Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

The ground rushes up at her, oh God how did this happen, I was supposed to get away, and her head smashes against a rock in the ground, and the blow switches off her consciousness like a light-click-and in the dark room of her mind she has only some small sense of what is happening. Warmth against her body: the hot ground upon which she lies. A breeze blows and the tall dead grass rustles around her making sounds like whispers. Hush. Something sticky running into the bowls of her closed eyes. Someone picks her up. A grunt, not her own, for she is silent and silent and silent.

She tries to open her eyes but she cannot. She tries to speak but she cannot. She is locked in the dark room of her mind and cannot see an EXIT sign anywhere, nor a door.

Henry walks back toward Beatrice with Sarah sagging unconscious in his arms. Bee is standing there with dirt on her knees looking at him with her mouth open. Her toes point at one another. Her arms hang at her sides.

‘I got her,’ he says. ‘I got her for you.’

‘You shouldn’t’ve hit her.’

‘She would’ve got away.’

‘You shouldn’t’ve hit her. You shouldn’t’ve hit her and you shouldn’t’ve shot them people and you shouldn’t. .’ Her voice breaks and she stops. Finally she looks up at him once more and says, ‘You shouldn’t’ve hit her.’

His first instinct is to tell her to shut her mouth, don’t be stupid, I couldn’t let her get into town, Bee, but he does not tell her that. He closes his eyes and exhales in a long sigh and opens his eyes and says, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’

‘Okay.’

‘Now let’s get to the truck and get out of here.’

‘Her head is bleeding.’

‘She fell on a rock.’

‘Will she be okay?’

‘How the hell should I-’

Several cars are stopped on the interstate. People are talking loudly, panic in their voices, surrounding the dead deputy. A woman is on her phone with the police, practically screaming about a murder. The blond woman he almost shot is pointing at them, and other people are now looking. He thinks of the life they left in Bulls Mouth and the few belongings they took with them. Up in the Dodge Ram. It is all lost. Don’t look over your shoulder at what you left behind. It’s best to forget what cannot be recovered.

Henry tastes bile at the back of his throat and swallows it away.

‘Turn around and walk,’ Henry says.

‘What?’

‘Turn around and walk away.’

Nobody follows.

They walk along a dirt road. Henry is looking around for a car or truck left unattended and with keys in the ignition. They’ve walked by five vehicles so far, but all of them were locked. He is getting very nervous. He wants to get into something and on the road before more police arrive, or, at the very least, before the cops have a chance to set up a roadblock. He needs to get out of Texas, but New Mexico is still a couple hours off. If the Texas police get hold of him now, after everything he’s done to Texas lawmen, spending his life in prison will be the least of his worries. He’ll be looking at a death injection.

‘My ankle hurts.’

‘I know it, Bee.’

Up ahead on the left he sees a rusted-out Chevy flatbed poking from a barn that looks about ready to collapse. He nods toward it.

‘Let’s see if we can get out of town in that.’

‘It’s kind of big.’

‘We’re not shopping around, Bee. We gotta take what’s handy.’

He looks around, but the dirt road appears to be empty of life. Sirens wail in the distance and grow louder. Their time is short.

They walk toward the truck.

‘Check it,’ Henry says as they get near.

Beatrice limps to the truck and grabs the handle and thumbs the button and pulls open the door. Flakes of rust fall to the ground. She leans in and looks.

‘There’s a key.’

Henry turns it. The truck’s engine groans. He gives it a little gas. The exhaust pipe spits black smoke. The engine starts. He puts the truck into gear and it rumbles out of the barn and onto the dirt road. He glances at Beatrice. She has Sarah leaning against her arm and she is stroking the girl’s blond hair, combing her fingers through it. Then Beatrice lifts the skirt of her own dress, revealing sweaty cotton panties, and wipes at the blood on Sarah’s face.

‘She’ll be okay,’ Henry says.

‘You shouldn’t’ve hit her,’ Bee says.

Henry drives south along a road that does not appear to have a name. After a block he reaches the Interstate 10 feeder road and turns right. He can see the interstate up ahead, several police cars-and a county SUV-parked on the side of the road, lights flashing. He’s never going to get past all those cops. It just isn’t going to happen. He should have. . well, should have what? In another half hour cops will be all over Sierra Blanca. News of what happened here will move through town like brushfire. He’s lived in a small town all his life and knows how quickly news spreads. He has to get away from here as fast as possible, and there is only one place for him to go. There is nobody he can count on but his big brother.

As he drives onto the interstate he sees the right lane is completely blocked off by flares and traffic is backed up several cars as sheriff’s deputies wave cars through one by one.

After everything that’s happened, this is where it ends; in some spit-smear of a town in West Texas with the sun beating down on him. He puts on his turn signal and merges into the left lane. He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a roll of antacids and thumbs one into his mouth and chews it.

There are five cars in front of him. Deputies stop each car and ask questions before allowing them through.

This is where it ends.

Henry looks in the rearview mirror as he drives away from the scene of his most recent crime. His chest feels tight, but the further he gets from it, the smaller the scene appears in his rearview mirror, the less his heart seems squeezed. He can barely believe he made it through.

‘Where you headed?’

‘My brother’s place in California.’

‘What for?’

‘Pick up a car he don’t want no more.’

‘Brought the whole family?’

‘Why not? You don’t get to go to California every day.’

‘Where you traveling from?’

‘Houston.’

‘You live in Houston?’

‘If you wanna call it living.’

‘What kinda car?’

‘Fifty-six Buick Special. Gonna restore it.’

‘Hobby of yours?’

‘Man needs a hobby.’

‘All right, go on.’

‘Thank ya.’

A smiling salute, and that was it. He was sure they’d ask him for identification. But maybe nobody with authority has arrived yet. Maybe they were just looking for suspicious behavior and if everything seemed cool they’d move on to the next. Doesn’t matter.

He slipped through.

The gray road stretches out before them. The cab is silent but for the rattling of the truck itself. Beatrice looks out the window while Sarah leans against her, asleep. Henry glances over trying to read her expression in the reflection on the glass, but it is blank. Her eyes dull, her mouth hanging open slightly. He does not like the silence between them. He is doing all of this for her and he refuses to lose her to it.

‘What are you thinking, Bee?’

‘Nothing.’ She does not even glance toward him when she speaks the word, simply continues to stare out at the emptiness.

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You must be thinking something.’

No response.

He licks his lips. ‘You know I love you, right, Bee?’

‘Okay.’

‘I know some of the stuff that’s happened last two days upset you.’

‘It didn’t happen. You done it.’