The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  That didn’t help. I said a prayer under my breath. The truck driver wasn’t to blame, but he took it hard as a Presbyterian. Jesse tried to comfort him, without much luck. The road melted and stank and began to burn. Nobody was drinking, but it was certain-sure we were all more sober than we’d ever been in our lives. Two deputies showed up. Cars drifted in easy, because of the smoke. In a couple of hours, there were probably twenty cars lined up on either side of the wreck.

  “He must of been asleep or drunk,” Jesse said about the driver of the Kaiser. “How in hell can a man run under a tanker truck?”

  When the cops reopened the road, night hovered over the plains. Nobody cared to run much over sixty, even beneath a bright moon. It seemed like a night to be superstitious, a night when there was a deer or pronghorn out there just ready to jump into your headlights. It wasn’t a good night to drink, or shoot pool, or mess around in strange bars. It was a time for being home with your woman, if you had one.

  On most nights, ghosts do not show up beside the metal crosses, and they sure don’t show up in owl light. Ghosts stand out on the darkest, moonless nights, and only then when bars are closed and the only thing open is the road.

  I never gave it a thought. I chased Jesse’s taillights, which on that Lincoln were broad, up-and-down slashes in the dark. Chip sat beside me, sad and solemn. I rubbed his ears to perk him, but he just laid down and snuffled. Chip was sensitive. He knew I felt bad over that wreck.

  The first ghost showed up on the left berm and fizzled before the headlights. It was a lady ghost, and a pretty old one, judging from her long white hair and long white dress. She flicked on and off in just a flash, so maybe it was a road dream. Chip was so depressed he didn’t even notice, and Jesse didn’t either. His steering and his brakes didn’t wave to me.

  Everything stayed straight for another ten miles, then a whole peck of ghosts stood on the right berm. A bundle of crosses shone all silvery white in the headlights. The ghosts melted into each other. You couldn’t tell how many, but you could tell they were expectant. They looked like people lined up for a picture show. Jesse never gave a sign he saw them. I told myself to get straight. We hadn’t had much sleep in the past two nights, and did some drinking the night before. We’d rolled near two thousand miles.

  Admonishing seemed to work. Another twenty minutes passed, maybe thirty, and nothing happened. Wind chased through the open windows of the Desoto, and the radio gave mostly static. I kicked off my boots because that helps you stay awake, the bottoms of the feet being sensitive. Then a single ghost showed up on the right-hand berm, and boy-howdy.

  Why anybody would laugh while being dead has got to be a puzzle. This ghost was tall, with Indian hair like Jesse’s, and I could swear he looked like Jesse, the spitting image. This ghost was jolly. He clapped his hands and danced. Then he gave me the old road sign for “roll ’em,” his hand circling in the air as he danced. The headlights penetrated him, showed tall grass solid at the roadside, and instead of legs, he stood on a column of mist. Still, he was dancing.

  It wasn’t road dreams. It was hallucination. The nighttime road just fills with things seen or partly seen. When too much scary stuff happens, it’s time to pull her over.

  I couldn’t do it, though. Suppose I pulled over, and suppose it wasn’t hallucination? I recall thinking that a man don’t ordinarily care for preachers until he needs one. It seemed like me and Jesse were riding through the Book of Revelations. I dropped my speed, then flicked my lights a couple times. Jesse paid it no attention, and then Chip got peculiar.

  He didn’t bark; he chirped. He stood up on the front seat, looking out the back window, and his paws trembled. He shivered, chirped, shivered, and went chirp, chirp, chirp. Headlights in back of us were closing fast.

  I’ve been closed on plenty of times by guys looking for a ditch. Headlights have jumped out of night and fog and mist when nobody should be pushing forty. I’ve been overtaken by drunks and suiciders. No set of headlights ever came as fast as the ones that began to wink in the mirrors. This Highway 2 is a quick, quick road, but it’s not the salt flats of Utah. The crazy man behind me was trying to set a new land speed record.

  Never confuse an idiot. I stayed off the brakes and coasted, taking off speed and signaling my way onto the berm. The racer could have my share of the road. I didn’t want any part of that boy’s troubles. Jesse kept pulling away as I slowed. It seemed like he didn’t even see the lights. Chip chirped, then sort of rolled down on the floorboards and cried.

  For ninety seconds, I feared being dead. For one second, I figured it already happened. Wind banged the Desoto sideways. Wind whooped, the way it does in winter. The headlights blew past. What showed was the curve of a Hudson fender—the kind of curve you’d recognize if you’d been dead a million years—and what showed was the little, squinchy shapes of a Hudson’s taillights; and what showed was the slanty doorpost like a nail running kitty-corner; and what showed was slivers of reflection from cracked glass on the rider’s side; and what sounded was the drumbeat of a straight-eight engine whanging like a locomotive gone wild; the thrump, bumpa, thrum of a crankshaft whipping in its bed. The slaunch-forward form of Miss Molly wailed, and showers of sparks blew from the tailpipe as Miss Molly rocketed.

  Chip was not the only one howling. My voice rose high as the howl of Miss Molly. We all sang it out together, while Jesse cruised three, maybe four miles ahead. It wasn’t two minutes before Miss Molly swept past that Linc like it was foundationed in cement. Sparks showered like the 4th of July, and Jesse’s brake lights looked pale beside the fireworks. The Linc staggered against wind as Jesse headed for the berm. Wind smashed against my Desoto.

  Miss Molly’s taillights danced as she did a jig up the road, and then they winked into darkness as Miss Molly topped a rise, or disappeared. The night went darker than dark. A cloud scudded out of nowhere and blocked the moon.

  Alongside the road the dancing ghost showed up in my headlights, and I could swear it was Jesse. He laughed like at a good joke, but he gave the old road sign for “slow it down,” his hand palm-down like he was patting an invisible pup. It seemed sound advice, and I blamed near liked him. After Miss Molly, a happy ghost seemed downright companionable.

  “Shitfire,” said Jesse, and that’s all he said for the first five minutes after I pulled in behind him. I climbed from the Desoto and walked to the Linc. Old Potato dog sprawled on the seat in a dead faint, and Jesse rubbed his ears trying to warm him back to consciousness. Jesse sat over the wheel like a man who had just met Jesus. His hand touched gentle on Potato’s ears, and his voice sounded reverent. Brother Jesse’s conversion wasn’t going to last, but at the time, it was just beautiful. He had the lights of salvation in his eyes, and his skinny shoulders weren’t shaking too much. “I miss my c’har,” he muttered finally, and blinked. He wasn’t going to cry if he could help. “She’s trying to tell me something,” he whispered. “Let’s find a bar. Miss Molly’s in car heaven, certain-sure.”

  We pulled away, found a bar, and parked. We drank some beer and slept across the car seats. Nobody wanted to go back on that road.

  * * *

  When we woke to a morning hot and clear, Potato’s fur had turned white. It didn’t seem to bother him much, but, for the rest of his life, he was a lot more thoughtful.

  “Looks like mashed Potato,” Jesse said, but he wasn’t talking a whole lot. We drove home like a couple of old ladies. Guys came scorching past, cussing at our granny speed. We figured they could get mad and stay mad, or get mad and get over it. We made it back to Jesse’s place about two in the afternoon.

  A couple of things happened quick. Jesse parked beside his house trailer, and the front end fell out of the Lincoln. The right side went down, thump, and the right front tire sagged. Jesse turned even whiter than me, and I was bloodless. We had posted over a hundred miles an hour in that thing. Somehow, when we crawled around underneath inspecting it, we missed something. My shoulders and legs shook so
hard I could barely get out of the Desoto. Chip was polite. He just yelped with happiness about being home, but he didn’t trot across my lap as we climbed from the car.

  Nobody could trust their legs. Jesse climbed out of the Linc and leaned against it. You could see him chewing over all the possibilities, then arriving at the only one that made sense. Some hammer mechanic bolted that front end together with no locknut, no cotter pin, no lock washer, no lock-nothin’. He just wrenched down a plain old nut, and the nut worked loose.

  “Miss Molly knew,” Jesse whispered. “That’s what she was trying to tell.” He felt a lot better the minute he said it. Color came back to his face. He peered around the corner of the house trailer, looking toward Miss Molly’s grave.

  Mike Tarbush was over there with his ’48 Roadmaster. Matt Simons stood beside him, and Matt’s ’56 Dodge sat beside the Roadmaster, looking smug; which that model Dodge always did.

  “I figger,” Brother Jesse whispered, “that we should keep shut about last night. Word would just get around that we were alkies.” He pulled himself together, arranged his face like a horse trying to grin, and walked toward the Roadmaster.

  Mike Tarbush was a man in mourning. He sat on the fat trunk of that Buick and gazed off toward the mountains. Mike wore extra-large of everything, and still looked stout. He sported a thick red mustache to make up for his bald head. From time to time, he bragged about his criminal record, which amounted to three days in jail for assaulting a pool table. He threw it through a bar window.

  Now his mustache drooped, and Mike seemed small inside his clothes. The hood of the Roadmaster gaped open. Under that hood, things couldn’t be worse. The poor thing had thrown a rod into the next county.

  Jesse looked under the hood and tsked. “I know what you’re going through,” he said to Mike. He kind of petted the Roadmaster. “I always figured Betty Lou would last a century. What happened?”

  There’s no call to tell about a grown man blubbering, and especially not one who can heave pool tables. Mike finally got straight enough to tell the story.

  “We was chasing the Dog,” he said. “At least I think so. Three nights ago over to Kalispell. This Golden Hawk blew past me sittin’.” Mike watched the distant mountains like he’d seen a miracle, or else like he was expecting one to happen. “That sonovabitch shore can drive,” he whispered in disbelief. “Blown out by a damn Studebaker.”

  “But a very swift Studebaker,” Matt Simons said. Matt is as small as Mike is large, and Matt is educated. Even so, he’s set his share of fence posts. He looks like an algebra teacher, but not as delicate.

  “Betty Lou went on up past her flat spot,” Mike whispered. “She was tryin’. We had ninety on the clock, and The Dog left us sitting.” He patted the Roadmaster. “I reckon she died of a broken heart.”

  “We got three kinds of funerals,” Jesse said, and he was sympathetic. “We got the no-frills type, the regular type, and the extra-special. The extra-special comes with flowers.” He said it with a straight face, and Mike took it that way. He bought the extra-special, and that was sixty-five dollars.

  Mike put up a nice marker:

  1948–1961

  Roadmaster two-door—Betty Lou

  Gone to Glory while chasing The Dog

  She was the best friend of Mike Tarbush

  Brother Jesse worked on the Lincoln until the front end tracked rock solid. He named it Sue Ellen, but not Miss Sue Ellen, there being no way to know if Miss Molly was jealous. When we examined Miss Molly’s grave, the soil seemed rumpled. Wildflowers, which Jesse sowed on the grave, bloomed in midsummer. I couldn’t get it out of my head that Miss Molly was still alive, and maybe Jesse couldn’t, either.

  Jesse explained about the Lincoln’s name. “Sue Ellen is a lady I knew in Pocatello. I expect she misses me.” He said it hopeful, like he didn’t really believe it.

  It looked to me like Jesse was brooding. Night usually found him in town, but sometimes he disappeared. When he was around, he drove real calm and always got home before midnight. The wildness hadn’t come out of Jesse, but he had it on a tight rein. He claimed he dreamed of Miss Molly. Jesse was working something out.

  And so was I, awake or dreaming. Thoughts of the Road Dog filled my nights, and so did thoughts of the dancing ghost. As summer deepened, restlessness took me wailing under moonlight. The road unreeled before my headlights like a magic line that pointed to places under a warm sun where ladies laughed and fell in love. Something went wrong, though. During that summer the ladies stopped being dreams and became only imagination. When I told Jesse, he claimed I was just growing up. I wished for once Jesse was wrong. I wished for a lot of things, and one of the wishes came true. It was Mike Tarbush, not me, who got in the next tangle with Miss Molly.

  Mike rode in from Billings, where he’d been car shopping. He showed up at Jesse’s place on Sunday afternoon. Montana lay restful. Birds hunkered on wires, or called from high grass. Highway 2 ran watery with sunlight, deserted as a road ever could be. When Mike rolled a ’56 Merc up beside the Linc, it looked like Old Home Week at a Ford dealership.

  “I got to look at something,” Mike said when he climbed from the Mercury. He sort of plodded over to Miss Molly’s grave and hovered. Light breezes blew the wildflowers sideways. Mike looked like a bear trying to shake confusion from its head. He walked to the Roadmaster’s grave. New grass sprouted reddish green. “I was sober,” Mike said. “Most Saturday nights, maybe I ain’t, but I was sober as a deputy.”

  For a while, nobody said anything. Potato sat glowing and white and thoughtful. Chip slept in the sun beside one of the tabbies. Then Chip woke up. He turned around three times and dashed to hide under the bulldozer.

  “Now, tell me I ain’t crazy,” Mike said. He perched on the front fender of the Merc, which was blue and white and adventuresome. “Name of Judith,” he said about the Merc. “A real lady.” He swabbed sweat from his bald head. “I got blown out by Betty Lou and Miss Molly. That sound reasonable?” He swabbed some more sweat and looked at the graves, which looked like little speed bumps on the prairie. “Nope,” he answered himself, “that don’t sound reasonable a-tall.”

  “Something’s wrong with your Mercury,” Jesse said, real quiet. “You got a bad tire, or a hydraulic line about to blow, or something screwy in the steering.”

  He made Mike swear not to breathe a word. Then he told about Miss Molly and about the front end of the Lincoln. When the story got over, Mike looked like a halfback hit by a twelve-man line.

  “Don’t drive another inch,” Jesse said. “Not until we find what’s wrong.”

  “That car already cracked a hundred,” Mike whispered. “I bought it special to chase one sumbitch in a Studebaker.” He looked toward Betty Lou’s grave. “The Dog did that.”

  The three of us went through that Merc like men panning gold. The trouble was so obvious we missed it for two hours while the engine cooled. Then Jesse caught it. The fuel filter rubbed its underside against the valve cover. When Jesse touched it, the filter collapsed. Gasoline spilled on the engine and the spark plugs. That Merc was getting set to catch on fire.

  “I got to wonder if The Dog did it,” Jesse said about Betty Lou after Mike drove away. “I wonder if the Road Dog is the Studebaker type.”

  * * *

  Nights started to get serious, but any lonesomeness on that road was only in a man’s head. As summer stretched past its longest days, and sunsets started earlier, ghosts rose beside crosses before daylight hardly left the land. We drove to work and back, drove to town and back. My job was steady at a filling station, but it asked day after day of the same old thing. We never did any serious wrenching; no engine rebuilds or transmissions, just tuneups and flat tires. I dearly wanted to meet a nice lady, but no woman in her right mind would mess with a pump jockey.

  Nights were different, though. I figured I was going crazy, and Jesse and Mike were worse. Jesse finally got his situation worked out. He claimed Miss Molly was protecting h
im. Jesse and Mike took the Linc and the Merc on long runs, just wringing the howl out of those cars. Some nights, they’d flash past me at speed no sane man would try in darkness. Jesse was never a real big drinker, and Mike stopped altogether. They were too busy playing road games. It got so the state cop never tried to chase them. He just dropped past Jesse’s place next day and passed out tickets.

  The dancing ghost danced in my dreams, both asleep and driving. When daylight left the land, I passed metal crosses and remembered some of the wrecks.

  Three crosses stood on one side of the railroad track, and four crosses on the other side. The three happened when some Canadian cowboys lost a race with a train. It was too awful to remember, but on most nights, those guys stood looking down the tracks with startled eyes.

  The four crosses happened when one-third of the senior class of ’59 hit that grade too fast on prom night. They rolled a damned old Chevrolet. More bodies by Fisher. Now the two girls stood in their long dresses, looking wistful. The two boys pretended that none of it meant nothin’.

  Farther out the road, things had happened before my time. An Indian ghost most often stood beside the ghost of a deer. In another place a chubby old rancher looked real picky and angry.

  The dancing ghost continued unpredictable. All the other ghosts stood beside their crosses, but the dancing ghost showed up anywhere he wanted, anytime he wanted. I’d slow the Desoto as he came into my lights, and he was the spitting image of Jesse.

  “I don’t want to hear about it.” Jesse said when I tried to tell him. “I’m on a roll. I’m even gettin’ famous.”

  He was right about that. People up and down the line joked about Jesse and his graveyard business.