or so, and Elro didn’t say much. There were fields all around and occasionally a farmhouse, but the country was wilder than around Katydid, or if not wilder, at least less fussed over. The fields were bigger, and they were separated by tangled patches of woods so dense you couldn’t see more than a few feet into them. In the distance, tree-covered hills poked out of the flatness like mountains. Crossing streams, we’d drive over rickety bridges made of lumber that buckled and clattered under the weight of the truck. Once, near a barn, we had to stop while a boy steered a herd of brown cows across the road to a pasture. The boy was about twelve, and he was wearing overalls and carrying a broom handle that he rapped on the ground to keep the cows in line.
“Mornin’,” he said to Elro after the last lumbering cow had crossed in front of us.
“Mornin’.”
“You goin’ to town today?” The boy stood beside Elro’s window. His hair was the color of straw and stuck up in tufts on his head.
“You better watch your cow there,” Elro said. The last heifer had missed the gate and was following the grass down the side of the road. The farm boy took off after the animal.
“Hee-awww!” he yelled, waving his stick and circling around to head the cow off. “Hee-awww, baby!”
Elro waited for the straggler to be walked into the pasture and then started out slowly, so as not to spook the herd.
“Thanks,” called the boy, saluting with his stick. “Maybe I’ll see you in town.”
By now, the sun was above the trees. We started passing men on tractors, and we passed one man riding a wagon pulled by a horse.
“Are we in Wisconsin?” I asked.
“Guess so.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s so rural.”
“So.”
As we drove along a cornfield, my eyes ticked off each perfect row, stretching into a green infinity. It was hypnotizing, and I had to pull myself away.
“Elro, I’m sorry that I ran away back there,” I said.
He grunted, not looking at me.
“I’m sorry about that, but there’s still something I have to ask you, okay?”
