Wayfaring Stranger: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

bill anymore.”
    Raymond was standing by the car now, brushing off his clothes with one hand. In the other, he held a ball-peen hammer. “I straightened out the steering rod, but it’s gonna shimmy. What are you fixing to do with that shotgun, boy?”
    “Shoot skunks that come around the house,” I said. “I’m right good at it.”
    “You know who we are?” the injured man said.
    “Folks who drive fine cars but who’d rather sleep in the woods than a motor court?”
    Raymond was grinning. He walked close to me, his shoes crunching in the leaves. He had taken off his dress shirt and hung it on the door mirror and was wearing a strap undershirt outside his trousers. His shoulders were bony and white and stippled with pimples. I could smell the pomade in his hair. “You heard of people shooting their way out of prison, haven’t you?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Ever hear of anybody shooting their way into prison?”
    “That’s a new one,” I said.
    “Like you know all about it?” Raymond said.
    “You asked me a question.”
    “You’re looking at people who made history,” he said. He lifted up his chin, a glint in his eye.
    “Raymond is a kidder,” the injured man said. “We’re just reg’lar working folks. I’ve been fixing this car for a man. Like to give it a spin? I bet you would.”
    “Y’all broke into a prison?” I asked.
    “I was pulling your leg,” Raymond said.
    “I read about it in the newspaper,” I said. “It was at Eastham Pen. A guard was killed.”
    “Maybe you should mind your own business,” said the woman eating the sandwich.
    The only sound was the wind blowing in the trees. I felt like I was in the middle of a black-and-white photograph whose content could change for the worse in a second. I couldn’t have cared less. “Could y’all bust into an asylum?” I asked.
    “Why would we want to do that?” Raymond said.
    “To get somebody out. Somebody who doesn’t belong there.”
    The woman with the strawberry-blond hair took a brush from her purse and stroked the back of her head. “Somebody in your family?”
    “My mother.”
    “She was committed?”
    “I don’t know the term for it. They took her away.”
    She began brushing her hair, her head tilted sideways. “You shouldn’t fret about things you cain’t change. Maybe your mama will come home just fine. Don’t be toting a gun around, either, not unless you’re willing to use it.”
    “I’d use it to get my mother back. I wouldn’t give it a second thought.”
    The injured man laughed. “Keep talking like that, you’ll end up picking state cotton. Can you forget what you saw here? I mean, if I asked you real nice?”
    “They’re going to give her electroshock. Maybe they already have,” I said. “You think that’s fair? She’s an innocent person, and she’s getting treated worse than criminals who deserve everything that happens to them.”
    Leaves were dropping from the oak tree, spinning like disembodied wings to the ground. They were yellow and spotted with blight, and they made me think of beetles sinking in dark water.
    The woman eating the sandwich turned her back and said something to the injured man. It took me a moment to sort out the words, but there was no mistaking what she said: Don’t let him leave here.
    “Mary, can you get me a cold drink from the ice chest?” said the woman with the strawberry-blond hair. “I want to talk to our young friend here.”
    “I say what’s on my mind, Bonnie,” Mary said. “You like to be sweet at other people’s expense.”
    “Maybe there’s an ice-cold Coca-Cola down in the bottom,” Bonnie said. “I don’t remember when I’ve been so thirsty. I’d be indebted if you’d be so kind.”
    She took my arm and began walking with me along the riverbank, back toward the house, never glancing over her shoulder, not waiting for Mary’s response, as though the final word on the subject had been said. She was wearing a white cotton dress with