a ride from a truck driver who had already delivered his payload of chickenfeed.
They went some twenty miles crouched in the back. They climbed down where he turned off the road and headed to the highway
and he shook his head as he drove away.
As they walked a car coming from the opposite direction pulled over. “I’d head back if I was you boys,” a man shouted at them
from the window. His family was in the back and all his belongings were strapped to the roof.
“Why’s that?” said Roosevelt.
“Storm’s coming. A duster.”
“A what?”
“A duster. Dust storm. You won’t be able to see three feet in front of your face tomorrow if you keep going.”
“Thank you,” said Pike.
“You boys not going to stop?”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“You all are nuts,” said the man as he rolled up his window. “Bugshit. Just nuts.” The wheels spun and he careened down the
road.
“Bastard doesn’t even know how to drive,” said Hammond. “And he’s calling us nuts.”
They kept going. As midafternoon came they passed over an old road and a crumbling gully. There they heard a muffled shouting
from far to their left. Pike motioned off the road and they stepped quietly into the cover of the weeds as Pike looked over
the top.
“What was that?” said Hammond.
“Some people are camped along the road, I’d say,” said Roosevelt. “Just off to the south of us.”
“So?” said Connelly.
“I don’t like this,” said Pike. “This whole area’s deserted, especially after that fella who told us about the… the…”
“The duster.”
“Right. Could be cops, could be bandits.”
“Bandits?” said Hammond, and laughed.
“I’ve seen them before. Hell, I’ve been robbed by them before. And if there’s as many migrants all over the place as it seems
then the cops are sure to be frothing at the mouth.”
“Pretty sorry bandits or cops, talking so loud,” said Roosevelt. “We could hear them from miles away.”
“Maybe so. But I still don’t like it.”
“I could go take a look,” said Connelly.
“What?” said Pike. “Take a look? What do you mean?”
“I mean I walk up to them and look at them and if I don’t get shot then I guess things are okay.”
“That sounds like a terrible plan to me,” said Roosevelt.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it. I don’t think it’s cops or outlaws. If it’s cops I’m going to see my sister in town and
if it’s robbers I don’t have much to rob, now do I? Just look at me. And it’d be a lot of work to rob me for a whole lot of
nothing.”
“He’s got a point,” said Hammond.
“You serious about going?” said Roosevelt.
“Yeah. Suppose so.”
“Well, here,” said Roosevelt, and he took out his gun and held it out to Connelly.
“Jesus!” Connelly said. “Get that goddamn thing away from me!”
“What? Why, what’s wrong with it?”
“It’s a gun, that’s what’s wrong with it. I don’t know nothing about no guns.”
“It’s for protection. Just carry it and flash it so they know what’s up.”
“If they see me walking toward them with a gun in my hand they’re likely to shoot me dead. I like having my head on my shoulders
and I like the teeth I got. I’m not waving a gun at anyone.”
“Well, damn,” Roosevelt said.
“If that’s settled,” said Pike, “we’ll stay here and watch you go. You get into any trouble, Mr. Connelly, you holler like
you’ve been struck by lightning and we’ll come running.”
“If you say so,” said Connelly, and began down the ravine.
He walked along the remains of the gully a ways before spotting them up ahead. They were squatting along the edge of the ditch
where the side had fallen in, brown figures among the dry clay rubble. There were five of them, four men and a woman. He saw
one man’s bright bald head gleaming with his considerable backside turned to him. The three other men scrabbled with tinder
in the ditch. Two
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