But it was. She felt it. This man had a story, yes, and it was time for his story to intersect with her story. A union of tragedies. Over the years, the sensing of her heart had grown as heightened as her other, more physical senses.
She would wake him gently. He was not the type of man who startled easily, but when he did, it came with thrashing arms and swinging fists. She had experience with such men.
The girl approached the drainage pipe with caution as if she were approaching a sleeping lion. She could tell by the way the man’s breaths reverberated against the corrugated metal that he had inserted himself at least four feet into the pipe. Her white cane was five feet long.
One hand against the pipe’s opening, she inserted the cane and held it in the air like a probe moving through a catheter. She pushed it forward until it found its mark and nudged the sleeping man. Suddenly, quicker than she could react, a hand snatched the cane and yanked it away from her. She tripped on the lip of the opening, dropped her backpack, and tumbled forward into the pipe. Two hands, as firm and strong as iron, gripped her shoulders, lifted her, and slammed her against the unforgiving metal. Air escaped her lungs in a short burst.
“Who are you? Where did you come from?”
His voice was rough, gravelly, his words slightly slurred. She had aroused him from a deep sleep; he was disoriented and frightened.
“Missy. My name’s Missy.”
He held her there, pressing her against the pipe, breathing hard. His breath smelled like stale coffee and his body like sweat and dirt. She heard his heart thumping hard and quick in his chest. The soft scratch of fabric and the shift of his weight indicated he turned his head back and forth.
“How did you find me? Did anyone follow you?”
“Can you let go of me first?” Oddly, Missy felt no fear in the presence of this man. Normally, confronting a strange man who had found refuge in a drainage pipe would instill a certain amount of panic in anyone. But fear had no place here. Not for her. Not with him. It was as if she had known him a long time ago, had trusted him, and even befriended him, only to just now be reunited.
Slowly, he softened his grip until his hands released her. He exhaled.
“Are you alone?”
“Boy, that’s a loaded question. Yes. I was walking along the road and heard you breathing.”
There was a short pause and silence until her white cane clinked against the metal of the pipe. He did not hand it to her immediately. “You’re blind.”
“No, I’m Missy. And you are?”
“You can’t see.” He sounded relieved to make such a discovery.
“I see, just not like you do. I probably see more than you do.”
He placed the cane’s grip in her hand.
“Proper introductions haven’t been made until both parties share their name,” Missy said.
More silence. The man drew in a long, deep breath. He scratched his rough face. She assumed he was weighing the risk of giving his name to a total stranger who had found him hiding in a pipe.
“How do I know you’re not with them?”
“With who? The police? FBI?”
He said nothing.
“Since when did the FBI send blind agents on foot patrol in the middle of nowhere?”
“Where did you come from?”
“Pittsburgh.”
“You walked all this way?”
She shrugged. “And hitched it some.”
“Why? Who are you running from?”
He was perceptive too.
She felt no need to lie to him. They were meant to meet; they were meant to join paths and travel together. Companions. Call it fate or providence or anything else, but Missy knew it was meant to be. “My stepfather.”
“Mean guy?”
“You have no idea.”
“I bet I do.”
A few beats of awkward silence passed between them before he said, “Andy.”
“Andy. That’s a nice name. Simple. Honest. Innocent.”
“Believe me. There’s nothing innocent about me.” And with that, he maneuvered his way around Missy and out of the drainage pipe.
He walked away, his shoes shuffling through the dirt.
Missy found her backpack, swung it onto her shoulder, and scrambled out of the pipe as well. “Wait. You can’t just leave.”
He stopped. Turned. “Why not?”
“You’re going to leave me standing here? Alone?”
“You made it this far. From Pittsburgh.”
“I’m blind.”
“But you see better than I do. You said so yourself.”
“I need to come with you.”
“You don’t want to do that.”
“Yes. I do. I need to.”
He paused and made no sound. In the distance, a hawk screeched, and beyond that, she heard the deep rumble of a pickup with a modified exhaust barreling down the road. Maybe a half mile away.
“A truck’s coming,” she said. “We could hitch a ride.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“How are you gonna stop me?”
“Really? You’re blind. I’m bigger than you. Quite a bit bigger.”
Missy approached him. Her cane tapped the ground in front of her until it touched his shoe. She lifted her head.
“I’m coming.”
“Look.” He sighed. “Trouble follows me, okay? Always has. I don’t want you to have any part of that.”
The truck grew closer, louder. She ascended the embankment using her cane as a climbing tool. “But we’re going to the same place.” Her foot slipped, and she expected him to steady her, but he didn’t.
“What do you mean?”
When they reached the top, she was breathless, and the truck was nearly upon them. She waved her stick to get the driver’s attention and lifted her thumb.
She heard Andy climbing the embankment, his shoes slipping on the loose soil. He stood beside her. He, too, breathed heavily. “What do you mean we’re going to the same place?”
The truck’s engine rumbled loudly as it slowed.
“We might as well stick together since we’re both headed north.”
“Where north? And how did you know I was headed north?”
She just knew. She felt it. They were to be companions.
The truck stopped. The door opened and the driver, a young guy, said, “Hop in.”
Missy put one hand on the truck’s door and said to Andy, “Well? Are you coming?”
Andy raised his voice over the growl of the engine. “How did you know I was headed north?”
“Maine,” she said. “You’re going to Maine. So am I. Now can you please open the door for me?”
Andy brushed past her and opened the door.
Chapter 3
The truck driver’s name was Colin. Mid-twenties and bulky, he hadn’t shaved for several days. A faded, tattered ball cap perched atop his head. He reminded Andy of the miners back at the diner. Jason and his two stooges.
Colin didn’t say much.
Missy did most of the talking. She sat next to Colin and chatted him up about the unchanging weather, the flat terrain, her worn sneakers, and a mutt named Lucky she’d had when she was seven.
Colin barely acknowledged Missy’s presence but kept glancing at Andy. Andy tipped his Stetson lower on his forehead and tried to ignore his host’s fascination. Something about Colin didn’t feel right, didn’t sit right with him. The guy was odd—too quiet, too tense. Then again, he’d picked up a blind girl and her pet freak. Anyone would be uneasy with that duo sitting next to him.
But more than that, something about him, about the way his eyes shifted from one mirror to another, the rigid posture of his body in the seat, the way he gripped the steering wheel—it was all unnatural.
Missy didn’t see it, of course, but Andy wondered if she could sense it, hear it in the guy’s occasional grunts and one-word answers. He wondered if she could feel a negative vibe emanating from him like compressed air waves
from a subwoofer.
Suddenly, Colin’s foot grew heavier on the accelerator, and the truck growled and lunged forward. Missy stopped talking and leaned into Andy.
“What’s going on?” Andy said. He didn’t trust Colin at all.
Colin massaged the steering wheel and dipped his chin. “There’s a diner up ahead. Merlin’s. I’m dropping you two off there.”
Missy stared blankly out of the windshield. “You can’t take us any farther?”
“Nope.”
“But we’ve only been driving for a little while.”
“I can take you back where I found you,” Colin said.
Missy’s eyes darted left to right in nervous fashion as she reached for Andy’s hand.
The truck’s engine coughed as Colin worked the gear stick, and it accelerated even more.
Over a gentle rise, the diner appeared on the left. It sat alone in the middle of a clearing surrounded by a crumbling parking lot and a few struggling, wiry shrubs in need of trimming. Two pickups waited in the lot, one around the side of the building, the other near the front entrance. Both were weatherworn and rusted around the corners. Across the road sprawled a barren field, nothing but clumpy, dry dirt and a few isolated patches of brown grass barely ankle-high. The wasteland spread all the way to the horizon before yielding to a thin line of leafless trees. Beyond the horizon, a storm loomed, its leading edge as dark as oil. Behind it, the sky roiled like an angry upside-down ocean. But the clouds would dump no rain, at least not any amount that would mean anything. It hadn’t rained enough to soak the ground in well near ten years.
Andy didn’t like this diner. He rarely had a good experience in these types of places. And he didn’t want to drag Missy into any of his problems. “How ’bout you just drop me off and take the girl to the next town,” he said, hoping Colin’s sudden interest in getting rid of them was due mostly to the fact that he had a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound freak in the cab of his truck.
Colin slowed the truck and steered it into the parking lot right up to the door of the diner. “This is it,” he said, looking straight ahead. “For both of you.”
Missy turned her face toward Andy. “Looks like this is it, big guy.”
Andy exited the truck and helped Missy down from the cab. The truck roared, tires spun in the loose soil, and black smoke billowed from the exhaust as it tore out of the lot, leaving a rooster tail of dust in its wake. Colin had brought them this far, but compared to the trek that lay ahead of them, this leg of the trip had been a mere hop.
The interior of the diner matched the exterior. This was an establishment on life support. If it had ever seen better days, they were a distant memory. Only one booth was occupied. An elderly man with rough skin, wiry gray hair, and glassy eyes fed himself scrambled eggs and toast. He barely noticed when Andy and Missy entered.
They seated themselves in a booth by the window and were soon greeted by the waitress—a young woman, thin, sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes. She glanced at Missy, then at Andy. He could tell by the way her lips parted and eyes widened that he had frightened her. She dropped her gaze to the table.
“Get you something to drink?”
“Just water for me,” Missy said.
“It’s recycled. That okay? We ain’t got no pump here.”
“That’s fine.”
Andy did not look at the waitress. “Coffee, please.”
They both ordered the breakfast special of two eggs, home fries, and two pieces of toast. When the food arrived, Missy said, “So what’s your story?”
Andy removed his Stetson and sat it beside him in the booth. He then put a forkful of eggs in his mouth and chewed slowly. The food was surprisingly good. Or maybe he was hungry enough that anything would taste great. “What do you mean?”
“Where are you from?”
Andy chewed some more, then swallowed. “Kentucky.”
Missy stopped with the fork inches from her mouth. She looked in his direction, but her gaze did not quite meet his eyes. She was attractive with small, soft features. At first glance, one would think her vulnerable and defenseless, but after spending a mere hour with her, Andy knew better. There was a strength about her, a resolve that could only come from a past peppered with trial and testing. “And how did you get from Kentucky to the drainage pipe?”
Andy swallowed again. “Yeah, the drainage pipe. That’s a long story.”
She leaned forward. “We’re going to Maine. We’re in Pennsylvania. We have a lot of time.”
“How ’bout you first?”
She stared in his direction for a handful of seconds as if weighing his request, her eyes never staying in one spot longer than a few moments. “Okay. But then you have to tell me yours. That’s the deal.”
“Deal.”
Missy pushed some eggs around on her plate, finally got some on her fork, and lifted it to her mouth. She chewed while her eyes bounced all around Andy’s face but never landed on it. As cruel as it seemed, he was thankful she was blind. If she could see him for what he was, she would avoid his face intentionally, and that would hurt him.
Finally, she said, “I was born in Virginia, but my dad left us shortly after I came onto the scene. I was born seeing, in case you’re wondering. He left just because I was here, because I existed, not because I was blind. He never wanted kids. He wasn’t dad material. A year later, my mom hooked up with Ron, a real winner. He moved us to Maryland to be closer to his family. Ron was a jerk. He beat my mom and me on a regular basis. She always made excuses for him and mostly blamed his fits of anger on me. If I’d just shut up, everything would be okay, but I talked too much. My talking irritated him, angered him, and he took it out on us by using us for punching bags.” She shrugged. “So it was my fault.”
Andy spread butter on his toast and took a bite.
“You still with me, big guy?”
“Go on. I’m listening.”
“This went on until I was seven. Beatings almost every day.”
“Didn’t anyone notice?”
“Mom homeschooled me. We rarely left the house.” She paused to take another bite of her eggs and wash them down with water. “One day Ron came home in a particularly bad mood. I found out later he’d lost a lot of money on some bet he’d made. He took his anger out on me, beat me nearly senseless, then threw me down the steps. I lived, obviously, but,” she snapped her fingers, “just like that the lights went out and never came back on.”
Andy sat in silence. Anger brought heat to his cheeks. “How old are you now, Missy?”
“Twenty-one.”
She’d been blind for thirteen years. Thirteen years of wandering a dark earth.
“That woke my mom up. She had some notion that he’d change until he did that. That’s when she finally realized dear old Ron was never going to change. His behavior would only get worse until one of us wound up dead. When I got out of the hospital, she said Ron had been arrested and would spend a long time in jail. We moved to Pittsburgh. She got herself cleaned up too. Got a job, got us a house. She became a good mom. Not great, but good.”
Missy stopped like she had no more to say.
“How did you wind up on the road, hitchhiking from Pittsburgh?” Andy asked.
Outside the diner, an engine revved, a deep throaty rumble that vibrated all the way into the booth. Andy parted the blinds and peered through the slats. “You stay here,” he said.
He slid out of the seat, donned his Stetson, and walked to the door of the diner. Missy followed him, her white stick tapping the tiled floor. Andy pushed through the door and stood just outside the diner, arms hanging loosely at his sides, shoulders relaxed. The storm clouds had inched closer, now hovering almost directly above the diner. Their empty promise sneered at the struggling life below. Five pickups, all with oversized tires and jacked up with diesel exhausts spouting black smoke, waited in the parking lot. One of them he recognized as Colin’s. So he had left them where he knew they would be so he could round up some friends
to go back and take care of the freaks.
Andy turned to Missy. “Get back inside, okay?” He didn’t want her to hear what was about to happen. For the second time that morning, he was glad she was blind.
Chapter 4
One of the trucks, an old faded blue Dodge, revved its engine, a full-throated guttural rumble that vibrated in Andy’s chest like thunder. Andy tensed his muscles and clenched his fist. He drew in a deep breath of the stale, dry air.
The Dodge growled again, this time so fiercely that it rocked back and forth on its suspension. The earth seemed to shudder beneath Andy’s feet. Then another pickup, a dusty Chevy, blasted its air horn. Andy flinched.
The door of Colin’s truck opened, and Colin climbed down from the elevated seat. The smirk on his face was anything but friendly. Slowly, hands in the pockets of his jeans, he approached Andy. He appeared relaxed, but under his T-shirt his muscles were taut.
Standing before Andy, Colin smiled, then laughed. “You seem a bit jittery there, cowboy. You all right?”
Andy said nothing. He was not going to be baited by this punk.
Colin leaned to one side and lifted his eyebrows at Andy. “You a tough guy, huh?”
Again, Andy did not answer. He looked past Colin at the line of trucks. One by one, the other drivers climbed down from their seats. Some held baseball bats, one gripped a two-by-four, another a crowbar. They did not come to have a conversation with Andy; they did not come to offer empty threats in an attempt to scare him off. They came to maim and kill.
“I heard about the hurtin’ you put on my buddies back in Mason.”
Mason. So that was the name of the town. It meant nothing to Andy.
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