Hit the Ground Running

by Alison Hughes

  Dee hesitated. There was something about this man with the sweaty face and the big smile that made her hesitate. He’s giving orders pretty quick here, she thought. But she was light-headed with pain, desperate to sit down, and they couldn’t get into Great Falls on their own. They didn’t have a lot of options. She reached for the door handle, but Eddie pulled her back, squeezing her hand hard. She felt his sharp nails dig into her palm.

  “You know what, Dee?” he said in a loud, fake voice. “We forgot Auntie Pat! Remember, she’s coming to get us?” He looked at her intently, his eyes widening in warning. “Sorry, mister, we don’t need a ride anymore.” He tugged on Dee’s arm, walking them away from the car, farther down the highway.

  “Sorry,” Dee called back, feeling stupid. Why did she feel a sudden wave of relief that they hadn’t gotten into that car? When they were out of earshot, Dee said, “I know that guy was weird, Eddie, but we actually really do need a ride.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t need one from just anybody. That guy was just…not a good guy. He didn’t even ask us where we were going. And he told me to go in the backseat and you to go in the front. Why couldn’t we both go in the back? And why isn’t he at his job or something?”

  “I don’t know. Isn’t it Saturday? He might be traveling like us.”

  “Didn’t have any luggage or anything. Anyway, he wasn’t…he didn’t…he seemed hungry.” That was true. Dee knew exactly what he meant. She had noticed the man’s bitten-down nails and shiny face and felt his intensity.

  “Yeah, you’re right. We’ll wait for someone else.”

  Dee glanced back over her shoulder. The gray car was still there, the man sitting still, watching them. The highway was deserted.

  “Let’s get going, Eddie.”

  Behind them they heard the car door slam and the man call, “Hey!”

  Eddie looked back.

  “Why has he gotten out of his car, Dee? Why is he calling us?” There was an edge of panic to his voice. Dee turned. The man was staring straight at them, walking toward them.

  “Go away,” shrieked Eddie, his face red, the veins in his neck popping. His whole body went into the yell—he jumped off the ground with it.

  “C’mon.” Dee grabbed his hand. Eddie’s panic had somehow nudged her fear into rage. You don’t care that you’re terrifying a little boy, you asshole. You know it and you don’t even care. I’ve never been in a fight in my life, but I will fight you, I swear to God. I will use every single dirty trick Charlie Rivera taught me after his daughter got groped that time. Sharp knee to the groin. Punch to the throat. Keys slashing eyes. Forehead cracking forehead.

  They were trapped between the highway and the train tracks off to the right. Even if they scrambled over the fence and over the train tracks, there were only a few bushes, a few trees in the distance. There was nowhere to hide, no cover at all. Plus, our chances of getting someone else to help us are zero if we’re over in the bush somewhere. It’d be him against us. Stay on the highway, where someone might see us. We have to stay on the highway. Dee dug in her pocket, threading the car keys through the fingers of her right hand. We are not getting into that man’s car. Never. Eddie was so right...

  The man was still walking toward them, a slight smile on his face now, like he had all the time in the world. Like he was enjoying this.

  “Looks like you need a ride after all,” he called.

  Why is he doing this? Oh, God, what the hell does he want? Dee and Eddie broke into a run, Dee limping painfully. I’m too slow. This is never going to work. I’m going to have to fight him. What if another car comes by, what if he says, “It’s okay, it’s my girlfriend and my kid.” What then? Then he’s got us. I have to talk first, scream, call him out for being a psycho. Think, think…

  “Eddie,” she gasped desperately, “you might have to run for it.” Keep yourself between him and Eddie.

  “No, no, just c’mon!”

  Eddie grabbed her arm and hauled her along like a little dog straining on a leash. Dee glanced back over her shoulder. The man was jogging after them, closing on them. But behind him, a huge truck had just rounded the bend of the highway. As it barreled toward them, Dee shoved Eddie to the shoulder and ran right onto the highway, blocking its path, waving her arms, yelling, “Stop! Stop!”

  This truck will stop for us. It will. It will have to run me down to get by us.

  “It’s stopping, Dee!” shouted Eddie. “The blinker! The innicator! It’s pulling over!” Dee dropped her arms in relief, scuttling back to Eddie.

  The truck’s right indicator was on, and it puffed and wheezed over to the shoulder of the highway. They heard the man behind them yell something unintelligible over the rumbling of the big truck. He had stopped running.

  Dee and Eddie ran toward the truck, Dee gasping at the pain shooting up her leg with each pounding step. When they reached it, the driver was just walking around the front to meet them. A small person, shorter than Dee, hands in sweatpants pockets, wearing a ballcap and enormous wraparound school-bus-driver sunglasses.

  “What’s up, kids? That guy bugging you? You looked pretty frantic there.” The trucker stared over at the man, who had turned and was walking back to his car.

  “Yeah,” gasped Dee. “He stopped to offer us a ride, but he seemed weird so we didn’t want to go with him, and then he started coming after us. Thank you so much for stopping.”

  “That guy’s a creeper,” said Eddie, his face fierce.

  “Jee-zus. Asshole.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Eddie.

  “Our car broke down,” said Dee. “It’s back there.”

  “Sucks. Yeah, saw a broke-down car on the shoulder back there.”

  The man in the car roared past them. His face was set and hard, and he didn’t even glance over at them.

  “Mudded-up plates,” said the trucker. “Not good. Glad you kids trusted your instincts. Got ’em for a reason.”

  The trucker held out a small, surprisingly strong hand.

  “Name’s Murphy. Friends call me Murph.” Dee and Eddie both shook the driver’s hand. “Okay, better hit the road. I’m guessing you were heading into Great Falls. Glad you stopped me. Bad back. Needed a stretch.”

  Dee saw that Eddie was relaxed and happy, eager to climb into the big rig. No spidey senses about this driver, although, objectively speaking, Murph was even weirder-looking than the man in the car. But there were lots of different kinds of weird. Scary-weird was a world away from just odd-weird. Thank you for stopping, Murph, whoever you are.

  Dee grabbed the rail, took a big step with her pulsing foot and pulled herself up awkwardly into the cab after Eddie.

  “It’s like we’re driving a hill,” Eddie said as they looked down at the winding highway snaking in front of them. It was the first time on the entire trip that Dee had really noticed the scenery. She was so glad to rest her foot, and grateful to be a passenger. Relieved to be relieved of responsibility, if only for a little while.

  The cab of the truck smelled of stale coffee and sun on vinyl. A green cardboard car freshener in the shape of a pine tree dangled from the mirror, coughing out the weak remains of its acrid chemical pine smell as it bobbed. A collection of lapel pins, hundreds of them, hung behind the bench seat, affixed to long shoelaces tied down at both ends. They swayed and clicked on bumps and turns. Eddie was mesmerized by the rows of pins: state flags, sports teams, places, festivals, cute sayings. The Denver Broncos logo, the Rolling Stones lips, the Statue of Liberty, Minnie Mouse, Keep Calm and Carry On, Keep On Truckin’. Eddie contributed a small cactus pin that he had on his backpack.

  “We got them free, from school. The saguaro cactus is Arizona’s state plant.”

  “Now that’s one I don’t have. Not one cactus. I know that without even looking. Thank you, little man. Gonna frame all those when I retire and sit still.”

  Eddie, sitting in between Dee and Murph, listened in fascination as Murph grunted out the names of the controls. He looked
at Dee in excitement when the radio crackled. Murph answered it, a quick, gruff, mystifying exchange overriding the wailing country-music CD.

  Dee began noticing billboards along the highway, advertising motels in Great Falls. Free Wi-Fi and Waterslides 10 mins ahead! Ten minutes…

  “So, Murph, where exactly are you headed?” Dee asked, interrupting Eddie’s questions about what kind of cargo Murph carried.

  “North. Canada. Edmonton, this time. Then out east.”

  Dee’s heart leaped. She turned in her seat to face Murph, her face serious and anxious.

  “Murph, can we come with you? To Canada? Just to Calgary. That’s really where we’re heading. I could pay you something. Gas! I could pay for some gas.” How much gas does a monster truck like this gulp? Dee wondered after she said it, her hand absently checking her front pocket.

  Murph looked over at Dee and sighed.

  “Into Canada? Look, don’t want to pry, but you kids just heading on into Canada by yourselves? Where’re your folks?”

  “Long story,” said Dee. “But we’ve got an aunt near Calgary. We really do. In Rolling Wood. They own Rolling Wood Greenhouse and Gardens. She’s expecting us.” Okay, that’s stretching the truth a bit. Poor Auntie Pat doesn’t know what’s coming.

  Murph digested this in silence.

  “You runaways?” Murph asked finally.

  “No!” She and Eddie said it indignantly at the same time. To them, runaways were kids with mean families, kids living on the streets, kids living rough. Tough kids with the courage or the desperation to leave dismal, dangerous situations.

  But an honest little voice inside Dee said, Actually, runaways exactly describes what we are. We’ve run away. We got scared and we ran, and we’ve been living out of our stupid, recently deceased car. But somehow runaway sounds like a word for other kinds of kids from other kinds of families.

  Dee felt an uneasy kinship with the kids she was imagining. It’s not their fault, she thought. I’ll bet it’s almost never the kids’ fault. And yet being called a runaway makes it sound like the kid is the problem.

  “Honestly, Murph, we’re just going up to our aunt’s place. Our dad is coming up later.” This story sounds thinner and thinner the more I tell it. I’m guessing that most normal parents don’t usually send the kids first.

  “Well, look,” Murph said. “Take you to the border crossing. No promises. There’s laws. Especially with kids. They’ll figure it all out.”

  “Thanks,” said Dee. “Thanks a lot, Murph.”

  Eddie found her hand and squeezed it. Things are looking up, the excited squeeze said.

  Dee squeezed his hand back and forced a smile. There’s laws. Especially with kids…Everything, everything hinged on the border crossing.

  How long does it take to find and trace a car abandoned on the side of a highway? How quickly will that be done? I should’ve tried harder to get that license plate off. Please, God, send out some slack-ass state trooper who doesn’t get around to it for a few days, the kind of guy who just lets the old paperwork pile up on his desk…

  What day is today?

  “Eddie, what day is it?”

  “Saturday, July 26, 2014.”

  Murph gave a gruff, snorting laugh at Eddie’s precision.

  Saturday! That might be good. They won’t put out an alert on the car until at least Monday. Nice, scary social worker Susan was supposed to come Friday—was that really only yesterday? So she and her gang of children-rounder-uppers haven’t had much time to put out an alert either. And if they did, would it only be in Arizona, or does that immediately go country-wide?

  There’s laws. Especially with kids…what laws? What laws was Murph talking about? Laws about kids going over the border without their parents, obviously. Laws about kids being taken over the border by other people. All this elaborate, frigging child protection supposedly for our benefit, so why do I keep feeling so completely unsafe?

  Do we get a phone call at the border if they detain us? We must get a phone call. Everyone gets a phone call. I’ve seen the shows. Even hard-core criminals like murderers get a phone call.

  Are Auntie Pat and Uncle Norm back from BC yet? What if they aren’t? Who would…what would…

  The panicky thoughts whirled through Dee’s head behind her blank, impassive face. She stared out the window, chewing the inside of her lip.

  She watched a massive American flag on a hill billow and dance outside of a town called Shelby. The mountains had dwindled into the distance now, and up on a ridge to the left a line of wind turbines rotated slowly—arms outstretched to catch the breeze, falling as they caught it. She heard Eddie ask Murph how they turned “ordinary wind” into “actual electricity.” The turbines looked so lonely up there on the rise, expectant, dependent on the whim of the wind. Dee had never seen one before, but they reminded her of something.

  She puzzled it out, and a few minutes later she had it: they reminded her of the desert, of those lonely, viciously spiked figures with arms raised to the blistering sun.

  Wind turbines: the cacti of the north.

  THE BORDER

  SATURDAY

  Sweetgrass, Montana (USA–Canada border crossing) 7. The sign made Dee’s stomach clench. Only seven miles. Sweetgrass. A pretty name for a seriously scary place.

  Murph made a throat-clearing sound, turned down the music and looked over at Dee through those impenetrable sunglasses.

  “Dee, some advice. Take it or leave it. When we get up there, best be honest with them. They’re trained to sniff out, you know, when people are hiding stuff. Their job. Just tell the truth.”

  “What if the truth is the problem?” Dee asked, trying to make it sound like she was joking.

  Murph considered this. “Well, then you got to lay it on them. Make it their problem.”

  They drove in silence for a few minutes. Eddie was twisted around, strumming the shoelaces of pins like a harp.

  “Hey,” Murph said, “you want to stop at a gas station and give that aunt of yours a heads-up call? I gotta pee anyways.”

  “Yeah, good, that would be great.”

  Murph geared down, and the big truck juddered to a stop at the next gas station. Dee carefully climbed down, gingerly lowering herself onto her right foot. Still throbbing. Eddie launched himself from the seat and landed beside her in an ungainly, clattering free fall from the cab.

  “Need to go, Eddie?” Dee asked.

  “Nah,” he said, watching Murph walk over to the restrooms. “Hey, Dee, is Murph a girl or a boy? Do you know?”

  “I don’t know. Girl, I think.”

  “I think boy,” said Eddie.

  Dee shrugged.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Eddie.

  “Nope. C’mon, let’s find a phone.”

  She gave Eddie money to buy a slush and watched him agonizing over the choices, levering down thin, precise strips of each bright flavor, which, in a few swishes of spoon-straw, would inevitably turn a deep, murky brown. There was no pay phone, but the woman behind the counter said Dee could make a call and even talked to the operator for her about reversing the charges. She handed the phone over to Dee.

  “Just give her the number you want, honey,” she said.

  The phone rang five times before Jake picked it up.

  “Rolling Wood Greenhouse and Gardens,” he said. She started to say, “Hi, Jake,” when the tinny official voice of the operator cut in.

  “I have a Dee Donnelley on the line. Will you accept the charges?”

  “Um, who? Oh, Dee! Yeah, okay, yes, I will accept the charges. Charges accepted.” Jake was making an effort to sound official.

  “Go ahead, please,” said the voice. There was a click, and they were alone on the line. Dee pulled the phone cord as far as it would go, her back turned to the lineup of people paying for gas and junk food. She pressed her right hand over her free ear.

  “Hi, Jake? It’s Dee.”

  “Yeah, I know. The Donnelley part kind of th
rew me there. I thought you were McPherson, like Norm and Pat, but obviously not.”

  “You did great, Jake. Thanks. Look, I’m sorry I keep bugging you. Are they back yet?”

  “Not yet…”

  “Shit. I really, really need to talk to Auntie Pat. Like, you don’t know how much I need to talk to her. We’ll be at the border really soon, and I just…” Dee’s voice thickened and stopped, and she screwed up her eyes to stop the tears. She’s not there, she reminded herself. You can shut up now. And grow up. You can shut up and grow up.

  “Dee? You okay? Yeah, Pat would take on those border patrollers. She’d be the one I’d want too,” said Jake. “Look, what border crossing are you at?”

  “Sweetgrass. That’s Montana. It’s ‘Coots’ or something on the Alberta side. At least, that’s what Murph said.”

  “Who’s Murph?”

  “A trucker who’s giving us a ride. Our car died.” I sound like such a case. I don’t talk like this to anyone else, just blurting things out. What is it about this guy that makes me keep blurting things out? Maybe it’s that he actually listens, poor sucker.

  “Oh, man…”

  “Yeah, just died. I kicked the hell out of the door, probably broke my toe, we almost got picked up by a total psycho, and now we’re heading to the border, where we’ll probably get arrested or something. But other than that, everything’s fine.” She gave a shaky laugh, gripping the phone.

  “Okay, that sounds like a trip from hell. Look, I’ll do what I can, see if I can find Pat. Someone must know where they are. I’ll talk to my parents and the greenhouse manager right away. We’ll find them. Hang in there, okay?”

  I think I love you, Jake.

  “That’s…thanks, Jake.” She saw Murph walk up to Eddie outside the store, saw Eddie hold up his slush for admiration. “I gotta go. Thanks for listening to me. I’m such a whiner.”

  “No, no. All good. It’s not like it’s random whining. Sounds like you got lots to whine about. I’ll whine to you sometime about this cat.”