Free Waiting for Joe by Sandra Birdsell Page B

understands what he means, an assumption that makes Joe uncomfortable.
    “Come on, don’t let me eat all these chips by myself,” Keith says to Joe.
    “I’ll pass.” Joe is light-headed with hunger but he doesn’t want anything from this man other than a lift to Medicine Hat. He sees in the mirror that Bryce is staring at the back of his head with a glimmer of interest. When their eyes meet, Bryce looks away. The highway is mined with numerous spring potholes, crudely and randomly patched.
    “Fine,” Keith says tersely, startling Joe as he snatches up the bag of tacos and flings it into the back seat. “Go ahead, help yourself to a stomach ache.”
    Joe winces, feeling that Bryce has just been clouted one across the side of the head. Moments later the bag crackles and he hears Bryce nibbling at a chip.
    The highway rises in a slight incline that seems higher and longer for the flatness around them. When Joe reaches the crest he sees the alarming blue flash of warning lights, several police cars in the distance, and he drops his speed. The tail lights of vehicles glow as the drivers, like him, begin to slow down.
    “Radar,” Keith says.
    “I’m under the limit,” Joe reassures him. He took the Meridian because it was in the Quonset and not on the lot where there was the chance the owner might go by on the road and see it was missing. But he can’t help his sudden fear that it’s been reported stolen and the police are now looking for him. Two officers randomly direct traffic overto the shoulder. He glances in the rearview mirror and is caught by the alertness—is it anticipation or fear?—in Bryce’s face.
    “Where’s the registration?” Joe asks.
    Keith reaches above him to slide a card from a plastic sleeve on the sun visor, and when he gives it to Joe there’s a slight tremble in his hand.
    Several vehicles are already lined up on the shoulder between the two police cars and an officer stands beside the driver’s door of the first one.
    “Some kind of spot check,” Keith says and as they pass by, he nods and waves at the officer who signals with his arm that they’re to keep moving.
    Joe slips the registration back into the sleeve while Keith drums on the dashboard in a short burst of energy before leaning back again. “I haven’t renewed my licence. I meant to do it before I left Winnipeg, but I ran out of time.”
    Joe lets this pass. “You’re from Winnipeg?”
    “Portage La Prairie. My dad’s got a farm there,” Bryce says. That he’s spoken surprises Joe, and Keith too, given the way he turns to look at the boy.
    “What kind of farming?” Joe asks wondering now why the boy’s parents have allowed him to be absent from school, out on the road, working, and with a character like Keith, friend of the family or not. He’s seen boys the same age as Bryce thinking they’ve got it made because they’ve got a job at a car wash or pumping gas.
    Before Bryce can reply, Keith answers for him. “Yeah, that’s right, his dad is a farmer. Raises llamas
and
a yard full of junk.” He dips forward to turn up the radio in time for the news. “I want to hear this,” he says.
    The top item of the hour is the ongoing police search for the pedophile who has abducted a second boy and is believed to be heading west through Saskatchewan, a description of the van he’s driving, a dark green older model vehicle with a dent in the rear fender; a caution not to approach the man for the sake of the safety of the boys. This is followed by a report of a bombing of a house in Iraq that took the lives of several women and children. Both items incite Keith equally; his expressed revulsion for the pedophile is as vehement as it is for the trigger-happy American military.
    Joe remains silent during Keith’s rant despite all the man’s effort to draw him in. At one point his gaze meets Bryce’s pale and red-rimmed eyes in the mirror, and again the boy turns away to look out the window. Moments later he