Moving On Read Online Free PDF Page B

almost gone on the top.
    “We’re very grateful about the cameras,” she said. A girl had come to the door of the trailer house and stood just inside the screen, her body a dark shadow.
    “Well, glad he wasn’t hurt,” Pete said. “Maybe sometime I’ll get to meet him when he’s awake. If he’ll come and see me maybe I can tell him who not to take pictures of.”
    “Oh, we won’t be coming back here,” she said. “We were in Dallas and heard about this rodeo and drove out. We’re going to lots more, though—my husband wants to do a book of pictures about them. I’m sure we’ll see you again.”
    “Hope so,” Pete said, stepping back. He was sawing the towel thoughtfully against the back of his neck. Patsy never quite knew how to get out of conversations; she gave a little nod, raced her motor a little, and let the clutch out too quickly. The Ford jerked forward and almost died. In a moment she regained control and was out the gate. A cowboy was leading three horses down the middle of the dirt road that led to the highway, but as she approached he obligingly moved them over and waved at her cheerfully, his hands full of bridle reins. When she turned onto the pavement the slight bump caused Jim to slide farther down in the seat, his head still against the car door. Straining, Patsy reached across him and locked it.
    The lightning had come close enough that she could see it flickering in her rear-view mirror, but it seemed a dry kind of lightning, appropriate to the country. Ahead on the straight highway were five or six sets of red taillights, cars going back to town. Patsy drove slowly, in no hurry. She followed the taillights into the town and stopped at both lights. The cars that had been ahead of her had all disappeared, absorbed by the town. Except for a deputy’s car parked in the driveway of a filling station, hers was the only vehicle in sight. The deputy was sitting with his car door open. He had taken one boot off, and the sock too, and was contemplating his bare foot with an expression of gloom. He held a pocketknife in his hand, one blade open, as if perhaps he meant to perform an amputation. It was just the sort of moment she would have liked Jim to take a picture of, though no doubt the deputy would have resented it. Probably the man had ingrown toenails from wearing such sharp-toed boots.
    When the light turned green she went on, past a block of darkened grocery stores and laundries, still driving slowly and enjoying the almost pristine emptiness of the little town. Except for herself, the deputy, and one lank brown dog, the emptiness was absolute. Soon she left the town behind and turned onto the Interstate. On the broad highway she could not help driving fast. There was no one on the road but herself and the trucks of the night, the huge trucks with squares of red taillights that lumber nightly over the country, from the South to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to the South. The trucks blinked their eyes when she passed them, purring and snorting like great nocturnal animals. She held to the left until she had passed half a dozen and was ahead of all that were in sight, pushing the Ford almost to its top speed, which was eighty-five. The darkness, the speed, the straining pulse of the car, and the rush of cool air in the window were keenly satisfying to her, as satisfying as the taste of the Hershey bar had been, and as brief, for the motel where they were staying was in Abilene, less than a dozen miles away. She would have liked another fifty miles to drive—the road all to herself and the wind blowing her hair and cooling her arms. She swerved slightly from time to time to avoid the flattened corpse of some possum or coon or armadillo, and much too soon she was among the lights and filling stations of Abilene. It was irritating to have to slow down when she was avid for more driving; she stamped the brake with annoyance at the first light off the freeway.
    Their motel was called The Old