Randy White - Night Vision

“They’re called handcuffs,” he told her, because it was obvious that she wouldn’t shut up until he answered. “It’s a safety precaution. If you did something stupid, like open the door and jump, who’d you think would get the blame?”

“I just told you,” the girl replied, “God wants me to be with you. God must care about you or He wouldn’t have told me to save you from the alligator last night. I wouldn’t be with you this morning. Do you remember me ordering my people to help you?”

Her people? Who the hell did she think she was?

The girl had something wrong with her brain, Squires decided. Maybe she was some rare variety of retard-he had seen things on TV about kids like that. Or maybe just crazy. It had to be one of the two because of course Squires remembered the girl yelling at the crowd of Mexicans, ordering them to help him. He also remembered the little flash of hope the girl’s voice had created in him as that big goddamn gator swam toward him fast with those devil-red eyes.

Why would the little brat try to help him? It made no sense for her to save his life after he had forced his way into the bathroom, then played around with her while she was naked.

Crazy. Yeah. She had to be.

As Squires drove, he looked at the girl, who was fiddling with the handcuffs, acting like they were hurting her skinny wrists. Close-up, she was a tiny little thing, her fingers long and delicate with dirt beneath the nails. The vertebrae on the back of her neck were visible beneath the Dutch-boy hair, like something he’d see on skinny dogs.

Compared to Squires’s own bulk, the girl was a sack of skin and bone, which Squires found galling. The weirdo was nothing but a worthless little chula, yet there was also something oddly big about her, too, the way she handled herself, full of confidence. It was disconcerting.

In a bar, Squires could flash his shit-kicker monster face as fast as any other brawler, but, truth was, he’d never felt confident about anything in his life. Not compared to the way this little kid acted, anyway.

What really burned his ass, Squires realized, was that all the women in his life were the same way. Frankie and his ball-busting witch of a mother both had that same know-it-all confidence.

No… not exactly the same, because the girl didn’t use the same nasty-mouthed meanness that his mother and Frankie both used to make him feel like a pile of shit most the time. But even though the girl was different, in her way, she was just another bossy female.

Tula said to him now, “You do remember that I helped save you. I can tell. Just now, you were thinking about the big alligator coming to eat you. But it didn’t eat you because we all helped you. So you should trust me. I’m not going to run away. I’m here because God wants me to be with you. Perhaps He wants me to be your protector every day, not just last night. It’s possible.”

“My protector!” Squires laughed. “Take a good look at me, chula. Why the hell would I ever need your help?”

He glanced away from his driving long enough to touch his right bicep, which he was flexing. “You ever seen another man in your life built like me? Not down there in some Mexican shithole, you never did, I’d bet on that. I don’t need protecting from nobody because there’s not a goddamn thing in the world I’m scared of.”

A moment later, he said, “Okay, in a minute or so I’m going to pull up to a garage and I want you to do what I tell you to do.”

They were in East Fort Myers now, bouncing down a long driveway toward the river, horses grazing in a pasture to their right.

The giant man continued, “We’re gonna switch vehicles-it’s where my mom lives, but the bitch isn’t home. She’s off on some cruise someplace with one of her boyfriends. But if you see someone coming down that goddamn driveway, you honk this horn, understand? I’ll leave the truck running until I get it in the garage.”

No one came. Leaving Tula chained in the truck, Squires even took some time to go inside the house, make a protein shake and pack a bag of ice for his sore leg. He also found a pint bottle of tequila, which he kept on the seat next to him.

Soon they were on the road again, but in an older truck with huge tires that smelled of dogs and beer and the tequila the man was nipping at. His hunting buggy, Squires called the vehicle, which had an even louder engine than the truck they had left behind hidden in his mother’s garage.

Tula knew that Squires was lying about taking her to the hospital to see Carlson. But what she had told the giant was true. Even though the man had forced her into the truck-leaving her few possessions behind at the trailer park-she wasn’t going to attempt to escape. Not unless the Maiden ordered her to.

The handcuffs were heavy on her wrists, though. And Tula felt vulnerable, sitting on the floor with her hands bound, unable to see out the window. The man was a fast driver, weaving through morning traffic, braking hard for red lights. Or maybe it just felt as if they were going fast because she was on the floor and Squires had the windows open, the roar of the truck’s mufflers loud in Tula’s ears.

This was even more frightening than climbing onto the top of a freight train, riding exposed to wind and rain through the mountains of Mexico. On the train, at least, Tula had been able to watch for dangers ahead.

But not here, riding on the floor. She was unaccustomed to this kind of speed and she feared a collision. Tula imagined impact, then being trapped, unable to use her hands, especially if there was fire.

Fire terrified the girl. She had watched her father die in flames, smelled his clothes burning, heard his screams, and the vision still haunted her.

Even the Maiden had feared fire. In the little book Tula had left back in the trailer were Jehanne’s own words:

Sooner would I have my head cut off seven times than to suffer the woeful death of fire…

Tula bowed her head and began to pray, speaking in English loudly enough to be sure that the giant landlord heard her, hoping to irritate the man into action.

“Dear Lord my God, I ask in Jesus’ name all blessings on this man who is driving too fast and drinking liquor at the same time. I ask that he look into his heart and understand that he’s scaring me, the way he’s got my hands locked. Even though the police might stop us at any time and arrest him and take him to jail! Make him know I am not going to run away because I am his friend. And a friend does not leave a friend…”

The girl went on and on like that.

The louder the girl prayed, the bigger the gulps Squires took from the tequila bottle. After a while, even liquor didn’t help, and Squires couldn’t stand it anymore. He glanced down at Tula, then turned on the radio, wanting to drown out her voice. It was AC/ DC doing “Black Ice,” but it only caused the girl to pray louder.

Shit. The little brat was maddening.

Squires found all her talk about God disturbing, an upset he felt in his belly. Truth was, he didn’t want the girl to talk at all. Even if he didn’t make his fantasy come true by raping her, he still had to kill her when they got to the hunting camp-what choice did he have? And the more she talked, the more girlish and human she seemed, which Squires didn’t like.

It irked him that she had brought up the gator attack to make him feel guilty. She was just making it harder for him, using guilt like a weapon, which is the same thing that Frankie and his mother did on a daily basis.

The realization that this little girl was no different provided Squires with a sudden, sweet burst of anger that immediately made him feel better about driving her to the hunting camp, where he was going to get her drunk, get her clothes off and have some fun.