“Aw, I don’t know if it’d be right, taking you away from your family right before Christmas,” Steve said, his words nice and slow. But a certain tightness around his eyes gave him away at least to me. He didn’t want a normal, as Tarah called them, joining our outcast group.
But he could get over it. We needed someone who could actually get everyone to South Dakota safely. And legally.
The old man’s shoulders lifted and fell. “Only folks I see Christmas Day are John and his wife. And frankly getting out and about on a working vacation would be a real treat.” He hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his stained, worn out jeans. “After working out in the fields most of the year, spending winter all cooped up in this place gets to choking on you after awhile.”
“Well, alright then,” I said with a smile of relief. “You mind adding on your driver’s fee to whatever we owe you, and putting it on this?” I held out Mom’s card.
He took the card but didn’t look at it. “I haven’t said what that fee would be yet.”
“I know. But I’ve got a good feeling about you. You seem the type of man who’ll do right by us. So you go on and put what you feel is fair for a charter with a restroom on it and your time. And of course we’ll cover your food and hotel expenses on the trip too.”
I must have surprised him, because his eyebrows shot up. “Well, that’s real good of you, boy. My name’s Bud Preston, by the way.” He held out his hand.
My insides tried to catch a little as I told him my real name. Would he recognize the connection to my father? But he didn’t hesitate as he shook my hand. I’d learned lately that Dad had been wrong about a lot of things over the years. But right then I hoped he had at least one thing right, that you really could judge a man by the way he shook your hand. If so, then my instincts about this guy were also correct. Bud’s grip was firm despite his years, with none of those power plays of using his free hand to cage mine or grip my arm or shoulder like my father did to voters around election time. Bud’s handshake said he was a simple, honest, strong man, the calluses promising he was also a hard worker.
We’d all have to hope his handshake didn’t lie.
“Well, let’s get this show on the road then!” Bud said, cracking his first smile yet. It transformed him, lighting up his eyes.
Tarah would probably like him a lot.
“What do you say we meet up over in Clemens?” I suggested, naming the neighboring town our group was waiting in. “Our group’s in the Wal-mart parking lot behind the bookstore, if you know where it is?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that sounds real good. Give me, say, forty-five minutes. I’ll get the ole girl warmed up and gassed up, give her a good check up and all that. Maybe run by my house, call my brother and grab some clothes and a razor.”
“If you need longer—” I started to say, sweat sliding down my back at the thought that he might agree.
He waved me off. “Naw, old man like me, I don’t need much for a trip. Besides, we got to get those young ones warm and back on the road.”
“Alright, see you there.” Still smiling, I headed out the building, jumping into the truck with more hope than I’d felt in a long time. Maybe Tarah was right about this positive thinking stuff after all.
Steve wasn’t quite as optimistic, judging by the way he slammed the truck door shut after climbing inside.
As we headed back to our group in the festering silence, I wondered if Steve would continue to hold his tongue or let it all out. Minutes later, I had my answer.
“I guess it was just too much of me to ask you not to make any stupid mistakes back there, huh?”
I counted to five before replying nice and slow. “Something on your mind?”
“Yeah. Your stupidity. Do you want to get us all killed?”
“We need to get there safely. Or do you really have a CDL and know how to drive a bus after all?”
“I could’ve figured it out.” His tone was sullen.
“Before or after causing a wreck? Besides, why break the law if we don’t have to?”
“How do you know he won’t learn the truth and run off to the authorities the first chance he gets?”
“Like I said, it’s a necessary risk. We need him to get us there safely and legally. I’ll make sure to pay him more than enough to keep him quiet.”
Silence.
As we turned off the interstate and headed back into town, he muttered, “Just so you know, if that bus driver finds out the truth and turns us all in, I’ll be holding you one hundred percent responsible.”
“Yeah, you and everybody else,” I muttered.
I eased the truck into the bookstore parking lot and around the building to the back. And got another sucker punch to the gut that robbed me of the ability to breathe.
The military trucks were gone.
Steve cursed loudly.
“Don’t panic,” I said, more to myself than him. “Maybe they had to move the trucks somewhere out of sight nearby.”
We cruised around the store, even checking the nearby Wal-Mart parking area and the neighboring gas stations. No military trucks anywhere.
“Do you think...” His voice trailed off, like he couldn’t stand to even finish the idea. My mind finished it for him, dark possibilities instantly exploding into life fueled by what I’d seen with my own eyes in the last two days. What if they were hauled off by the police? What if...
No. They had to be around here somewhere, or at least had left behind some kind of clue or something to let me know what had happened to them. Tarah would have made sure of it. She would have trusted that I would try to find her.
I turned around in the Wal-Mart parking lot and headed back towards the bookstore again.
“What are you doing? They’re not here!” Steve was definitely panicking now, both hands buried in his hair as he bent over and braced his elbows on his knees.
I didn’t say anything as I slowed the truck to a crawl.
Suddenly, it was as if an invisibility curtain parted behind the bookstore, revealing Tarah’s disembodied head then her floating hand as she cheerfully waved to us from several feet up in the air. What the...?
Steve seemed to understand, though, tearing out of the truck before I even had it fully stopped. I followed a few seconds later as soon as I had the truck parked.