Walk Me Home (18 page)

Delores says, “How the two o’ you was so dumb as to come all this way with nothing to keep the sun off you, I’ll never fathom. Mad dogs, you know? Like that old sayin’ about mad dogs. ’N Anglos. Plain common sense to stay out of the sun.”

The sun is closer to overhead now, and Carly feels as if every drop she drank from the bucket last night is sweating out of her. But she wants to tell the old woman where she can stuff her floppy old gardening hat. She just knows that hat is for her. The ridiculous one. She knows Jen gets the good one. The fact that the good one is likely too small for her doesn’t make her any less mad.

She doesn’t want the hat because she knows she’ll feel stupid in it. But even more, she doesn’t want the hat because she doesn’t want to accept any more helpful gestures from her enemy.

“Thanks,” Jen says, and grabs for the good hat. The cowboy hat.

Delores says, “That one belongs to my great-grandson. He’s the only other one I know got enough bad sense to come out here with no hat. So it might fit you, or it might be a little big on account of him bein’ a boy and all.”

Jen puts the hat on, and it drops down over her forehead, nearly obscuring her eyes. Despite the smallness of the hat, Jen is smaller.

“OK, OK, just hold steady,” Delores says. “I’ll get you a bandanna to wrap your head in. Catch your sweat and hold that thing up a little more.”

“Thanks, Delores,” Jen says, almost cheerfully.

Delores turns to Carly, her face darker, and holds the floppy gardening hat wordlessly in her direction.

Carly’s mind floods with images of yesterday, their last day out in the sun. The way the rays of heat seemed to bake right through her spare shirt when she held it over her head to create shade. The way her lips cracked and bled when she spoke. The line of dry, peeling blisters she can feel on her forehead if she runs her hand across it.

She takes the hat.

“Thank you, ma’am,” she says.

Delores only grunts. Then she waddles inside to get Jen’s bandanna.

Carly feels like an idiot in the hat. But that’s really no surprise. That’s probably exactly what the nasty old woman had in mind for her.

“We need to use your phone,” Carly says, loud and strident, the minute the old woman comes out again.

“I don’t think so,” Delores says.

“Well, that’s just not fair. If I could call my stepfather, he’d come get us. And he’d pay you enough to cover what you’re trying to work off us all week. And then we could get home. You act like
you care so much about us and all. But I know you don’t. If you did, you’d help us get home.”

There are other problems, but Carly wants not to think about them now. She’ll need to call directory assistance. Maybe as many as a dozen times. To get the numbers of all the contractors, all the building firms in Trinity. Then she might have to call every one. Or maybe she’ll get lucky and hit it on the first or second try. But it could get expensive. Still, a whole week of hard labor has to be worth something. Something more than two eggs.

Delores opens her mouth to speak, but Carly cuts her off.

“Fine, if you’re worried about money, we’ll work even harder. We’ll work longer days. We’ll work an extra day. Or my stepfather, he’ll pay you back for the calls when he comes out here to get us. If you’re worried about the damn money.”

Delores waits a moment. As if to assure herself that Carly is quite done.

Then she says, “I ain’t worried about the damn money. I don’t never worry ’bout money. Don’t use much out here anyways. Trade the eggs or milk for most of what I need, and if I got nothin’ to trade I still get what I need ’cause I’m an elder, and the Wakapi take care of their elders. Besides, money’s a gift from the creator, like ever’thin’ else. No point worryin’ over what you get for free.”

“Then we can use your phone?”

“Sorry—” Delores says.

Carly cuts her off again.

“I don’t believe you! You’re just being mean! You just want your slave labor. You don’t care about us at all. I bet this is illegal. I ought to call the police.”

But then she realizes the absurdity of her threat. Because to call the police, she’d need access to a phone. Besides, if they could afford a run-in with the police, they wouldn’t have wound up here in the first place. Talk about being stuck. Every road she tries to
take to freedom loops right around in a circle. Drops her right back here. In hell.

At her left side, she can feel Jen stiffening, feel the stress rolling off her. But Carly can’t stop her own agitation. She feels like a trapped animal. Panicky. Anything to get away, even if she has to chew her own leg off.

She’s halfway aware of a cloud of dust and the sound of an engine. A pickup truck is pulling up the old woman’s dirt driveway. But it can’t seem to break entirely through Carly’s panic and rage.

Why is the world conspiring to keep her from getting back to Teddy? Such a simple request to make of life.

Delores is standing with her hands on her hips, a posture probably designed to remind Carly that she can’t match the old woman’s life experience in the field of indignation.

“First off,” Delores says, “I told you once already. Honor system. Stay or go. I ain’t holdin’ no gun on you. Second of all, you’re in luck. Wanna call the police? Lucky you. You don’t need no phone for that. He’s right there. Just yell the name Alvin, nice ’n loud. Wait’ll he turns off his truck, though. Give ’im half a chance to hear you.”

Carly turns her full attention to the truck. It’s about ten years old, well maintained. Dark blue. It stops in front of the henhouse, and the driver cuts the engine. Carly can hear the gears of the hand brake being set.

The man who steps out is Native American, probably Wakapi like the old woman. He’s maybe in his late twenties. Handsome, with shiny black hair pulled back into a neat ponytail under a wide-brimmed hat. He smiles at Delores, and his teeth are brilliant white.

Carly snatches the silly hat off her head. Because now there’s a boy watching.

He’s no cop. He’s just a man in a pickup truck. Delores must be playing some sort of mind game on her.

“That’s a cop?” Carly asks, sarcastic.

She means to hurt the old woman, but then, too late, she realizes she’s also insulting this man she’s never met. He might be nice. He might be their salvation. Maybe he’ll yell at Delores for taking indentured servants against their will. Maybe he’ll take them to a phone they can use.

“Pleased to meet you, too,” Alvin says. “Who’re your friends here, Delores?”

“Well, the one with the mouth calls herself Carly. This nice little one is Jen.”

“And what brings these lovely young ladies to our neck of the woods?”

“Just passin’ through,” Delores says. “Little Miss Mouthy here don’t believe you’re with the tribal police.”

Alvin says, to Carly, “What, a policeman can’t even take a day off?”

Carly doesn’t think either one of them is telling the truth. He’s just some guy. A neighbor or a friend or a grandson. Or something. They just want her to think he’s a cop to scare her into line.

Carly says nothing. Everyone says nothing.

Finally the old woman says, “Alvin, tell Little Miss Mouthy here why she can’t use my phone.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Alvin says. He looks up over the roof of the tiny house. Points. “How many wires you see up there?”

Carly looks up. One thick wire comes down at an angle from one single pole. It enters the house from the back, out of Carly’s line of sight.

“Just one,” she says.

Then it hits her. Old Delores has electricity. But no phone.

“That’s crazy,” Carly says. “What if you need to call someone?”

“Like who, for example?” Delores asks.

“Like if you needed help or something.”

She doesn’t want to add the part about how old Delores is. She’s not sure if it goes without saying or not.

“Alvin comes by here ever’ mornin’. See if I’m OK. Or if I need anythin’. Ever’ mornin’ like clockwork, on duty ’r off. You could set your clock by Alvin here.”

“I could drive you girls to a phone if you need one,” Alvin says.

“Or she could use your cell phone,” Delores chimes in.

“Well that’s only for official business, I’m afraid. But I could run ’em into the village.”

Delores says, “Yeah, there’s a pay phone at the gen’ral store.”

She puts the emphasis on the word
general
. Not the word
store
. As if they sell generals there.

Carly is all ready to jump in his truck and let this nightmare be over. Then it hits her. Pay phones need to be paid.

“Um. Thanks. Maybe tomorrow.”

She can feel Jen trying to catch her eye, but she refuses to look.

Alvin exchanges a few sentences with the old woman, right in front of them, but in a native language Carly can’t begin to understand. Then slides into his truck and waves. Jen waves back. Carly doesn’t. Her arm is too defeated, too completely out of hope.

Alvin starts up the truck and backs out to the road in a swirl of dust.

Delores waddles back inside.

“You should have gone with him,” Jen says.

“Me? Why not we?”

“I’m OK here. But you should’ve used the pay phone. I don’t want to walk anymore, Carly. I’m not walking all the way to California. When we’re done here, I want a ride. Even if…”

But then she never finishes the sentence.

“Even if what, Jen?”

No answer.

It’s funny how Jen has these boundaries. Like hidden walls. You never see one coming up. You just hit it. And that’s that.

It’s like there are two of her little sister. The one she’s known since she was four. And then this one. This other person.

“You know why I can’t use the pay phone, Jen. You know that, right?”

“Maybe he would’ve loaned us the money. You know. If he knew how much trouble we’re in.”

“Jen. If he knew how much trouble we’re in, he’d call child protective services and get us picked up and thrown in the system.”

“Oh,” Jen says. “Right. I didn’t think of that.”

“Right. You don’t ever think of those things. You never think of anything important. I have to think of everything. That’s why it’s a good thing I’m the one in charge.”

Jen sighs and goes back to work, cutting a piece of chicken wire to form a base for the plaster. Just the way Delores showed her.

Then Jen says, “You think that Alvin guy was really the police?”

“No. Did he look like a cop to you?”

“I don’t know. What’s a cop look like?”

“Well, they wear a uniform. For starters.”

Carly can hear herself talking to Jen as if Jen were an idiot. And she doesn’t like her own tone. But she can’t seem to break it.

“He said it was his day off.”

“They’re just trying to scare us, Jen.”

“I guess,” Jen says.

They work on the henhouse for at least another hour without talking. Without interruption of any kind. It’s almost a relief. Life may be miserable, but at least for one blessed moment the damned thing holds still.

The sun is overhead when the old woman comes out again.

“Take a break,” she says. “Get out of the midday sun. You can do more later. After lunch. After four. Too hot now.”

Carly straightens up. Leans on her hoe. Stretches her sore back. She looks around the property as if gathering complaints. Making a list of things to criticize.

The junk. She feels like making a big deal about the junk. The rusty bedsprings and the rolls of chain link fencing. The old car or truck parts.

“I don’t see how you can stand to keep all this crap around,” she says. “Place looks like a junkyard.”

It’s harsh, but it feels good. Carly wants to lash out. She wants somebody else on the planet to hurt even 1 percent as much as she hurts. Especially if that somebody is Delores.

But the old woman only laughs. That strange laugh.

“Helps when you can’t hardly see it,” she says.

“Other people can see it.”

“Well, that’s their problem, then. Ain’t it? It bother you?”

“Yeah. It bothers me.”

It’s only half-true. Carly doesn’t feel much investment in this place. In a little over six days they’ll be gone. Sooner if she can call Teddy. What does she care what the place looks like, as long as she can get away?

“That’ll be your next job, then. When you got that patch fixed, haul all that stuff over to my truck and load what you can in the bed. You drive?”

“Yeah, I can drive.”

“OK. I’m comin’ with you, though. Don’t trust you with my truck all on your own. But there’s a guy about three miles west. Buys scrap metal, just about anythin’ you got for ’im. Don’t pay much, just a few cents a pound, I think, but you can keep whatever he pays. Should be enough to make your phone call, at least.”

She disappears back into the house.

Carly starts gathering up the chain link. It’s heavier than she realized. She looks up to see Jen standing near the door to the house.

“Come on,” Jen says. “We’re on a break.”

“You go. The faster I get this done, the faster we can get out of here.”

Jen shrugs and goes inside.

But after ten minutes or so wrestling heavy rolls of chain link in the midday sun, the break starts sounding good. Besides, she doesn’t want to leave Jen alone with the old woman anymore. Not for long. Not if she can help it.

Delores is casting some kind of spell over Jen.

Carly is already infected with an eerie worry about the situation. About that brand-new bond. She feels as though she’s lent her sister to the old woman, very much against her will, and now, somehow, she can’t be entirely sure she’ll get Jen back again at the end of the week.

Well, that’s not true. In fact, that’s stupid. Right?

But that’s still the way it feels.

“Hey. Jen. You awake?”

“Shoot,” Jen mumbles. Barely enunciating the word. “I guess I am now.”

Carly’s been lying awake in the old pink trailer for hours. The longer she lies awake, the bigger her fears and worries grow. Like she’s been feeding them some kind of super-grow worry food as she tosses and frets. And they’re eating it right up. And it’s doing everything the label claimed it would do, plus a whole lot more.