“Like what?”
“We didn’t exactly walk home together.”
“Right. You split up at her corner.”
“Well, that’s not exactly the way it happened.”
“Exactly how did it happen?”
“We actually split up ... back at Janks Field.”
“What?”
He shrugged his bare, freckled shoulders and held out his hands, palms upward as if feeling for raindrops. But there was no rain. “Thing is, Slim wouldn’t leave.”
“What?”
“Well, we were up on the roof of the snack stand, you know.”
“Where you were supposed to stay,” I reminded him.
“Well, that’s the thing. Slim did stay. But I didn’t. When we heard these engine noises, we looked over the top of the sign and pretty soon here comes this hearse outa the woods. I go something like, ‘Oh, shit, it’s them.’ But Slim goes, ‘Hey, all right!’ like she’s excited about it. The dog goes running over to bark at the hearse, so I tell Slim we’d better head for the hills while the gettin’s good. Only she won’t do it. She says there’s no reason to run away, and besides, you’ll get all bent outa shape if you come back looking for us and we aren’t there.”
“So you ran away without her?”
“She refused to leave. What was I supposed to do?”
“Stay with her!”
“Hey, man, it was her choice to stay.”
“It was your choice to run.”
“She told me to go on without her. ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ That’s what she said. She also said, ‘Maybe I can get a look at Valeria and see who wins the bet.’ So I jumped down and that’s the last I saw of her.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“She planned to wait for you, man. I figured that’s exactly what she did do. When you came driving up to your place with Lee, I figured Slim was gonna be with you.”
“She wasn’t on the roof.”
“Yeah, I know, I know.”
“So why’d you lie?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was whiny. “I figured ... if you found out I’d left her there, you’d give me all sorts of shit about it....”
I almost slugged him in the face, but the sight of my raised fist put such fear in his eyes that I couldn’t go through with it. I lowered my arm. I shook my head. I muttered, “You left her there.”
“You left both of us.”
“That was to get help, you idiot. Don’t you know the difference ?”
“Nobody made her stay behind.”
“So where the hell is she?” I blurted.
“How should I know?”
“Damn it!”
“I thought she’d be at her house by the time we got there.”
“Well, she wasn’t,” I snapped. I gave Rusty a scowl, then started walking away. He stuck with me, walking by my side, his head down.
After a while, he said, “Look, she’s gotta be somewhere. She wasn’t on the roof of the shack when you and Lee got there, so she must’ve jumped down sometime after I did. She probably ran into the woods....”
“Then why isn’t she home yet?”
“Maybe she hung around to keep an eye on things. And to wait for you to show up.”
“But I did show up.”
“Maybe she’d quit by then and started for home.”
“Then where is she?”
“On her way?” he suggested.
“It’s not that far. Lee and I left Janks Field—must’ve been a couple of hours ago.”
“Hour and a half?”
“Whatever, Slim had more than enough time to get home.”
“Maybe we just haven’t looked in the right place yet.”
“She’d be looking for us! And she would’ve found us a long time ago if she’d made it back to town. Which means she didn’t.”
“So what do you think happened?” Rusty asked.
Shaking my head, I told him, “Somehow, she’s out of commission.”
“Huh?”
“Too weak to travel. Passed out. Trapped somehow. Maybe even a prisoner. Or worse.”
“Worse like what?”
“Do I have to spell it out?”
“You mean like raped and murdered?”
Hearing him speak the words, I cringed. “Yeah. Like that.”
We walked in silence for a while. Then Rusty said, “I bet it’ll turn out that she’s fine.”