All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

44

I woke Tony and pulled him off the couch, and we caught up with Jane as she was leaving the carnival lot. The carny we had first spoke to crossed our path on the way out.

He said, “He going to treat you right?”

“No,” Jane said, pausing. “I don’t believe he is.”

“I’m sorry,” the carny said. “That isn’t very stand-up.”

“No,” Jane said, “it isn’t.”

“I know it don’t help much, but here,” said the carny, and gave her a handful of tickets. “These will get you and your friends in, and give you all the rides you want.”

“Thanks,” said Jane, and she stuffed them in her pants pocket, headed across the street to where the truck was parked.

When we were all in the truck, I said, “I didn’t mean to make you mad back there.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “It isn’t you. I figured it was going to be like in a picture show where we save someone’s life, and his kid gets her foot fixed, and so on. I was expecting a happy ending. Now he’ll just get shot and nobody’s foot got fixed.”

“None to fix,” I said.

“That’s what’s disappointing,” Jane said. “Strangler is just like you said. He’s a big idiot. Let’s get out of here. He’s made his bed, now he can lie in it. Let’s go back to Tyler.”

“We going to look for your relatives now?” I said.

Jane sighed. “About that. We don’t really have any relatives here in East Texas.”

“We don’t?” Tony said.

“No, we don’t,” Jane said. “I made that up.”

“That ain’t right, Jane,” said Tony. “I knew that, I’d have stayed with that nice lady.”

“I wanted us to all go together,” Jane said. “I wanted there to be a place we were going.”

“That’s pretty low, Jane,” I said.

“I know,” Jane said. “I’m pretty low.”

“You’re the worst sister ever,” Tony said.

“I’m sure someone can find someone worse,” Jane said, “but certainly I’ll be getting no rewards for my sisterly manners.”

I stopped at a store between Lindale and Tyler with a Coca-Cola machine out front. Jane gave me three nickels, and I used them to get us each a Coca-Cola. We sat on the curb and drank them. Across the street, we could see a billboard with Strangler’s name on it. This one also had his picture, same one that was on the side of his trailer.

“They probably been all over East Texas looking for him,” I said, “and Strangler has been out of town. But a carnival ain’t hard to follow. Might as well be a brass band. If they’re going to catch up with him, this would be the place.”

“If they’re smart,” Jane said, “they haven’t been following him at all. They know the carnival is going to come through this area eventually, so all they got to do is hole up and wait, and it’s all over but the dirt in the face.” She took a big swig of her Coca-Cola. “Dang it,” she said. “We ought to go back and talk to him again. Get him to run or go to the cops. We can’t just leave him, and us knowing what’s going to happen. We got to convince him.”

“Well, we got carnival tickets,” Tony said.