Dakota Blues (20 page)

“I wouldn’t want to be around when she wakes up,” Frieda said, sipping her tea as Karen converted the dinette to a bed.

“That won’t be for a long time.”

“Things have really changed. When Russell and I used to travel, people were nicer.” Frieda chewed, staring into the middle distance. “I’m almost glad he’s not around to see this.”

“It was just bad luck. Last night was good, most of it anyway. Mae was nice.” Karen forced a smile. She felt bloated and headachey, and her cramps were back.

Frieda brushed her teeth in the tiny bathroom and climbed into bed. “Heck of a last night.”

“I know. I’m sorry it worked out this way.” Karen put another blanket atop the older woman.

“You did your best.” Frieda burrowed under the covers while Karen assembled her own bed, layering a couple of blankets over the sleeping bag and carefully climbing in. She switched off the light and closed her eyes, wishing she had driven into town and found a café instead of subjecting them to Barb. She double-rolled a thin pillow, trying to ease the tension in her neck. “Frieda? Are you warm enough?”

“Fine.”

Karen pulled the curtain away from the window and peered upward toward the moon, a sliver in the east. The wind began to die, and the dark campground grew silent except for a distant barking dog. A sodium lamp hanging near the office flickered greenish-white, the camp’s only illumination.

She let the curtain fall back and pulled on another blanket. If Cheyenne was like this in the summer, what was winter like? Under the massive pile of cloth, she began to relax in the growing warmth, until she remembered Steve, and the fact that she needed to call him. She wanted to hold him off as long as possible without appearing punitive, thereby losing ground at the negotiating table.

As she thought about her arguments, though, punitive looked more enticing. If not for his wandering libido, she’d still have a home and financial security during her unemployment. Now she didn’t even have that.

A cramp made her wince. The thought of wringing cash from Steve didn’t feel good even if he deserved to be punished. It wasn’t her way.

Maybe it should be. Maybe I’m being too nice.

She needed to stay positive. Good news was just around the corner. One day soon, a call or some kind of referral would come through, and then she’d be back at work. Her lengthy list of contacts would pay off and she’d be working at another big corporation. Another spasm twisted her gut.

Or not. The economy wasn’t getting any better. The unemployment lines were getting longer. Maybe she should think about another line of work? She knew a colleague who went from selling corporate print jobs to selling a dozen different kinds of pipe for natural gas drilling, and that woman loved it. What else could Karen do?

She pulled the blankets up higher, frowning. She didn’t want to do anything new. She loved human resources. If Steve had only honored his vows, she wouldn’t have to think about reinventing herself.

Reinvention. What a load of crap. She didn’t want to reinvent herself. She had worked too hard to invent herself. Reinvention might be a fun choice if you were bored with your life, but for Karen it held no appeal. She wanted her old life.

But she had to be realistic. At the age of fifty, it was only due to unbridled optimism that she called herself middle-aged. Maybe she should accept she was on the downhill slope, too old to change. Maybe she should accept a check from Steve, find an apartment somewhere, and start learning how to live alone.

She turned over, feeling too warm now, and fear crept into her heart. The world was a scary place. People got lonely and sick and old. They died. It was hard enough if you were part of a team, taking care of each other. What would it be like if you were alone, maybe in a new place where you knew no one?

She thought of Curt, and threw off a couple of covers. Hot sex– would she have to live without it? At least now she knew nothing was wrong with the way her body worked. If anything, it was better than ever, something she would never have realized were it not for the randy professor. The man shook her right down to her toenails. She would have to give that up, because no way was she looking for male companionship in the pink-hands metropolis of Newport Beach. Nobody there was interested in a fifty-year old woman. At her age, it wasn’t going to happen.

The thought pissed her off, or maybe it was the blankets–she couldn’t get comfortable, and now she felt sweaty and hot. She kicked off a few more layers, but it didn’t help, so she kept peeling off blankets until she was completely uncovered. Her skin was so hot it felt as if it glowed, and the air in the van was barely above freezing. The sleeping bag felt hot against her back, and her face and ears burned. I shouldn’t have had that last margarita, she thought, opening the window and letting in a stream of icy air. The sensation gave her relief for five seconds. Then sweat beaded on her forehead, and a furnace roared to life on her chest.

She scrambled out of bed wearing only a tee shirt and panties, tiptoed to the door and went down the steep aluminum steps, barefoot, nearly naked. The lights were still on in Barb’s coach, but the rest of the campground remained deserted. A raccoon dropped a trashcan lid over by the restroom, and a pack of coyotes called to each other from the distant fields. In the glare of the sodium lamp, Karen wiped her forearm across her face, slick with sweat.

She pressed her back against the searing cold metal of the van, enduring her very first hot flash and the realization of her own pointless mortality.

.

Chapter Twenty-Six

T
he next morning, Karen dragged boxes of mementoes from the van.

“You planning a yard sale?” Frieda stood in the door, blinking.

“I’m reorganizing for when we get to Denver.”

“What a mess. Where’s my overnight case? I have to go to the ladies’ room.”

“Right there on the front seat.” Karen went back to unloading the boxes of photo albums and paraphernalia. In the two days they’d been on the road, the van had become cluttered and she didn’t want to have to repack everything in Sandy’s driveway. Plus the spoilage in the small refrigerator had stunk up the place. She heard the distant sound of the restroom door slamming in the crisp, high-desert air.

Karen swathed the poppyseed grinder in a towel and returned it to a cabinet. Outside, dried leaves scrabbled past in the chill wind. Across the deserted campground, the store was closed and the office wouldn’t open until noon, today being Sunday. Barb had decamped hours ago in her big motor coach. Karen had been awakened by the slamming of doors and ring of hardware until the rig rumbled past in the dark.

She reached for a box of her mother’s needlework, but stopped at the sound of voices. Peering around the van, she saw a pocked and peeling Ford Bronco had pulled into a campsite next to the restroom. A man in a hooded sweatshirt hunched against the wind, firing up a pipe while his friend waited. A third man unzipped his slacks and relieved himself against the restroom wall.

The driver, a shirtless skinhead in a leather vest, hopped up on the table top and began dancing and playing air guitar to the asskicking concert in his brain. He screamed the lyrics, pausing only to finish the beer and heave the bottle against the wall. The urinator jumped up on the table as if to punch him, but the skinhead kicked him in the chest and danced away.

Karen ducked behind the van. After living in southern California for almost three decades, she knew well enough the behavior of urban wildlife. Best to lay low and hope they didn’t get curious about the Roadtrek or its occupants.

But what the hell was taking Frieda so long? Karen snuck another look as the skinhead leapt to the ground. He bounded over to an empty metal trashcan and, shouting at no one in particular, picked it up and heaved it against the wall of the restroom. The small building seemed to shudder, the noise echoing through the campground.

Frieda would hide, afraid to come out. Karen wanted to go get her and hurry out of the camp, but what would the men do when she appeared? She touched the edge of her sweatshirt, measuring its length in relation to the coverage it would afford her hips.

Not good. She pulled the hood up over her head, hiding her blond hair. Maybe she could get in the van, drive over, and pick Frieda up.

The skinhead strutted to the back of the Bronco and opened the tailgate. A dozen empty beer bottles fell to the blacktop. He picked up an armful that hadn’t shattered, lined them up in the roadway, and pulled a gun from his waistband.

Hiding behind the van, Karen flinched as the gun roared twice. She cursed her stupidity. Back in Dickinson, she had refused when Curt tried to give her his pistol. What would she do with a gun, she’d asked, laughing? She hated guns. A cop friend had taken her to a range one time, intent on teaching her to shoot, but her hands had shaken so badly she gave up.

When the gun’s report faded, she took another peek. Having hit everything he aimed at, he was lining up another dozen bottles, and judging from the whooping and yelling, his friends were loving it. Her heart raced as she tried to think of how to get Frieda out of harm’s way.

Then the restroom door slammed.

The men stopped what they were doing to watch Frieda limp toward the RV. She walked with her head down and her shoulders hunched forward, picking her way across the uneven blacktop.

One of the men fell in behind Frieda and began mimicking her halting gait. Frieda, clutching her overnight bag, churned toward the van, ignoring their howls and taunts. Karen watched in horror. The old lady was almost ninety, and barely four-eleven.

The man reached for Frieda’s bag.

“No!” Frieda held on to one end of the strap.

“Come on, grandma, gimme the purse.” The man flashed a knife.

“I will not! Let go, you creep!”

“Ya old bitch!” The man screamed and fell to the pavement as a jet of bear spray hit him in the face. Karen stepped over him and gathered Frieda under her arm, all but carrying her to the van. Jumping into the driver’s seat, she stuck the key in the ignition as one of the men emptied a beer into the downed man’s face.

“Lock your door. Seatbelt!” Karen started the motor. Thirty feet in front of the van, the skinhead stood in the roadway, his vest blowing open in the breeze. He fondled his bare belly, eyes cold as hematite. Slowly he raised the pistol.

“Get down!” Karen slammed the shifter into gear and stomped on the gas pedal. For one sickening moment the motor lugged. Then it caught and hurled the RV toward the men. She heard the gun fire as the men scattered and the van blew through them toward the gate. Seconds later, she heard a boom and a thunk at the rear of the van.

“Goddamn it! They hit us.”

Frieda cowered in her seat. Karen whipped the RV around the corner, out the gate and onto the narrow highway. The road was clear in both directions as she accelerated south. Hopefully they’d take the man for medical help instead of chasing her. She glanced in the mirror. Nothing yet. She took a ragged breath, trying to calm herself.

Nothing in her life had prepared her for being shot at. All she could do was run. In seconds the van reached top speed. Karen breathed a prayer of thanks to Russell for keeping the van in mint condition until the day he died. She glanced at Frieda. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. Where’s our stuff?” The back of the van was empty.

“God.” Karen’s face fell. “It’s back there. I had to leave it.” The needlepoint. The photo albums.

“Don’t think about it. Just drive.” Frieda clutched her bag in her lap.

Karen took a deep breath for courage. “Okay. I don’t think they’ll chase us. That Bronco’s a piece of shit, and we got a head start.” Fired by adrenaline, she couldn’t stop babbling. “We’ll find a place with a lot of people. Hide. Call the police.”

“We should have gone north.”

With sickening clarity, Karen saw that Frieda was right. Heading toward the far-distant Denver, the land was deserted in every direction. At least in Cheyenne, they might have made it to a mini-mart or gas station. She checked the rearview again.

The Bronco turned onto the road behind them.

Her stomach lurched as she saw it accelerate. The front of the Bronco lifted as it raced toward the van. Karen gritted her teeth. Of course it would be fast. They probably did this for a living. She pressed harder on the accelerator, trying to keep the van steady on the narrow road. Luckily she had a tailwind, but so did they. Behind her the Bronco closed in, its massive grille a metallic snarl.

“Get my phone out of my purse! Dial 9-1-1.”

“Where is it?”

“Under your seat.”

Frieda opened the bag, fumbled around inside, and found the phone. Bouncing around, she flipped it open, squinted at the display, and snapped it shut. “No reception,” she yelled.

“Shit!” Karen could not allow them to catch up. If the men forced the van to the shoulder, she and Frieda would be their toys.

Frieda had found Karen’s rosary in her purse and now she fingered the beads, praying.

The Bronco was closing fast, the road ahead empty. Karen veered into the middle, straddling the line to block them, but the driver found a wide spot and inched alongside, forcing her back into her lane. A meaty arm waved a pistol out the window.

Karen had the van at top speed. She couldn’t possibly pull away. Could she slam on the brakes, maybe turn and head back to Cheyenne before he could recover? No. If she could get away with such a cockeyed television maneuver, he could too, and probably better. The Bronco was much more nimble. It swerved toward the van, nearly sideswiping it. Karen glanced over quick enough to see the bald and bolted young men brandishing guns. One made a “v” with his fingers and waggled his tongue between them. A bottle sailed through the air and smashed against her window, cracking the glass and scaring her so badly she swerved hard to the right and almost overcorrected. The men hung out of the windows, taunting her.

When Frieda screamed, Karen saw the eighteen-wheeler.

The rig had crested a hill and now bore down on them from the south. The driver of the Bronco honked his horn, laughing and pointing at the big rig. He eased the Bronco closer to the RV. His buddies, however, had stopped clowning.