As they were walking along, a man pulled into the parking lot of the farm-equipment dealership, got out, locked his car—the car was small and swoopy and expensive-looking. The man went to a glass door on the side of the building, unlocked it, went inside.
They continued to walk along the frontage road, moving slowly in the dark, and were fifty yards away when the man came back out of the building. He’d left a light on inside and they could see he was now wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He took off running, or jogging, away from them, along the frontage road, moving fast.
Henry said, “Take my pack.”
“What?”
“Get off the road and take my pack. Get back in the weeds,” he said. “Wait for me.”
“What?”
He didn’t say anything else, but wrenched the walking stick off her pack and ran toward the building. Skye watched him cross the parking lot, crouch by the door, and a minute later, heard the distant sound of breaking glass. Henry disappeared inside, and a minute later, crawled back out and ran toward her.
As he came up, he said breathlessly, “C’mon—we got to go. We got to go.”
“What’d you get?”
“Got his billfold.”
“Oh, Jesus, Henry.”
They jogged until Henry got a stitch in his side, and then they walked for a while, swerving off the frontage road whenever a car came along, going down in the ditch, crouching, catching their breath, then running some more. They were a mile south when they heard sirens and saw the flashing lights of the cop cars back the way they’d come.
They kept going, another mile, and another, and then a cop car went by on the frontage road, as they lay in some weeds in the ditch. When the cop was gone, they ran some more, the best they could, nearly panicked, until after midnight, when Skye couldn’t go any farther. She told Henry, and they swerved off into a farm field, dark as pitch, and eventually stumbled into a copse of trees.
They spread out their bags, broke out a flashlight, and looked in the wallet.
Eight hundred forty dollars. They couldn’t believe it: more money than they’d ever had at one time.
“They’ll be coming for us,” Henry said. “They’ll be all over us. I never thought it’d be this big.”
“So we hide out,” Skye said. “Maybe right here. Tomorrow night, we start walking again.”
“Which way?”
She pointed back the way they’d come with the trucker. “There were some diners back there, some gas stations. We find some broken-ass guy with out-of-state plates, going through. Give him fifty dollars for gas.”
“And we’re gone,” Henry said.
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THAT’S WHAT THEY DID. They buried the stolen wallet in the field, and on the next night, found a ride that took them back through the city, and then south and east. On the fourth of August, a hot day, a trucker with an eagle feather in his hair dropped them off in Sturgis, South Dakota.
Right in the middle of the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally; thousands of bikers, mostly old guys with beards and full-sleeve tattoos and hefty old ladies who looked like they’d be more comfortable making Jell-O salads with little pink marshmallows.
And there were a few people like themselves.
Travelers.
They’d been there two days when Skye saw the devil, loafing through town in his black Pontiac with the gold firebird decal on the hood, the blonde still riding shotgun.
Henry saw him, too.
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HENRY WAS WANDERING through the Sturgis marketplace in the gathering dusk, looking at tattoos, thinking about getting one, something small and stylish; looking at chaps, the leather jackets, the Harley accessories. Henry was a traveler, but wouldn’t always be one. When his traveling days ended, he thought, maybe he’d get a Harley. Really, though, he liked the looks of another bike, might be Italian . . .
He was checking out a tall, muscular man dressed all in black leather and silver, with wraparound black shades and a harsh black goatee—Henry liked the look, but realistically, he wouldn’t get a goatee like that in this lifetime; he barely had blond fuzz—when a woman slipped in behind Henry and licked his ear.
He tensed and turned and there was Kristen, she of the filed teeth. She was wearing a leather bikini bottom and a strip of black duct tape across her breasts, little bumps where her nipples pushed against the tape, and black high-heeled boots. She had a silver ring through one wing of her nose, and a bead through her tongue. Her body was a riot of tattooed Wonder Woman comic art.
She said, “Well, well, well. Our Henry. Pilate’s been looking for you. He talked to the producer and he thinks they have a slot for you in the miniseries. Think you could do a cowboy?”
Henry didn’t know how to answer and didn’t know where to look. He backed a step away, blushing, but said, “Well, shoot, I grew up in Johnson City, Texas. I guess I could do a cowboy.”
“We’re out scouting locations, right now. You know what that is?”
“Yup, I do.” He’d once talked to a location scout in Pasadena, California.
“Well, fine. Me and Ellen are meeting up at the Conoco at eight o’clock. Be there. You got one chance. Okay?”
“Okay. I don’t know where Skye is . . .”
“We don’t want Skye. Skye is a pain in the ass. She’s so negative, you know what I mean? You bring Skye, Pilate will say forget it.”
Henry swallowed, scratched his nose, glanced over at the black leather guy, who winked at him. He turned back to Kristen and said, “I’ll be there.”
She stepped right up to him, pushing her breasts into his chest. He tried to step back again but she grabbed his package and squeezed, a little, and said, “Me’n Ellen are looking forward to it.” Then she turned and ambled off, her hips swinging off the pinpoints of the boot heels.
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