Rather than ouching my way back to Justin, I broke into the open, jogged down where he could see me, and beckoned forcefully. “Come on!” I snapped.
“What’s your hurry?”
“I’m hungry! I want to raid their truck!”
By the time he joined me, I was already in the truck bed pushing aside fishing rods to open a tackle box with no idea what I hoped to find. Bait? I didn’t think Justin and I were quite ready to eat worms, especially not plastic ones, which were the only kind I found, along with fishhooks and sinkers and every conceivable lure, including bright-colored tubular foam ones with a fringe, kind of like Nerf squid.
“Get out!” Justin meant this as an expression of excitement, I think, as he reached over my shoulder and picked up an insignificant-looking rectangular object.
“What’s that?”
“An everything tool!” He opened and explored it as he spoke. “Pliers, file, knives, can opener—”
“Why would a guy keep condoms in his tackle box?” I had just found some.
“Because his wife would never look there. Oh, my God!” Justin had opened the other tackle box, and he lifted out a can of “Field’s Pride Whole Kernel Sweet Corn.” Feverishly he applied his can opener to it.
“Okay, why would a guy keep a can of corn in his tackle box?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Bait. Some people use corn on little hooks to catch bream.”
Justin got the can’s lid off, flung it aside, and lifted his find to his mouth with trembling hands. He poured corn into himself almost as if drinking it. Trickles of cloudy liquid ran down his chin.
When he had gulped all he could that way, and lowered the can to poke a grimy finger into it, he noticed me watching him and visibly startled. “I’m sorry! You said you were hungry. Do you want some?”
“No, thanks.” I had to laugh at him even though my gut grumbled painfully. “No, I have the usual feminine fatty deposits to draw on.”
He grubbed the remaining corn kernels out of the can with his finger to eat them, making sure he didn’t miss a single one. Meanwhile, I felt insight forming. When Justin had set the empty corn can aside, I asked, “Did Stoat starve you?”
“Sometimes.” He looked away from me. “Maybe you could find some food up front?”
While he rooted around the truck bed some more, I searched the cab, finding lottery tickets, old and new, cigarette butts in the drink holder, and a filthy greenish item lying on a seat like a road-killed turtle, actually a battered Maypop Goobers baseball cap. And country music CDs in the center console along with all the usual detritus: pennies, toothpicks, three cough drops, rubber bands, greasy terry cloth rags, and a stubby flashlight. With some vague idea it might prove useful, I stuck the flashlight into my shorts pocket, then continued pawing through the truck cab. In some fast-food rubbish on the floor I found a few stale french fries, which I ate with revulsion. With similar revulsion, but knowing what the sun could do to my unprotected face, I jammed the greasy baseball hat onto my head. As an afterthought, I shoved the cough drops into my mouth for the sake of the sugar in them.
Out of the cab and heading back toward Justin, I said, “Okay, while we wait, let’s use the fishing rods and those rubber worms—”
Startled, he interrupted my hunger fantasy of food on the fin in the swollen river. “Wait? What do you mean, wait?”
“Wait for these men to get back so they can take us to the police.”
“We can’t do that! What if Stoat—”
“We’ll hear the van in plenty of time to hide. But if he was going to come here, he’d be here already, don’t you think?”
“I think you’re crazy! This is the first place Unc—Stoat is going to come, even if it’s just to park the van!”
“Like I said, we’ll hide. This blue truck is the first vehicle I’ve seen in this godforsaken swamp and those two Bubbas in the boat are the first people I’ve seen, and I’m not—”
Justin didn’t hear me out. He turned and ran away.
“Wait till I leave them a note at least!” I screamed after him.
He showed no sign of hearing, but sprinted straight up the weedy lane that ran down to the boat ramp.
• • •
Mail carrier Casey Fay Hummel pulled off the road and stopped at the pink house’s mailbox, which like all the rest of them faced inward, with its back side to the road. Looked kind of weird to people who didn’t come from around here, or so they said. Casey Fay had lived in the area all her life, and having the mailbox face away from the road made a lot more sense to her than having to stop on the road to deliver or pick up mail. This way she pulled clear off the pavement, nobody was likely to rear-end her, and she could sit in the driver’s seat, like a sane person, and put the mail into the box from there.