Free The Truth of the Matter by John Lutz Page A

stuff and supplies and just take it easy.”
    Roebuck touched the hot tip of the lighter to his cigarette. “I don’t think much of the idea. We should move, put miles behind us….”
    “But that’s what everybody does who runs from the law. It’s just human nature, and they know it. But don’t you know that they can radio ahead, that they’re all across the country, that what we’re running from keeps moving right along with us?”
    That was sure as hell true, Roebuck thought. It followed, it waited ahead of them, like the sun, slowly passing them at thousands of miles an hour to wait for them on the other horizon.
    “Anyway,” Ellie said, “it’d be good for you. You’re too nervous, Lou. Always worrying about who’s behind us on the highway, where we’re going to eat, how we’re going to steal another car….”
    “It would solve that problem,” Roebuck said; “We wouldn’t have to steal another car for a while.” He’d been worrying about that.
    “And nobody’d notice out of state license plates at a place like that,” Ellie said. “They’d just think we came here to do some fishing.”
    “I don’t like to be trapped, though,” Roebuck said tensely. “I don’t like to be walled up.”
    “That’s just a feeling, Lou. You’d be safer where nobody could see you than moving along out here on the highway in a stolen car.”
    “Understand,” Roebuck said, “it’s not just me I’m thinking of.”
    “I know, Lou.” Ellie touched his knee with her fingertips.
    Ahead of them was another wooden sign, like the first only bigger. The letters were freshly painted on this one, and beneath LAKE CHIPPEWA was an arrow pointing up a narrow dirt road.
    “Whatever you want, Lou.”
    The sign flashed past.
    After a few minutes Roebuck said, “It sure would be a relief not to have to keep looking in this rear view mirror.”
    Ellie was silent.
    “We could go back,” Roebuck said thoughtfully. “We could lay low for a while and listen to the radio, wait for things to loosen up.”
    “It’s up to you, Lou.”
    Roebuck slowed the car.
    “Lake Chippewa,” Ellie said, “that’s Indian.”
    “I know,” Roebuck said absently. “My mother was half Pawnee.”
    He stepped down resolutely on the accelerator.
    “What are we going to do, Lou?”
    “We’ll stop at the next place we see where there’s a big store or shopping center and buy some fishing gear, then we’ll go back to Lake Chippewa and look over those cabins.”
    They stopped at Millbrook, fifteen miles farther down the highway. There was a good-sized department store there, with a big sporting goods section. Roebuck and Ellie were examining some casting rods when a smiling sales clerk approached them.
    “Those are the best for the price,” the clerk said earnestly. He was a middle-aged man with a seamed face and horn-rimmed glasses.
    “I like this one,” Roebuck said knowledgeably, choosing another rod. “Plenty of whip to it. We’ll take two of these.”
    The clerk beamed. “All right, sir, anything else?”
    “Some fishing flies,” Roebuck said, “and a tackle box—and I’ll take one of those hats with the mosquito net hanging from the brim.”
    “Yes, sir! That’ll keep the pesky devils away from your face and neck!” The clerk rushed to gather things up and display a case of colorful flies to Roebuck.
    “Now this is the bait that gets results,” he said, pointing to a particularly repulsive one. “Wonder Worm! We’ve had nothing but raves from our customers who’ve tried it. It’s especially good for trout.”
    “I’ll take two,” Roebuck said, “and two of the spotted dragonflies, and one of the minnows that you put the little pill in to make their tail wiggle.”
    The clerk stared through his horn-rimmed glasses. “Do you do much fishing, sir?”
    “Not freshwater,” Roebuck said casually, “mostly sword-fish.”
    The clerk hurried to get the flies Roebuck had requested.
    Roebuck paid cash and watched