Wire Mesh Mothers (37 page)

The teacher was crying. She was right behind Mistie and the girl but she didn’t talk at all. She just cried.

The ground was rocky and dry. There was some grass growing there, but it was yellow like the hair on Valerie’s head. Mistie tried to grab for some but the girl made her run too fast.

At last they reached a dirt road that wound across the dry land toward a large log house, but the girl urged them over the road, down a short slope, then back up to a rail fence. On the other side of the fence were lots of barns and trucks and trailers. Not trailers like at MeadowView but trailers like Mistie had seen taking cows down Route 58 through Pippins. There were some men in cowboy hats standing in the shade of a barn door.

“Quick, over, and in the back of the truck,” whispered the girl. “Keep low, crawl if you have to!”

Mistie climbed through the fence, the girl and teacher climbed over. Mistie could hardly breath for running so much. They had to run at school and she hated it. Running made her pee her pants. She thought she’d peed her pants a few minutes ago, but maybe it was just sweat.

The closest vehicle was a truck with a long, empty trailer behind. The trailer was made of pipes like the gates of cotton farms back in Virginia. The three sneaked over to the side of the truck and the girl slid open the side door. Mistie knew the cowboys couldn’t see them – they were on the other side of the truck by one of the barns – but she wondered if they could hear her breathing.

The girl climbed in first, then put out her hand to pull in Mistie and the teacher. It took the teacher three times hopping to get up inside.

The trailer was filled with straw, but it smelled like cow
poo
. The girl lay down flat and covered herself with the straw, then hissed, “Hide!”

Mistie and the teacher lay down. Mistie pulled
poo
-smelling straw over her head and her body, and wondered what would happen if the cowboys put cows in with them?

T
he cattle trailer stunk, and the floor was soaking wet with urine and manure. Tony held Mistie in her lap and Kate sat directly across from them. It was dark, and they truck was moving.

They’d held still under the straw for what was almost too long to bear. Then Kate had heard some ranch hands come up to the truck, and one said, “Hey, gotta
git
. Herefords to pick up over in Hobbs. Gotta
git
‘em and have ‘em back to old George by daybreak.”

“You ain’t cleaned the trailer yet.”

“What George don’t know his damn Herefords ain’t gonna know. Damn, they drink pond water that they’re standing there shittin’ in.”

“You got it.”

There was a creaking as the hand climbed into the cab, and a grating as he turned on the engine. And then, they were driving off the ranch and heading for Hobbs.

Hobbs, New Mexico. That was west. Kate had looked it up in the map she had folded in her overall pocket. Route 180 went to Hobbs, after passing directly through
Lamesa
.

No one had spoken the first few minutes after the truck pulled out of the fenced compound and onto the dirt road. Tony had killed the deputy. Well, she was probably dead.
God forgive us
, Kate thought.
Greta was doing her good weekly deed.

Mistie had crawled out from her straw when she saw that Tony had done the same, and had snuggled up to the girl. Tony hadn’t pushed her away. Kate had checked her leg wound. It had stopped bleeding again. At Tony’s father ranch, if they made it, she would clean it out and hope for the best.

Tony’s face was hard to see in the darkness. Kate said, “Tony, are you okay?”

Tony shrugged. “I didn’t want to kill her. She was going to tell on us. I have to get to my dad’s.”

“It’s not long now, we’ll probably be in
Lamesa
in just a matter of minutes.”

“I’m watching the road,” said Tony.

Kate leaned into the steel ribs of the stock trailer and crossed her arms over her chest.

Tony said, “My dad’s the best. He’ll hide us. He won’t let nobody find us and put us in prison.”

“Think so?”

“Know so. He ain’t no fucking new nigger.”

“Women aren’t the problem, Tony.”

“Women suck.”

“Look at Greta. She offered to drive us for gas and didn’t know who the hell we were.”

“She was going to turn us in.”

“Before that. She didn’t know.”

“Maybe.”

“Tony, what happened back in Mobile? Why did you…hurt yourself…with that knife handle?”

“You don’t like me to talk dirty in front of
Misite
.”

“Were you….?”

“Yeah, I was. Two boys down on the Gulf. Okay, make you happy?”

“Of course not. But think about this. Look at what they did. They violated you, and they weren’t women. Evil has no gender.”

“It was my fault. They saw me, what I had, if I just didn’t have…. Fuck it all.”

“It’s not your fault that they stole something from you.”

“Had it stole before. No big deal.”

“Really?”

Tony began to rub the top of Mistie’s head, and she looked again out to the road. “Mile sign, right there,” she said, and her head whipped around as the sign approached and then passed behind them into the night. “Saw it. Three miles to
Lamesa
.”

“That’s great.”

“There’ll be cops crawling all over town. We gotta be more careful than ever.”

“We will be.” Kate looked at Tony, at Mistie. She said, “You’ve been really nice to Mistie, Tony. She liked your stories. You’ll make a good mother someday, I’ll bet.”

“Don’t
ever
say that.”

“Why not?”

“Mothers are shit. My mother’s shit.”

“I bet you don’t even know your real mother.”

“I do. She lays on the sofa and whines.”

“You’ve made your gang you mother, haven’t you? A mother is supposed to give you comfort when you’re scared and is there when you’re lonely.”

“Mistie don’t have a real mom, either. Can you believe her Mama, letting her dad do to her what he’s done to her?”

“But whose fault is it? Her mother’s or her father’s, or maybe both?”

Tony ignored this. “My mother’s my gang, okay, then Mistie’s mother is the T.V. Who’s your mom, teacher?”

“I had a great mother.”

“She dead?”

“No.”

“You said had. So, who’s your mother now?”

Kate pondered this. It was a valid question. What gave her comfort, what helped her when she was lonely? “Being a McDolen in a place where I have no friends, I guess money, status. But I got bored with it, frustrated. Things got so wrong, but they weren’t as wrong as I thought they were. I was going to save myself with Mistie.”

“Fucked it up, huh?”

“Fucked it up.”

“Maybe you can stay at the ranch a while. Can you cook? I don’t know if Dad can cook, but maybe he can hire you for a while?”

“Maybe.”

Tony studied Kate. “Then where you gonna go?”

“I want to go home,” muttered Mistie.

“I thought I knew,” said Kate. “One step at a time. I have to get with Donnie. To talk.”

“I was a mother once,” said Tony.

Kate frowned, leaned forward over her knees. The movement stirred up the rancid stench in the straw, and she pinched her nose for a moment. “What?”

“I was a terrible mother. Last year I had two twins. Well, twins are always two, like Jody and Judy.”

“Tony, I had no idea.”

“Some boy from the high school did me.” The shoulders went up, down, as if it was something forgotten and now remembered in a haze. “Babies were born early, in my house. Mama chased Darlene away, and Jody and Judy, sent ‘em up the road for a while, said I had bad flu and they’d get it, too if they didn’t get the hell out of the house.”

“Tony….”

“Mama said it was my fault they came out so early ‘cause I drank beer and hung around with the Hot Heads. The Hot Heads didn’t even know I was pregnant. I didn’t tell them. They made fun of me ‘cause I was getting fat, but I didn’t tell. The babies were dead inside me, or Mama killed ‘em, or maybe I did when I squeezed them out.” Another shrug. “I never want to be no Mama, not one or not like one.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not. I fixed myself back in Mobile, I bet. Won’t have to worry ‘bout that anymore. Look,
Lamesa
!”

The truck had rumbled onto a well-lit area with a spattering of suburban businesses; restaurants, car dealerships, a K-Mart.

Tony was on her feet, bringing Mistie up with her. She slid open the side door. “As soon as he slows a little, we’re out of here. Don’t bust you damn leg open no more, you hear me?”

“I hear you, Tony.”

“We’re almost there!”

“That we are.”

The truck slowed, wheezed, shifted gears. Tony and Mistie jumped. Kate took a breath, prayed for strength, and followed.

“
L
amesa
Boulevard,” said Tony, slapping the directory shut and digging at her scalp. They were at a phone behind a tire store. The bank clock on the other side of the street read one forty-three a.m. “1837
Lamesa
Boulevard. We find that, we find Burton’s ranch.”

“There might be a map in the front of the phone book,” said the teacher. “Look, quickly.”

Tony opened the book again, and pawed through the thin pages. Zip codes, emergency number, town map. “How about that.”
Lamesa
Boulvevard
, B-5. Tony drew her fingers down across to B, down 5. She paused, and frowned. “This can’t be right. It looks like it’s in town. A ranch isn’t in the middle of no town.”

The teacher was standing with Mistie in her arms, glancing back and forth along the dark side street. Mistie had fallen asleep several blocks back. “I don’t know, Tony. Maybe it’s an old map. Maybe there’s a misprint. But we can’t hang here. We have to get to your Dad’s right away.”

Tony nodded. She reached out toward Mistie. “Give her to me for a while.” The teacher passed the girl over, gratefully. “But I’m only doing it because you can’t walk,” said Tony, “and you’d walk even worse carrying the kid.”

“Absolutely. I don’t want to slow us down.”

“Okay.” Tony rubbed her chin, took several steps away from the phone and glanced at the side street sign. “This is Grove. So
Lamesa
Boulevard’s gotta be that way.”

The teacher moved surprisingly fast for someone with a ruptured bullet wound in her leg, but not surprisingly fast for someone who was on the FBI wanted list for kidnapping. The three took the
Lamesa
street-sides with silent effort, moving along sidewalks when there were sidewalks, dodging parked cars on the roads when there weren’t. Tony watched where she was going; she watched her feet. Her toe caught in an uneven lip of concrete and she stumbled, but didn’t fall. Mistie breathed softly Tony’s neck.

Tony shifted the child from one hip to the other.
It’d be a bitch to be a mother, having to carry kids around like this all the time.
Cars roared past but didn’t slow down, didn’t seem concerned or curious. The drivers had their own businesses to attend to. They had homes and families to return to. They had Christmas trees and lights and candles. They had people who were glad they were home, and who didn’t want them to leave.

Tony grit her teeth and forced her feet ahead even more quickly. She had all that, too. At 1837
Lamesa
Boulevard.

There was heavy wheezing from behind, but Tony didn’t look back. The teacher was hurting but there wasn’t anything to be done. Not yet.

They crossed an intersection. Another, turning their faces from the bright illumination of the overhead streetlights and into the faint light from the moon. They waited for a red light to stop traffic, and they crossed yet another street. The kid’s breath was starting to get on Tony’s nerves. In the distance, she thought she could hear the distant whine of a police siren, but it might have only been her own blood fighting its way through her vessels in her skull.

And then she saw the sign, bent, green, white letters. “
Lamesa
Boulevard.” Crickets hummed in a nearby yard. Tony’s heart picked up the rhythm.
We’re here!

“Mistie, wake up,” said Tony. She lowered the child to the walk, but the girl’s legs buckled under her. “Mistie!” She picked Mistie up under her arms and gave her a little shake. “We’re almost there. If you walk, we’ll get there quicker! Last one to the ranch is a rotten egg!”

Mistie opened her eyes and shook her head. “We’re there?”

“Almost! Can you race me?”

Mistie nodded sleepily.

“Can you?” Tony asked the teacher. The teacher said, “I’ll do the best I can.”

Lamesa
Boulevard was a residential stretch with small yards and even smaller houses. Burton’s ranch would be at the end of all this, where the town ended and the Texas wilderness began. Maybe the people in these homes worked on the ranch. Maybe ranches didn’t have bunkhouses anymore, they let people have their own houses in town. That made sense. It really wasn’t the old cowboy days anymore.