All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

15

What they did was they took turns watching us, sitting with their backs against a tree directly across from us, wearing their guns. The night had grown cool. Bad Tiger had his gun on now and his coat, and when I was last aware of one of them on guard, just before I fell asleep, it was him, sitting at the base of a tree across the way looking at us.

Sometime in the night I woke up, but I didn’t open my eyes at first. I just laid there and listened to Jane breathe. She had fallen asleep, and her head had ended up on my shoulder. I could smell her hair. All she had gone through, and she still smelled good. I felt kind of funny, but it was a good kind of funny, and even under the circumstances, it cheered me up a little. My shoulder hurt from the weight of her head, but I didn’t want to do anything to disturb her.

Tony had laid out on the ground in front of us. He had his arm in such a way he could lay his noggin on it. He was sleeping deeply. I could hear his steady breathing.

I looked to see whose shift it was, but there was no one sitting beneath the tree across the way. I moved my eyes without moving my head, saw that both Bad Tiger and Timmy had given up on the guard business and had built a little fire under a tree not too far from the car. It was a cool night, and though I wasn’t miserable, the idea of that fire seemed like a good thing. Not that I was in any frame of mind to get up and go over there and join them.

They were talking softly, but their voices still carried on the night, and I could understand every word. They were talking about somebody called Strangler.

“He took us for a ride,” Timmy said.

“Yeah, well, the ride ain’t over,” Bad Tiger said.

“He took all the money and run out on us, and he’s good and gone. I’d call that ride over.”

“He shouldn’t do a thing like that to Bad Tiger,” Bad Tiger said of himself. “He ought not to have thought he could get away with a thing like that.”

“He did get away with it.”

“Keep talking like that,” Bad Tiger said, “and you’ll be laid out under one of these trees like Buddy.”

“I didn’t mean nothing by it. I’m just saying.”

“And I’m just saying I’m going to catch up with him, and when I do, I wouldn’t want to be Strangler Nugowski. And here’s another thing. That fifty thousand we got. That’s the biggest haul I ever took. That bank must have had every payroll there was in it. Splitting that four ways, that was good money. With Buddy hit like he was, I figured it’d be three ways at some point. But then Strangler run off with the money.”

“Which made it a one-way split,” Timmy said.

“Yeah, but we get it back, it’s a two-way split, and that’s good. He won’t be splitting nothing, but you and me, we’ll take it right down the middle.”

“Unless he’s spent it.”

“He hasn’t spent fifty thousand dollars. A few bucks here and there, but he hasn’t spent it yet. You know what he’s going to do, don’t you?”

“I got an idea.”

“Yeah,” Bad Tiger said, “and if you’re smart, you got the same idea I got.”

“The kid.”

“Yeah, the kid. He thinks he can take that money and use it to get his kid’s foot fixed.”

“I remember—twisted up or something.”

“Clubfooted. They can fix that sometimes, and he wants it fixed. So to get it fixed, he’s got to go back and find her.”

“East Texas,” Timmy said.

“Tyler. I been there. I know where it is. He’ll probably show up there. He goes where he knows. I know that much about him. Eventually, he’ll be there.”

“Way we’re going, we ain’t never going to get there.”

“Take a straight shot, we might not get there either. Cops are all over the place. I figure we’ll run into some at some point, and we do, we got those kids for hostages.”

“What happens when we get to East Texas?” Timmy asked.

“We find Strangler and we get the money.”

“I mean with the kids.”

“Oh,” Bad Tiger said. “I don’t know. We could let them go, or you could shoot them. But you know, I’m thinking about keeping the girl.”

“You’ve gone silly.”

“She’s a looker.”

“There’s lots of lookers,” Timmy said.

“They don’t look like that. I just want to clean her up and get some war paint on her, have her hair fixed, some nice clothes, keep her around for a while.”

“I know what you want. I don’t have to puzzle over what you want. I know.”

“Yeah, well, you’re right,” Bad Tiger said.

“She ain’t nothing but a kid.”

“You sure are standing up for her. A while ago you were a man wanted to shoot her,” Bad Tiger said.

“Not exactly standing up for her, but I know if you take a shine to her, I don’t get to shoot her. And I owe her one.”

Bad Tiger laughed. “She sure laid one into you, didn’t she?”

“It’s not so funny from this end.”

“Yeah, but from my end it’s a riot,” Bad Tiger said. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you’d like to see her cleaned up too, spend a little time with her before you shoot her. How’s that thinking?”

“It’s a thought that might have crossed my mind, but I don’t have to like her to want that. And for me, she don’t even have to be cleaned up. So, yeah. It crossed my mind.”

“Well, uncross the thought,” Bad Tiger said. “She stays with anyone any time at all, it’s me.”