Crockett smiled as Carson made her way back to the other seat.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now we have another bloody Mary, watch Clete and Satin get acquainted, and make snide comments behind their backs,” Carson said. “We do that while you return to being my protector.”
Crockett nodded. “And while we return to the world,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Crockett Counciling
About a half-hour east of Columbia, Missouri on I-70, Clete complained of needing to use the convenience and swapped his position at the helm with Satin on the fly, after obtaining her sarcastic assurances that she, being a girl and all, could actually manage to herd the bus in the general direction of St. Louis. Carson abandoned the dinette where she and Crockett had been sappily grinning at each other for over two hours and moved up front to sit with the new pilot. When Clete exited the restroom, he grabbed a can of Coke out of the fridge and flopped across from Crockett.
“Yes?” Crockett said.
“We ain’t alone,” Clete said.
“Oh?”
“Nope. Hard to really see much of the tails ‘cause they can stay so far back and still keep track of us, but I believe we got two. One of ‘em is kinda maroon colored. Full size car, probably American made. The other one is dark blue or black. Maybe somethin’ like a Lexus or one a them big Korean luxury types.”
“Shit.”
“You surprised?”
“No,” Crocket said. “Just pissed. You sure about this?”
“Folks that drive cars like that, unless they’re female an’ got blue hair, run the speed limit or better. They don’t loaf along. These guys are doin’ the best they can. They switch positions now an’ then, stay way back, keep traffic between them an’ us. If the bus wasn’t so tall I probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all. But I’m pretty sure. We can always hit a rest area and see.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have a valid reason to stop at a rest area. We got food and a john on board. We stop and they’ll know they been made.”
Clete grinned. “You ain’t as dumb as you look,” he said.
“Yes, I am. If I was smart, I’d have left the Pequod behind and had Stitch pick all of us up in a helo or something.”
“Settle down, son,” Clete said. “Unless we want to go to Lapland or someplace, we cain’t hide from these boys. Eventually they’d find us no matter what we do. This way we know they’re on our backtrail. If we don’t do nothin’ suspicious they might think they’re gittin’ away with it. We just go on like we’re stupid an’ hope they agree.”
“That maroon car could be those two that showed up out at my place. They were driving kind of a cranberry colored Lincoln.”
“Could be.”
“Christ, Texican, we’re not gonna make it to Ivy’s until well after dark. Once the sun goes down, we got no way to keep track of these guys. I don’t want ‘em to follow us to the goddam front door!”
“I been thinkin’ about that,” Clete said. “Could be we need to alter our game plan a little. There’s a big ol’ truck stop and service center on I-55 south a Lisle and Downers Grove. We git up that way on I-57, we’ll cut over to 294 and have a breakdown. They can come tow us in. That’ll git us outa the bus an’ into your truck. It’s illegal to ride in a towed vehicle. We can sneak off to Ivy’s once we’re at the truck stop. I’ll call Stitch and set it up. He can come git us. We’ll leave the bus and your truck behind. Whatcha think?”
Crockett grinned. “I think you are a devious young lad,” he said.
“We git around St. Louis and up toward Effingham or some place, we’ll have a little engine trouble. Enough we have to stop and look concerned. Maybe again near Champaign-Urbana. Let the boys behind us know that things aren’t goin’ well. Set up the con. Gain us some time. They’ll prob’ly still find us, but they damn sure won’t find us tonight.”
As they neared St Louis, Satin stretched out on the couch for a nap and Clete got back behind the wheel. Carson made a late lunch of chicken salad sandwiches served with chips and rejoined Crockett at the dinette.
“Satin and I’ve been talking,” she said.
Crockett winced. “That can’t be good.”
Carson smiled. “Oh?” she asked.
Crocket swallowed a bite of sandwich and took a sip of iced tea. “If the two of you have been talking,” he said, “that means you have reached a decision or conclusion of some kind. The two of you have reached this decision and/or conclusion through the dubious exercise of girl-thought. Girl-thought hardly ever bodes well for any man in the vicinity. I am a man.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I am in the vicinity.”
“Right again.”
“Then you can understand my unease.”
She chuckled and took a bite of her sandwich. Crockett waited while Carson chewed thoughtfully and let the tension build. At length, she sipped her tea, looked at him, and cleared her throat.
“We think you need to clear the air with Ruby.”
Crockett glared at her and folded his arms. “Oh, yeah?”
“Wow,” Carson said. “You just closed right up. It’s like somebody dropped a pane of glass between us.”
“How ‘bout those Packers this year, huh?” Crockett asked.
“And now you’re defensive. Satin said this would happen.”
“Satin is a meddling cow.”
“Who loves you very much.”
“Her only virtue.”
“Man. Your response time is amazing.”
Crockett looked at her dully and said nothing.
“You’re not going to talk about this, are you?” Carson said.
“Probably not. You gonna keep picking at it?”
“Probably not,” she said. “I’m way too much in love with you at this point to deal with the fact that my White Knight is, in reality, a self-destructive jerk.”
“We all need our illusions, lady.”
Carson stared at him and Crockett felt his ears get warm. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and controlled.
“The issue here, Crockett, isn’t who is right or wrong. Ruby is my friend and I love you. I will absolutely not take sides. I can’t.”
Crockett squirmed in his seat and grunted.
“And stop that. This isn’t an argument. It’s a monologue. Stop formulating replies and just listen to me for a moment. You didn’t leave Ruby. You ran away from her. When something is finished you leave it. Running away is something you do when the outcome of a situation is in such doubt that you believe yourself to have no other choice. Leaving is an action of completion. Running away is an action of fear.”
The sandwich in Crockett’s stomach became a leaden paperweight.
“You haven’t gotten away from Ruby. You carry her with you every moment of every day. Denying that fact doesn’t fool anybody. Especially you. Your unfinished business with her is wrapped around you like a blanket. Every woman you meet, including me, is held in measure against a Ruby LaCost standard. I can live with that if I have to, but you can’t. And you know you can’t. You feel as if you abandoned her, but that is not the true issue. You abandoned a part of Crockett with her. Until you get that whole unfinished business thing reconciled within yourself, you are still, in one way or another, allowing your past relationship with Ruby to rule your present life.”
Crockett didn’t quite sneer. “Guess I just need some good old closure, huh?”
“Closure is overrated,” Carson said. “Release is much more important. And it’s not Ruby you need to release. You need to release yourself.”
Crockett looked around the bus for a moment, avoiding Carson’s eyes. Finally he focused on her. Carson smiled.
“I’m sure glad that you and Satin are enlightened enough to have worked all this out for little old me,” he said.
Carson patted his hand. “That’s okay, honey,” she said. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. You’ll just get more confu
sed.”
She stood up, kissed him primly on the cheek, slapped him semi-violently on the back of the head, and vanished into the bedroom at the rear of the bus.
Crockett stared at the tabletop and wished to hell he hadn’t eaten that goddam sandwich.
Crockett stayed in the dinette around the St. Louis loop, watching Clete drive the bus and talk on the cell phone. Finally he rose and took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair. Clete grinned at him.
“How ya doin’, pard?”
“We still got a tail?” Crockett said.
“Oh, yeah. I been on the phone with Stitch. If he ain’t on the way to that NTTS truck stop outside Boling Brook by now, he will be right soon. A thousand bucks or so to the manager, and a lie sprinkled with appropriate amounts of the truth should git everthing fixed up. We’re gonna have to leave the bus and your truck behind, but they’ll store both of ‘em behind wire for a fee.”
“Satin and Carson both think I’m really fucked up about Ruby,” Crockett said, startled by what came out of his mouth. He didn’t think he’d intended to mention it.
Clete chuckled and shook his head. “Oh well, there’s a reason for that,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Sure. The only reason they think you’re all fucked up is because you are all fucked up, son.”
“Goddammit, Clete…”
“Don’t argue with me, Crockett. I have tried to git you to understand a thing or two about this before, an’ all you wanted to do was git down and root in the mud. You don’t wanna git down in the mud with me, pard. It could be the end of a beautiful relationship. Ol’ Ruby is a monkey on your back, son, a monkey that you put there yourself, an’ that you keep tossin’ bananas to ever damn chance you git. Jesus Christ, Crockett. How fuckin’ stupid are ya?”
Crockett stared out the windshield for more than a mile before Clete spoke again.
“You gonna pout, sweetie?” he said.
Crockett couldn’t help it. He laughed.
“I got a winnin’ Texas personality, or what?”
“Fuck you,” Crockett said.
“Fuck with me, asshole.”
They rode in amiable silence for a moment.
“Satin an’ I talked this over while you an’ Carson was makin’ moon eyes at each other back there. Them women both love ya, ya dumb sonofabitch. So do I, but in a manly kinda way. So does Ruby, but ol’ Ruby is a lot smarter than you are. If you went to her right now on bended knee, pledgin’ eternal feality an’ all that shit, she’d kick your ass into the ditch ‘cause Ruby is workin’ on Ruby. She don’t want, or need, no Crockett shit smotherin’ her ass right now.”
“How’s she doing, Clete?” Again something out of his mouth that Crockett didn’t expect.
“Pretty good. She’s got a little apartment on the third floor down the hall from Goody. Works five, sometimes six days a week at a family counseling place over in Carpentersville and as a volunteer at a battered women’s shelter in Arlington Heights. Really don’t see her that much. She’s always rushin’ around, tryin’ to get to someplace on time. She stays busy, Crockett, and she seems satisfied. You don’t know her, son. Not this Ruby. The one you keep wavin’ around like a flag ain’t the one that lives at Ivy’s. If you’re looking for her, you may as well go home. You ain’t gonna find her no place but crawlin’ around inside your head.”
“So, I’m an idiot.”
Clete grinned. “Purty much,” he said, “but that don’t make you a bad person.”
“Do you and she…”
“Nope. Far as I know, nothin’ like that is a part of her life right now. Crockett, a lot a Ruby died in that cave on the Spring River. The wounds she suffered were the easiest healing she had to do. You could be a big help to her. Like I said before, she loves you. And she knows she treated you like shit. She’s just as scared to see you as you are to see her. She’s changed, son. She really has. So have you. The two of you got a opportunity here to be friends. Real friends. You got enough real friends, Crockett? I sure as hell don’t.”
“I don’t either,” Crockett said. “But the few I do have are something else.”
Clete grinned. “Son,” he said, “sometimes gettin’ what we deserve works out pretty good. Why don’t you go back, wake Carson up, confess to the fact that you’re a big asshole, and bring her up front. We’re got a rest stop about ten miles up the road. It’s about time this pig started havin’ a little engine trouble.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Encounters
The first bout of engine trouble consisted of Clete varying the Pequod’s speed between
thirty and fifty miles an hour several times, then pulling into the rest stop, opening the engine compartment at the rear of the bus, and staring intently at the maze of diesel components housed within, while Crockett walked in circles and did his best to look frustrated. A maroon colored sedan passed by on the highway, but the possibly accompanying black or dark blue vehicle may or may not have been in evidence. Neither of them could be sure.
After an appropriate time Clete successfully got the bus going again. He reported seeing a dark car consistently staying behind them after they returned to the road, and the maroon or cranberry escort popped up again shortly after they passed the exit for St. Elmo, Illinois. By the time they fell victim to their second siege of engine difficulties about sixty miles north of Champaign-Urbana, it was deep dusk and they couldn’t be sure who passed them by while they stopped. The third and final incident came just after they left I-57 on 291. This time they abandoned all hope, and Clete phoned Stitch.
“Dude!”
Clete grinned. “Hey, Stitch. How we doin’?”
“Air Cav is, like, ready to dust off, man. Where’s the ellzee?”
“On 291 just off of I-57.”
“Far out. I already squared it with the big dude here at the truck stop. Cat was in the brown water Navy in ‘Nam, man. He’s sendin’ his kid with the biggest fuckin’ wrecker I ever saw. Be headin’ your way most riki-tik. I’ll be waitin’ for ya when you get here. Got your ass some deluxe transportation to sneak ya over to Ivy’s place. Ha!”
The wrecker, a very large one, showed up less than thirty minutes later, time that Crockett and Clete spent disconnecting Crockett’s truck from the rear of the Pequod as the girls packed and prepared things to leave. The four of them trailed the wrecker to an NTTS truck stop on I-55 a little south of Downers Grove. Following Stitch’s instructions, they parked the truck at the rear of the main garage area and walked inside to where the wrecker had towed the bus. Stitch was waiting at the parts counter. He grinned at Crockett after giving the women a thorough inspection.
“For me?” Stitch said. “Ah, man, ya shouldn’t have. Hell of a nice gesture though. Hello, ladies. Stitch, like, at your, ah…service, ya know?”
Both Carson and Satin laughed. Stitch went on.
“Far out,” he said. “I got a giggle. Now all I need’s a little sympathy, some prickly pear wine, and a double sleepin’ bag. A real big double sleepin’ bag.”
Satin grinned and looked around the busy shop. “Here?” she asked.
Stitch followed her gaze and blinked a few times. “Oh, wow,” he said. “I musta drifted for a minute. This ain’t the high desert, is it?”
“Sorry,” Satin twinkled. “Just a truck stop.”
“Oh well,” Stitch said, pointing to a two-ton, box-bed, yellow rental truck parked just inside the rear doors of the huge garage. “I got the next best thing. Let’s get your shit tossed into the back of that truck, then the four of you tossed into the back of that truck, then we’re off to Ivy’s. The guys here’ll put the bus and ol’ Crockett’s scooter in a secure area, plug the bus in, and keep ‘em for as long as we, like, need ‘em to.”
“We’re gonna ride in that?” Satin asked.
“Yeah! I got a shitload of packin’ blankets in there for ya to, like, sit on. An’ I’ll leave the light on in the box. It’d probably get a little freaky back there in, like,
total darkness, ya know?”
“Perfect,” Satin said. “My name’s Satin Kelly and this is Carson Bailey. We’re grateful for all your help.”
Stitch grinned. “Grateful’s almost as good as sympathetic,” he said, and turned away toward the truck.
Carson looked at Crockett.
“He always like that?”
“Oh, no,” Crockett said. “He’s much better now.”
The ride to Ivy’s was noisy, bumpy, and somewhat less than comfortable. Nudge, thank God, only yowled a couple of times from his position in the carrier, then settled down for the duration of the trip. Crockett arranged and rearranged his pile of packing blankets several times, trying to find relief for his ribcage, and finally just gave up. He was nearly dozing, leaning partially against Carson, when she spoke up.
“This Ivy,” she said, “must be an amazing woman. Isn’t it going to be a little difficult, the three of us just barging into her home like this? I mean, it has to be inconvenient, trying to make extra space to accommodate three houseguests.”
Crockett stifled his grin. “She’s pretty long suffering,” he said. “But don’t worry. She’s got a couple of comfortable couches and an extra bathroom or two.” He bumped his eyebrows and ran his fingers along Carson’s upper arm. “Plus, I think there’s a hide-a-bed in the basement rec room that’ll sleep two if things get overly crowded.”
Carson eyeballed him. “That’s what you think, is it?”
“Yeah. You and Satin oughta fit pretty nicely.”
Carson smiled and her eyes got big. “Satin and I have become awfully close,” she said. “I’m sure we can make do. We both like to spoon when we sleep. But you’d know that about Satin, wouldn’t you?”
“Damn,” Crockett said.
“Besides, there’s a lot you’re not telling me. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Room will not be a problem. Trust me.”
Carson kissed his cheek. “Can you ever really trust someone who says trust me?” she said.
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