“Like you said, you ain’t got a plan, and since we ain’t got nowhere to go . . . I mean, what if it rains? What if we can’t find jobs? What about—”
Rae Lynn cut her off. “I know. I told you when we left it would be hard.”
Cornelia, arms crossed, quit talking and for the first time since knowing her, Rae Lynn thought she might be mad. She stopped the truck. They sat in the middle of the road, engine puttering, staring through the grimy, bug-spattered windshield.
Cornelia turned to Rae Lynn and said, “Why’re you so afraid of going back to North Carolina? What happened to your husband and all, ain’t your fault. You done what you had to, and if no one knows, what does it matter?”
Rae Lynn rubbed her hand across her forehead. Her head was starting to hurt.
She said, “Because someone does know. He saw me right after and has his own ideas about what happened. There I was, holding the pistol. And there was Warren. Twice shot. It didn’t look good.”
She ventured a peek at Cornelia, whose mouth hung open, speechless.
Cornelia said, “Oh.”
Rae Lynn looked away, her voice soft.
“His name’s Butch Crandall. He was a friend of Warren’s. He tried to blackmail me. Said unless I, you know . . . be with him . . .”
Cornelia gasped. “He wanted you to . . . ?”
“Yes.”
Incredulous, Cornelia said, “Why, what kind a friend asks such a thing?”
“He said he’d always cared about me. Sure was a funny way of showing it. He threatened to tell Warren’s son, Eugene, unless I did what he wanted. I was afraid I’d end up in jail. It would’ve been my word against his. It’s why I pretended to be a man, in case they put the law on me. And, well, these camps had places for workers to stay. It seemed like the perfect solution at the time.”
“But, how did you come to know about Swallow Hill?”
“It won’t nothing but chance when I think back on it. Butch told Warren about the turpentine work going on here in Georgia back when we were trying to get our small operation going. With it being so far away, I thought it could be a new start.”
Cornelia said, “It’s a shame he drove you away from your own home. What happened to it, you reckon?”
“I guess it’s Eugene’s. Warren never got around to changing his will after we married.”
Cornelia said, “I declare. Men like that Butch, and believe me, I ought to know, they ain’t nothing but trouble. Still, I’d bet not a soul’s been looking for you like you think.”
Rae Lynn said, “I ain’t taking no chances.”
“I reckon I wouldn’t neither. But now, take Del Reese. He’s different. We owe him. Just take him a little ways.”
Rae Lynn sat thinking and drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Without a word, she turned the truck around and headed back the way they’d just come. Eventually a figure appeared.
She pointed and said, “Reckon that’s him?”
“Got to be.”
“Don’t say nothing about what I told you.”
Cornelia looked offended. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that.”
Rae Lynn slowed down as she came close, then stopped.
She tried to smile when she asked him, “Wanna ride?”
He appeared surprised, but he didn’t hesitate. He quickly tossed his things in the back, before he came and stood by her window. He gazed down the road, where waves of heat made the horizon shimmer and dance.
He said, “Awful warm today.”
Rae Lynn said, “Sure is.”
“I ’preciate this.”
She said, “It’s fine.”
At least he didn’t ask why she’d changed her mind.
She said, “Where’s your family’s home?”
“Bladen County.”
Rae Lynn contemplated on what she knew. First, her house in Harnett County was a good hour away from there. Second, they didn’t have any other plans like Cornelia kept reminding her. It was true, if she were on her own, she wouldn’t have come nowhere near North Carolina. She’d have bought newspapers as she came to small towns in Georgia or South Carolina （to her mind, the closest she ought to get）， search for jobs, rooms for let. That would have been what she would do, but who was to say she’d have found a thing. Not with the country still deep into this Depression. Well, they didn’t have to stay long, they could leave at any time, and it did solve their immediate problem. She felt their eyes on her, waiting.