Fifteen minutes later, the highway he had traveled since mid-morning ended abruptly at a T-intersection with a north-south highway. Straight ahead was the dazzingly-white, monolithic grain elevator that Ralph had pursued for miles. A gas station squatted in its shadow. To get to Redemption, where Ralph’s job was, he would have to go north.
“I better fill the tank.”
“Ralph, I hope the bathroom’s clean,” said Jane, slipping into a T-shirt. It sounded like a threat.
“I’m thirsty, Dad!”
Ralph pulled away from the bullet-riddled stop sign, across the north-south highway, and into the dusty parking lot. A brand-new, electronic gas pump offered both regular and unleaded. The building was two-story, flat-roofed, a pile of cement blocks. Sometime ago those blocks had been painted barn red, but the color had weathered to a rusty brown. Besserman’s Gas & Grocery was painted in wobbly black letters across the top two rows.
Ralph honked.
Turning toward Jane, he saw that she had hunched her shoulders to diminish the size of her breasts. He felt guilty about taking the job.
He switched off the ignition. The motor ran-on for several seconds, missing and sputtering, shaking them like cans of paint.
“I turned it off too fast,” he explained.
Bobby agreed with him from the back seat.
Jane said nothing.
He tried to relax.
Swirls of dusk pirouetted across the parking lot. He grinned: Dance in South Dakota. A grasshopper, landing on the windshield, seemed to stare at him through the dirty glass, its tiny jaws moving up-&-down like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Two more landed. Ralph wondered what they ate during a drought. His mood darkened. He pushed the wiper button and swept them away.
He honked again.
Moments later, a thin-faced man in bib overalls stepped from the cool darkness of the service bay. Behind him, perched atop the hydraulic lift was a piece of farm equipment that Ralph didn’t recognize. He would have to learn more about farming. The man stroked and twisted his jaw. He probably had false teeth. His now smiling face was a maze of cracks and crevices that mirrored the condition of the bone-dry countryside. His dusty yellow hair looked as if it had been combed straight-back by the wind. Ralph pretended to study the contents of his billfold. No doubt Jane stared straightahead, while Bobby stared directly at the man.
Ralph looked up. “Fill it with unleaded,” he said.
“Sure thing, mister.” The man braced himself against the car, his body tilted, his eroded face inches from Ralph’s. “You’re the first New York plates I’ve seen this summer.”
“Glad to be in South Dakota,” Ralph said, trying to be friendly.
“I’ve been to New York. I was there during the war.” He poked a greasy hand at Ralph. “My name’s Cletus Besserman. Army. I shipped out of Brooklyn in 1944 . . .”
“We’re from Utica,” Ralph said, shaking hands, “that’s upstate . . .”
“Same difference,” Cletus Besserman said. “I’ve been to England, France, and Germany. After the war, I met a cousin who lived in Dusseldorf. She hated Hitler. That didn’t surprise me. My dad hated Hoover.”
Ralph nodded.
“Where you headed? Mount Rushmore?” Shreds of tobacco glistened between his snowy teeth. “Be sure to stop at Wall Drug.”
“We’ve seen the signs,” Ralph said. “Free ice water . . .”
“I’m an Indian,” Bobby blurted from the back seat.
“No, you’re not,” the man snapped, mopping his face with his greasy hand. “I know one of them when I see one.” His smile faded. “I damn well do.”
“The boy’s just playing,” Ralph said, “I told him that South Dakota has a lot of Native Americans.”
“West of here, west of Redemption, across the Missouri River.”
“I want to be an Indian,” Bobby said, “I want to be Tonto.”
The man stared open-mouthed at Bobby.
“We’re going to Redemption,” Ralph said, trying to change the subject. “I’m with Redemption College.”
“Ralph,” Jane said, “I want to get going.”
“Don’t you have to?”
“No!”
“Well, I do.” He opened the door, edging the man back. “Come on, Bobby! We’ve got a long drive ahead of us. Let’s get a soda.”
Jane flung open her car door and got out.
Cletus Besserman said, “The washroom’s inside, ma’am. It’s the door between the bread rack and the beer. Coke costs a quarter. There’s a nickel deposit if you take the bottle.”
Jane said nothing.
Ralph nodded. His body ached and swayed. The sun and heat buckled his knees, while the wind kept him from falling. Jane grumbled and sweated at his side. They hurried into the shade cast across the gas station by the grain elevator. It was the difference between night and day. Turning, Ralph saw Cletus Besserman and Bobby in conversation.
Why had he stopped here? Jane would be out for blood all the way to Redemption, his blood.
“Come here, Bobby!” Ralph grinned like a Cheshire cat to hide his irritation. “Get the windshield, too. Okay, Mr. Besserman?”
“Sure thing.” Besserman nudged the child toward them. Bobby kicked at the dust. It swirled about his shoulders and legs like a blanket, and he gasped for breath.
Jane rushed several feet into the sunshine, grabbed Bobby by the arm, then retreated.
“What did he want?” she whispered. By the urgency in her voice, Ralph knew that she would turn on him next.
“Tell us,” he demanded, “or you don’t get a soda.” He wanted to keep peace with Jane. He grabbed Bobby by the shoulders and shook him.
“No need to get worked up.” Cletus Besserman stood just outside the rim of darkness. “I was just telling your boy the truth.”
“The truth about what?” Ralph said, grinding his teeth together. He felt a little foolish. Maybe he should punch Jane in the nose. “We’d like to hear what you told him.”
“Good,” Cletus Besserman said, “I’m glad to hear that.” He coughed, clearing his throat of the swirling dust. “When I was your boy’s age, my dad and I—God rest his parched bones—drove his Model-T truck to Mobridge, then across the Missouri onto the Standing Rock reservation. To make a long story short—my dad sold me to a medicine man. A lot of farmers and ranchers did the same thing that summer. 1934. They had to. We needed the rain.”
“That’s some childhood, Mr. Besserman.” Ralph forced a smile and pushed open the door to the grocery. The air conditioning hit him like a blizzard. He motioned Jane and Bobby in after him. Mr. Besserman followed.
“It’s pretty dry this summer,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to sell that boy, would you?”
“No thanks,” Ralph said, “I like him too much.”
Jane glared at Ralph. He nudged her toward the bathroom.
“That’s the problem today. Folks don’t have enough kids to spare one or two.”
A color TV was mounted on the wall opposite the cash register. Jane had stopped momentarily to stare at her favorite soap opera. She and Bobby were now in the restroom.
Ralph heard Bobby’s complaint, the rush of running water, Jane’s harsh voice. He surveyed the room. The wall beneath the TV was plastered with posters for farm and livestock auctions. Nearby was a glass-faced wooden cabinet that offered an assortment of rifles and shotguns for sale. Maybe he should buy a gun. Another wall was decorated with fishing poles for sale. Ralph grunted at the irony of that. Meanwhile, Mr. Besserman dutifully checked Ralph’s credit card against a list of stolen and cancelled cards.
Ralph kept his distance.
Bobby emerged from the bathroom, his face scrubbed clean and the feather gone. He was fighting back tears. Ralph gave him a quarter.
Bobby whined, “I want to be an Indian . . .”
“Shut up,” Ralph said, “just shut up.”
He waited for the sound of Jane flushing the toilet. They met at the doorway. “Bobby’s
playing pinball,” he said. Her eyes were glazed. She had taken a Valium. “It’ll be okay,” he said, “you’ll see.”
“I doubt it,” she said.
The bathroom was as he had imagined: dirty. He flipped up the toilet seat. A bumper sticker was stuck piecemeal to the underside: EAT LAMB! 10,000 COYOTES CAN’T BE WRONG! He hoped Jane hadn’t seen that. She would never eat mutton again.
In the end, Jane delayed their departure to watch the final few minutes of her soap opera. She seemed calmer. Mr. Besserman followed the three of them outside. The windshield was still dirty.
“Forget it,” Ralph said.
“No trouble,” said Mr. Besserman. He took great care with the windshield, washing it, chipping the dead bugs with an ice scrapper, then washing it again.
“Thanks much,” Ralph said.
“Just keep in mind what I said.”
“Right.”
“It’s a dry summer.”
“Right.”
“Your boy could make a difference.”
“Fuck you!” shouted Jane.
A stunned Ralph hit the gas. My God! He was the academic dean at Redemption College. What if this guy knew somebody on the board of trustees? Cletus Besserman disappeared into a cloud of dust and grasshoppers. He could only hope for the best. The rear view mirror was greasy with his fingerprints. They had been on the road a long time.
After a few miles, Jane said, “That man wasn’t kidding. He wanted to buy Bobby.”
“Don’t be silly,” Ralph said. “He’s been out in the sun too long.”
Just the same, Ralph pushed the gas pedal a little harder. Bobby sat quietly in the back seat drinking a bottle of soda. He looked a little dazed.
“I hate that word,” Jane said. “I hate it when you swear. I don’t know why I said it. I hate that word.”
Ralph nodded. He couldn’t think of anything funny to say. He wished now that he had taken her along for the interview. They could have sat in the hotel room watching public television. Perhaps that would have been enough to convince her that this was not the end of the world. Perhaps she would have persuaded him not to take the job. An occasional car or truck passed going in the opposite direction. A semi pulled up from behind, honked twice, then swung nerve-wrackingly around them at far beyond the speed limit. Stunted corn, dead-brown pasture land and deserted farm houses floated past. One house with its sagging front porch resembled an old man without his false teeth. The window sills of yet another were just inches above the ground. Perhaps the earth was swallowing it.
Reaching to turn on the radio, Ralph took his eyes off the road. He didn’t see what it was he hit, just heard a solid thud, then felt it bounce once, twice against the undercarriage of the car.
“What was that?” asked Jane, her attention distracted from the Times crossword puzzle.
Jumping to his feet, Bobby stared out the rear window. “You hit something.” He started to cry.
“Don’t stand on the back seat,” shouted Ralph, “I’m tired of telling you that!” Braking to a gentle stop, Ralph pulled off the road. He took a deep breath, then put the car into reverse.
Whatever it was—the size of a full-grown dachshund—it was still alive. The creature emitted a high-pitched squeal.
“A jack rabbit,” Ralph said, “you can tell by the size of its ears and hind legs.”
They didn’t get out of the car.
“I’m not going to be sick,” Jane said. “I’m not.”
Bobby glared at Ralph. “You were going too fast.”
“Be quiet,” said Ralph.
The jack rabbit lay stretched-out on the highway. Its ruby-colored guts shone against the white concrete in the late-afternoon sun. Broken bones like knitting needles protruded from the torn flesh and fur. The eye that Ralph could see blinked with the bothersome regularity of a fluttering TV picture.
“What should we do?” asked Bobby.
“Take it to a vet,” said Jane.
Ralph groaned, thinking of the inside of the car.
While they argued, a late-model, four-wheel drive pickup truck with Besserman’s Gas & Grocery printed on the door stopped across the highway from them. An angular section of welded steel with several trowel-like blades was chained to the truck bed. Probably a replacement part for the piece of farm equipment that Ralph hadn’t recognized. Ralph hoped this particular Besserman or whoever he was wouldn’t be as spooky as Cletus.
“Have car trouble?” It was a boy about fifteen.
“Sort of.” Ralph hesitated.
From the blind side of the truck, a mongrel German Shepherd bolted across the driver’s lap and through the open window, landing squarely on all fours on the pavement. He bared his teeth, growling from deep inside his throat. It sounded like a buzz saw cutting through hardwood.
“Damn you, Cody!” the boy cursed. “Get back in here.”
The dog charged the rabbit, biting into its torn midsection, violently shaking it from side-to-side like a hunk of raw meat. Both Jane and Bobby screamed. A shower of blood cascaded across the pavement, staining the dead-brown grass at the edge of the road. Pox-like drops of blood spotted Ralph’s arm and the white towel. He wondered what the side of his car looked like. The truck was spotted with blood. The boy wiped blood from his face with a blue handkerchief. He was out of the truck, stalking toward the dog. He kicked it hard in the ribs. Again. The dog cowered at his feet, the rabbit forgotten.
“I thought you were out of gas,” the boy complained. His white T-shirt was flecked with blood. “If I’d known you’d hit a jack, I wouldn’t have bothered to stop.”
“We’re new out here,” Ralph said.
“I hope I didn’t hurt Cody.” The boy’s hair hung in his eyes. The wind hadn’t yet combed it straight-back or carved character into his bland face. He nudged the dog with his boot. “Get into the truck, Cody!” The dog obeyed.
“Is Cletus Besserman your father?”
“So you stopped at the station,” the boy said, turning a small smile for the first time. “No, I just work for Cletus. He owns that and the grain elevator. He’s a little crazy these days with the drought. The elevator’s been empty for two years. The bank’s ready to foreclose. Did he offer to buy your boy?”
Ralph nodded.
“It figures. He’s been pestering my dad about me, too. Cletus wants to go out on the reservation and talk some half-drunk Indian into a rain dance. Cletus’ old man sold him to the Indians when he was a boy. Lots of people did it back then during the Great Depression. My dad says there’s a state law that forbids it now.”
“Did it rain?” Ralph asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to the children?” Ralph felt Bobby’s fingernails dig into his neck. Perhaps this would cure him of wanting to be an Indian.
“I don’t know,” the boy said. “My dad says that Cletus ran away. Maybe the Indians raised the others as their own. Maybe the dogs ate them. I don’t know.”
For the next couple of hours, Ralph drove the speed limit. He kept both hands on the steering wheel, checked his side View and rear view mirrors. He thought about Cletus Besserman and the drought. Bobby slept uneasily in the back seat. Jane said nothing, lost again in the nearly week-old New York Times.
In the west, the setting sun was turning the horizon into a river of blood. Ralph wished he had a camera. The photo might win a prize.
A few miles later, Ralph hit a prairie dog with his right front tire. Jane didn’t notice. The tiny crunch sounded like a bite taken out of an apple.
Eventually, Ralph started to count.
“Four, five, six . . .”
“What are you doing?” asked Jane.
“Counting.”
“Counting what? Empty houses?”
“No, I’m counting the dead animals on the highway.”
“That’s crazy,” Jane shouted, not looking up from the Times crossword puzzle. “So just stop it.”
Ralph drove deeper and deeper into the twi
light haze. His eyes ached and burned. You’re right, he said to himself, I’ve been driving too long. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor. They had best get to Redemption as quickly as possible. Certainly before nightfall. In the rear view mirror he thought he saw another car in the far distance. For the next few miles he stared straight-ahead at the highway. He started counting the dead animals again. He killed yet another prairie dog. Rechecking the mirror he saw that the car was a pickup truck, the same dirty green as the boy’s.
Ralph pushed the gas pedal still harder. He imagined his foot breaking through the floorboards and striking the concrete. Shreds of shoe leather, bits of bone and flesh, and a shower of blood splattered his bluejeans. The pickup truck had inched closer. Behind it he saw Indians on horseback, their naked bodies streaked with paint.
“Jane,” he said, “something’s wrong, something’s terribly wrong.” He glanced at his wife. She was slumped against the door. No doubt she had taken another Valium. Maybe two or three. He knew better than to try to wake her. She would be groggy, dazed, more of a problem than a solution. He thought of waking Bobby.
The pickup truck and the Indians were gaining. Straight ahead the highway was dotted with the remains of dead animals. He swerved to avoid something not quite-yet-dead. Probably a farmer’s dog or a coyote. In the rear view mirror he saw it get up from the pavement and join in the pursuit.
“Bobby,” he said, half-turning to shake his son in the backseat. “Wake-up!”
The kid grunted, trying to dig himself deeper into the seat cushion. Ralph tried again. This time he grabbed Bobby by the waist and shook him. He pulled his hand away in frustration. The damned kid had wet his pants! It was hopeless, he thought, I’ll have to go it alone.
In a few minutes it would be night, the sun finally dropping below the edge of the prairie. Ralph braced the steering wheel with his knees and rubbed his eyes with both hands. I’m hallucinating, he thought, I know that. When I open my eyes there will be nothing but highway behind us.
A fraction of a second before the impact, Ralph opened his eyes and flung his hands against the windshield to hold it in place. He was reaching into a spider’s web. A nightmare explosion of glass washed across his body. He had hit something, something big. Probably a cow. The shaggy brown creature had erupted from the pavement and somehow landed on the hood, its great head and horns shattering the windshield. Ralph remembered the eyes. They were yellow like the headlights of an approaching car and angry. Perhaps he had hit a car, perhaps the pickup truck had somehow gotten ahead of him and had been blocking the road. He imagined Cletus Besserman reaching out to take Bobby from them.
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