‘Help me sit up, Alice.’
So he knows. And he’s with her, at least for now. She takes his hands and helps him sit up with his feet on an unnamed dirt road in a town called Hemingford Home. In the mountains of Colorado it will already be almost dark. Here in the flatlands the afternoon has stretched into evening even though it’s November. Here the evening redness of the west spills over corn that rustles and sighs in a light breeze. His hands are hot and his face is burning. There are fever blisters on his lips.
‘I’m pretty well done.’
‘No, Billy. No. You need to hold on. I’ll give you two of the Oxys and there are a couple of those speed pills left. I’ll drive all night.’
‘No you won’t.’
‘I can do it, Billy. I really can.’
He’s shaking his head. She’s still holding his hands. She thinks if she let go he’d flop back onto the seat and his shirt would pull up and she’d see his belly, now blackish-gray with red tendrils of infection reaching up to his chest. To his heart.
‘Listen to me now. Are you listening?’
‘Yes.’
‘I rescued you after those men dumped you, all right? Now I’m rescuing you again. Trying to, anyway. Bucky told me you’d follow me as long as I let you, and if I let you I’d ruin you. He was right.’
‘You didn’t ruin me, you saved me.’
‘Hush. You’re not ruined yet, that’s the important thing. You’re okay. I know because when I asked you how you were doing with Klerke, you said you were trying. I knew what you meant, I know that you are, and in time you’ll be able to put it behind you. Except in dreams.’
The red light, shining and shining. Painting the corn. It is so silent here and his hands are burning in hers.
‘Klerke screamed, didn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘He screamed that it hurt.’
‘Stop, Billy, it’s horrible and we have to get back on the turnpi—’
‘Maybe he deserved to be hurt, but when you give pain it leaves a scar. It scars your mind. It scars your spirit. And it should, because hurting someone, killing someone, is no little thing. Take it from someone who knows.’
Blood is trickling from the corner of his mouth. No, from both corners. She gives up trying to stop him from talking. She knows what this is, it’s a dying declaration, and her job is to listen as long as he’s able to speak. She says nothing even when he tells her he’s a bad man. She doesn’t believe it but this is no time to argue.
‘Go to Bucky, but don’t stay with him. He cares for you and he’ll be kind to you, but he’s a bad man, too.’ He coughs and blood flies from his mouth. ‘He’ll help you start a new life as Elizabeth Anderson, if that’s what you want. There’s money, quite a lot of it. Some is in the account of a paper man named Edward Woodley. There’s also money in the Bank of Bimini, in the name of James Lincoln. Can you remember that?’
‘Yes. Edward Woodley. James Lincoln.’
‘Bucky has the passwords and all the account information. He’ll tell you how to manage the flow of money into your own bank account so you don’t attract attention from the IRS. That’s important, because that’s how they’re most apt to catch you. Unreported income is a trapdoor. Do you …’
More coughing. More blood.
‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Billy.’
‘Some of the money goes to Bucky. The rest is yours. Enough to go to college and a start in life after that. He’ll treat you fair. Okay?’
‘Okay. Maybe you should lie back now.’
‘I’m going to, but if you try to drive all night you’ll be an accident waiting to happen. Check your phone for the next town big enough to have a Walmart. Park where the RVs are. Sleep. You’ll be fresh in the morning and back at Bucky’s by late afternoon. Up in the mountains. You like the mountains, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Promise me.’
‘I promise to stop for the night.’
‘All that corn,’ he says, looking over her shoulder. ‘And the sun. Ever read Cormac McCarthy?’
‘No, Billy.’
‘You should. Blood Meridian.’ He smiles at her. ‘Fucking Marge, huh?’
‘That’s right,’ Alice says. ‘Fucking Marge.’
‘I wrote the password to my laptop on a piece of paper and stuck it in your purse.’
That said, he lets go of her hands and falls back. She lifts his calves and manages to get his legs into the car. If it hurts him, he gives no sign. He’s looking at her.