Caught by Lisa Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

said. He had known they’d been travelling toward a reckoning ever since he got in the truck.
    This is it, he said. And he said, I’ll never see her. That’s a shame. That’s a goddamn shame. These were all things he said without knowing he had spoken out loud. He was ready to take off and run as hard as he could but he also found he couldn’t move.
    They would beat him to death, kicking in his skull with their steel-toed boots, they’d smash his kidneys with their fists, or they would bring him back to prison or they’d kill him and put his head on a stick. Of these possibilities he hoped the latter would unfold. Anything but prison.
    If something was going to happen he wanted it to happen right away.
    Then the man broke out of the trees and strode up from the roadside ditch to the window of the waiting vehicle. He leaned in and spoke for a long time to whoever was in there.
    Slaney could make out the man’s silhouette against the graininess of the forest beyond. The guy rested one arm against the roof of the car and his forehead against the arm. He was leaning into the window to speak. He stepped back and held his hands out, offering everything or weighing the odds. Then he leaned in again. It was some kind of argument.
    Finally the man patted the hood over the idling engine. The car lurched forward, spitting gravel, and Slaney saw the driver was a young woman in a white blouse. She didn’t so much as glance his way as she drove past. She looked relieved or maligned.
    The man stood out there in the middle of the road with his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, bathed in her tail lights.
    When the car was long gone the man whistled. The sound blasted out over the trees. The guy got back in the truck and turned it on and touched the horn twice.
    After a wait, the dog rustled through the underbrush and trotted in front of the idling truck and the guy opened the door and the dog scrambled over his lap, stinking of something so vile and strong it made them crank the windows down fast.
    Jesus Christ, the man said. What the hell?
    Must have rolled in something dead, Slaney said. There were nettles tangled in the silk of its ears and belly. The guy shoved the dog away from the gearshift and gunned her. The sharp stink came and went and Slaney realized they’d got used to it in a matter of minutes.
    Got a look at the paper, did you? the guy said. I figured that was you when I saw a fellow standing on the side of the road. Tall as a long, cold glass of water.
    Who was that in the car? Slaney said.
    That was an old girlfriend, the man said.
    She didn’t look that old, Slaney said.
    Things were left up in the air, he said. My name is John Gulliver and I guess you’re David Slaney.
    Why’d you stop for me? Slaney said.
    There’s pigs all over the road, Gulliver said. I like a toke as much as the next guy. Nothing wrong with it.
    Jesus, Slaney said. Then Gulliver said about dishes on the counter at home, piled to the ceiling. He said his wife had never done a load of laundry as long as he’d known her.
    I can’t hack it, he said.
    And that girl in the car, Slaney said.
    These babies were one night’s work, Gulliver said. I made a mistake. He said the girl in the car was a singer. He said he believed you get one love in this life. One love, and that’s it. Lucky to get that.
    The voice on her, he said. He’d had to beg her to come meet him.
    I wanted to hear her say it in her own words, he said. That it was over.
    Did she say it? Slaney asked.
    What you witnessed there, Gulliver said. That was good-bye. She doesn’t want to lay eyes on me ever again. He drove on without speaking. Then he slammed his fist down on the dash.
    Anybody can make a mistake, he said. Am I right? Slaney said it was true.
    But you pay for your mistakes, sure as shit, the man said. Next thing comes the information from my now-wife telling me twins. Not one but two. Rochelle, that was Rochelle in the car. She heard twins and she never looked