Walking Dunes by Sandra Scofield Read Free Book Online Page A

locked up like something in a can. Anyway, he had forgotten her. He had been so wrapped up in his little Fort Stockton fantasies, he had forgotten. Christ.
    â€œMom, I was going to tell you about it. I found her out there. On my way out of town. She was careening all over the landscape with that damned rabbit. She was scared of me, and I didn’t want to grab her like some crook, I went and got a cop, and went on to Fort Stockton.” He felt sheepish, ineffectual. He felt like a reporter who had missed a scoop.
    â€œWonders never cease. You know, she was rigid as a board, eyes off to wonderland, when they hauled her in here.” Marge regarded her son through eyes half-closed to slits. David thought he saw contempt at the corners of her mouth. What did she expect! He wasn’t the nut-nurse in the family! “She’ll probably be here into the week, until she feels stronger. She’s actually a lot better today. I was beginning to wonder. We staffed on her, talked about shipping her off to Wichita Falls. I’m glad we gave it a little more time. Kids are tough, in their own way.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Something happened out there. She’ll be okay, though. She’s lucid. Come up and see her.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œComing up here—it brings out the good part of you, son.”
    â€œGosh, I hope this isn’t what it takes.” He was relieved to hear his mother’s warmer tone return. He felt like a real horse’s ass, but he could make up for it. He would visit Sissy. He would give her some of his TLC. Wasn’t that what all girls wanted, attention? Why wouldn’t it help one that had had her toe in deep water for a while? Give him small enough company, and he was a big shot, just like Saul was always saying.
    His mother was looking at him curiously. Sometimes he thought that she could read his mind—maybe not the words, the actual thoughts, but the caliber of his thinking. She could see his self-centeredness. The way he looked at it, though, he had to be concerned about himself. Nobody else had the same stake in him. Everybody has a streak of crap in them, he thought. Either you hide it, or you find a way to use it.
    â€œHer father had taken her out shooting. He says she got away from him.” Marge put her hands at the top of her forehead and pulled her skin back and up, easing the depth of her wrinkles, giving her the look of someone in a bathing cap. She let go, and her face crumpled back into place. She looked tired.
    â€œSounds like something you’d say about a dog. Maybe he’s the one who’s nuts.”
    â€œMay be . The county is going to put her in a foster home. I suspect there’s a story there.”
    â€œMom, I saw your note about the call.”
    â€œI wrote down what the girl told me. Should I have asked her to spell her name? She was so—not exactly snotty, but— distant? ”
    â€œI don’t know who it could be.”
    â€œShe’ll call you back. Kimber—”
    â€œKimbrough!”
    â€œYes, that’s it.”
    â€œKimbrough’s the name of the fellow who had Ellis and me out to play tennis last May, remember? At the country club?”
    The phone rang and then the woman in lock-up began beating on the door. Marge was busy until they left. David stretched out on the couch in the day room and watched the television with the sound low, until the news was over and Benke turned it off. The man with the long face wandered down and sat in a chair near David. “Sombitches took it all,” he said sadly.
    David said, “I’m sure sorry to hear that, sir,” and closed his eyes. Right away now he could see Glee, naked and sweet, just the way she, would be with him as soon as he felt like himself again.

6.
    David took a quick shower and went to find something to eat. His parents had already settled in at the kitchen table. Saul, now wearing a garish