Here Comes the Night
Page 24
The Winnebago had sunk almost to its front axle. As if her stomach, growling from nothing but black coffee, weren’t already sour enough, she thought.
A moment later, when Jason joined her, the women around them perked up at the 30-year-old, shirtless and in shorts, just as Carrie had when she first met him. Hours at the gym had given him a biker’s sinewy legs and the kind of abs that make women look twice.
When he saw the extent of the problem, Jason sucked in air through his teeth.
Carrie could barely glance his way. “All of a sudden the sand just went soft.”
He gave her a wicked grin. “You mean like I warned you it would, just before we hit the beach?”
She punched his elbow playfully. “Oh, shut up.” Then she shook her head at the mess. “If there’s anything broken, my dad will…”
“It’s okay, babe.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “Just blame it on me.”
“No, it’s my bad all the way.”
Then after a silence, Jason asked, “Does he have Triple-A?”
“For a vehicle this size? Daddy can’t afford that.” She also quickly realized that Jason, as much as he might mean well, probably wouldn’t know how to help.
A wealthy Houston kid, he had been supplanted to her little Texas town of Robbers Gorge for a mandatory stint of sober living following a high dollar rehab. After that, his oil rich parents had cut the purse strings. So he not only couldn’t help pay for a tow truck, she doubted he had ever had to unstuck a car, much less an R.V.
She sighed. “Okay, let’s look for anything that’ll give us some traction.”
Half an hour later, their efforts had proved fruitless, even laughable. They had wedged cardboard from beer cartons and beach trash under the wheels. Nothing had worked. They were both sweaty and out of sorts. Plus, she had ripped the toe strap on her new flip-flops.
Then, through the beach haze, they could just make out a vehicle heading their way. At first, they both looked up with hope. When the mirage dissipated, they could see what a piece of crap it was, an ancient Jeep pieced together like a rust-eaten Frankenstein. One green fender and an orange top, no doors. But it ran. And, more to the point, it had a winch.
Its driver, a silver haired guy in a stained wife-beater, was waving to the beach locals, who all seemed to know him. Carrie thought he looked like some kind of third-world-guerilla-royalty out in the wilds. All that was missing were young rebels in the back brandishing automatics.
When the Jeep rolled to a stop in front of the Winnebago, the driver got out, a grin on his face. “Need some help?”
Carrie smiled at him. “Don’t suppose that winch of yours is for rent.”
The stranger’s eyes teased both of them. “We might figure something out.”
He took charge with an easy-going style, and twenty minutes later the winch was grinding away. Carrie was ready to retract her first impression. He was looking like world class royalty now.
A few inches at a time, they excavated the front axle. The guy’s truck might look like crap, but it whirred efficiently as it pulled out a behemoth four times its weight.
Finally, the R.V. slipped free of the sand. Carrie cheered, and Jason gave a whoop.
Carrie jumped out from behind the wheel. “We did it.”
“Yep,” the stranger said, looking pleased as he unhooked his winch.
“What do we owe you?” Jason asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“No, come on. There must be something…” Carrie said.
“This stretch of beach is my backyard. Think of it as a neighborly hand.”
Jason’s eyes went wide. “You mean you live around here?”
The stranger pointed to a stilted beach shack about 50 yards away. “Right over there.” It looked put together about the same way as his truck. It leaned a little wonky, and its blue paint had been peeling for so long it looked like part of the design.
Carrie was still amazed. “Right there on the water? Wow.”
The stranger finished winding the winch back into the truck and grinned. “Yep.” Then after a moment. “You kids staying down here?”
“At the State Park, somewhere over there,” Carrie said, pointing to some unimproved camp spots behind the beach. She realized they had yet to introduce themselves. “Oh, I’m Carrie Murray, by the way, and this is Jason Ackerman,” she said, offering her hand.
The stranger shook their hands. “Leo Marvins.” He jumped into his Jeep and started the engine. “Be careful now.”
Linda McDonald comes from the western plains of Oklahoma. She holds master’s degrees in theater from Kansas University and in creative writing from the University of Central Oklahoma, where she also taught for many years. Her plays have been produced in Oklahoma City, Dallas, Northampton, MA, and New York City. She has also written more than a dozen screenplays. Moonrats, a new dark comedy about dysfunctional state politics, is scheduled for film release by Firefly Productions in 2014.
Crimes of Redemption, her debut novel, was awarded the 2013 Book of the Year in Fiction by the Center for the Book. She is also the author of Here Comes the Night.
She makes her home in Oklahoma City.