Caught by Lisa Moore Read Free Book Online

possession that came and went in a blink, and Slaney thought that nothing was as it seemed, not ever, and it was better to be on the alert.
    Trust was just another form of laziness and he would not give in to it. He would do what Hearn told him to do for now because he had no choice. But he would not call it trust. He would stay alert to the parallel universes of dark paths and wrong turns. He would calculate if this then that a thousand times a day. Take into account the weakness in every man’s character that could make him swerve or sidestep.
    The dog’s eyes closed again and it nuzzled its head against its owner’s fist.
    You should see him go, the guy said. When he gets in the woods. I get afraid he won’t come back.
    He asked Slaney where he was heading. Slaney told him Alberta.
    Mecca, the guy said. Then he slowed down and pulled over to the side of the empty road and got out of the truck, leaving his door open. He stood in the centre of the road and clapped his hands twice.
    The dog made attempts to jump down from the truck but couldn’t. It was shivering all over. Slaney gave it a little shove and the dog toppled down to the ground with a froggy waggle and shot off to the edge of the road. The driver closed the door of the truck.
    The dog stood absolutely still, lifted its hind leg, and pissed solemnly, its tail out straight and its head lowered as though he understood the ignominy of having been domesticated hundreds of years ago.
    The guy stood at the edge of the road next to his dog with his back to Slaney and pissed along with the dog and shifted, getting himself back together, and he walked into the ditch. He picked up a stick and tossed it into the woods and the dog was gone.
    Then the man stepped into the bushes after the dog. The branches swished and flopped to let him in and closed behind him.
    Just as Slaney realized the man was gone another vehicle came toward the truck, moving at a crawl. It came out of nowhere.
    The last bit of sun flared across the other car’s windshield and Slaney tingled all over with a prescient knowledge that the car would stop a couple of yards away from the truck. It stopped exactly where Slaney had known it would.
    The engine idled and the car didn’t move. Slaney thought of the talk about death and the trapped rat and the man crying without real cause. Even the sharp metal tang in the honey under all the sweetness seemed full of foreboding now.
    Slaney couldn’t see who was driving, or how many there were in the car or even the make. The headlights were white with pink and blue coronas splintering up in the dark and showing the slanting moisture in the air. The darkness clamped around the two yellow aureoles like a vise.
    Slaney had a sense that three or four men would get out with baseball bats and bludgeon him to death.
    What a feeling: to be duped. There’s no mistaking it once the aftermath is upon you. Always a trap of this magnitude is something you step toward. There’s an element of will and submission. But you can’t see it coming. A series of steps that eat each other up like the steps of an escalator, churning forwards and backwards at the same time.
    He glanced behind and there was nothing for miles. The tree branches joined over the dirt road to form a tunnel of brown, granular light.
    Slaney knew at once that he would rather die than go back to jail. That’s what came to him.
    He checked the ignition and saw that the guy had taken the keys. Between the driver’s seat and the emergency brake he noticed a newspaper. He worked it out and flopped it open and there was his own picture taking up half the front page. The flash had made his eyes look black and empty.
    The headline read Escaped Convict David Slaney on the Run.
    Going on about the bloody dead dog, Slaney said to himself. Crying about the dog. He was talking to himself now, speaking out loud without knowing he was doing it.
    Slaney grabbed at the door handle.
    If I were honest with myself, he