Camper went to the other cot, stood over it, reached beneath the pillow for the revolver. “Pearl handle,” he thought turning it over, still seeing the child’s face cut from stone outlined under the white stocking mask, “it ought to have a pearl handle.” Fumbling, for useless protection, he stuffed the pistol butt-down in his pocket.
And at last the woman got up, crossed the room, and pressed herself against the open window. For Lou the road to the hills was cut with barbed barricades and red lanterns, or through hundreds of miles of shrub and sand, was stopgapped at little towns. There, become the possession of local officers, it slowed cars to a standstill and subjected travelers to the arm of a wry sheriff. And the gritting voice, sharp jowls and eyes picked over the bodies of those who fled. The driver was taken from his car, the deputy posted with his wife.
“Why, you ain’t from around here! You’ve brought that woman just a piece too far, mister.”
The deputy kept a yellow stained hand on the door. “Lady, if he ain’t really your husband, it’s too late now. And if you ain’t always been as pretty as you say, God help you.”
Stocks greasy from unshaved cheeks, rubber padded rifle butts and hair triggers met any couple fool enough to show their faces in that hell’s place twice. “Mister, if you ever made any money off her, you better give it here.”
The deputy was the tallest and craned to the window: “Well, then, what about you, lady?”
When again she looked it was as if her face was on the other side of the screen, solemnly her nails scratched a waiting tattoo on the wire mesh. She whispered and for a moment he could not move. A soft, unfamiliar, lucid condemnation: “Take me out of here.”
The gasoline burner sidled down the shale. Brake bands smoked, springs lightly bent, probing. Only the sound of changing gears and an airy pumping of the engine, the flapping of a pulmotor, followed it through the darkness. The mechanical mule felt hoof by hoof for the running scent, balking downward through the young everglade.
“Where are they?”
“Fu’ther.”