Free In An Arid Land by Paul Scott Malone Page A

stopped. The dirt road arched up onto the blacktop, the highway. Something in the silence, the queer stillness, the taut grip of his hands, made her think that he was waiting for her to do something. "I'm late in Bryan," he said.
    She snapped her head toward him. His face was serious, grim amid the spots on his fleshy cheeks, those white bushes above his eyes and the lines above them. "But you said you'd take me."
    "Sorry," he said with a half-glance, like a child's.
    She got out. The car lurched up onto the highway. She walked up, up the arch, and watched it. Crossing the highway, she watched it. The car, wavy as it went away, melted into a shimmer beyond a hill. She started walking. Hurry. Hurry.
    III
    The highway sign said HUNTSVILLE 5. It was cool in the bus the window was streaked with condensation but the air was smoky and musty smelling. Then the narrow road between the trees swept open and became a four-lane, the blacktop lined with yellow stripes. Ruby could see the Interstate up ahead, rising in a camelback. Cars and trucks lumbered by on the overpass. There was someone up there on the shoulder: a woman in bright orange pants. And her arm was out. A hitchhiker, going to Houston.
    Ruby had been to Houston once when she was a girl. She remembered the tall buildings and the traffic downtown, sidewalks clogged with hundreds of people she didn't know. The people walked swiftly and paid no attention to her, even when she was lost. Her daddy had found her, hugged her, when she had been afraid. He took her into a drug store and gave her a dollar. She bought two little Goody barrettes; she still had one of them.
    She glimpsed a sign: HOUSTON 72. Only 70 miles. A shadow darkened the window and the roaring of the bus grew louder as it passed under the Interstate. The woman up above disappeared.
    They were in Huntsville. She had been through Huntsville a few times. The bus turned several corners and then they were on a thoroughfare with businesses and restaurants, traffic. They went under a canopy. The bus stopped, hissed. The driver stood up and stretched, and then everyone started pushing down the aisle.
    Inside the bus station, congested with people, a man told her where the prison was. "Six blocks down, four blocks over."
    She started walking. A clock on a bank showed twelve-fifteen. She walked four blocks and turned into a neighborhood of old houses and old trees, tall and thick. Soon the neighborhood on one side of the street gave way to a high, red-brick wall, each brick separate, clean, outlined with mortar. Atop the wall at a corner was a brick block with a pointed roof, like a garage or a shed. Curly wires hung from it and a man in dark glasses stood under the roof. He seemed to watch her as she walked.
    She came to a place where the wall veered away from the street like an alcove. There was a high gate and another little house with another man in it. The road that led to the gate curved around a flower bed in the middle of the asphalt. She walked in the shadow of the wall until she could no longer see the little house at the gate or the guard who had watched her.
    He'll come soon, she thought, I'll wait. He'll find me.
    Down the street was a vacant lot, grown up with weeds, and she could see the foundation of a torn-down house. At the front of the foundation were the old porch steps, and a rusty bathtub turned upside down. Scruffy hedgerows shielded the lot from the homes next door. Ruby crossed the street and sat down on the steps. It won't be long, she thought, opening her purse and taking out an apple. Mrs. Livermore had said the apples were good this week. She ate the apple and waited.

    The sky shone orange and purple like the wildflowers. The sun had just slipped below the trees. Ruby got up and walked toward the gate in the prison wall. She stopped when she saw the man in the little house. He was busy, a telephone in his hand. Now the guard saw her. She could tell by the tilt of his head, his halted motions.