American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,92

behind her at a slow, steady, almost thoughtful pace.

She rises, steps behind the car, and turns both the flashlight and the gun in the direction of the footsteps. “Whoever that is, come out slowly,” she says.

The cadence of the footsteps doesn’t change one iota. After a few more steps there’s a pause, then a tinkle of metal—brushing the tire spikes out of the way, she guesses—and then the footsteps resume.

A pale figure enters the beam of her flashlight, walking in the middle of the road. She sees it is a man dressed in a blue-gray suit and a white panama hat: the Native American from Chloe’s, she realizes, the man who was watching her. He still has his hands in his pockets, and he stares at her with coal-black eyes as he approaches, his two-tone shoes clacking against the asphalt.

“Stop,” she says. “Hands where I can see them.”

The man pays no attention, but just keeps walking toward her.

“Stop, goddamn it,” she says. “I am armed.”

He keeps walking, but finally halts when he’s within about ten feet of her car. He looks at her, then at the doughnut, then at the torn, ruined tire, and then back at the road behind him. “Looks like you had some trouble,” he says. His voice is quiet and calm and a little high-pitched. It’s also a little mush-mouthed. He talks like a deaf person, Mona thinks. “I thought I heard something.”

“Please get your hands where I can see them, sir,” says Mona angrily.

“Tire problems are common on these roads.”

“Hands,” says Mona again. “Hands.”

He smiles and takes his hands out of his pockets. They’re empty. “Hands. Hands,” he says, echoing her as if it’s a joke he’s still getting. “I came to help you.”

“You can help by leaving.”

“Are you often so brusque with those who try and help you?”

“No, but I’m often brusque when I hit some fucking tire spikes and nearly wrap my car around a tree.”

“Tire spikes?” he says. He looks back down the road. “Is that what those were?”

“Yes,” says Mona. “And to be honest, sir, I find it highly coincidental that you happen upon me right after I nearly drive off the fucking road.”

He smiles at her, his eyes glittering in the ruby-red glow of her taillights.

“What are you looking at?” she asks, disconcerted.

“We’ve met before,” he says.

“No, we haven’t.”

“We have. I know the curve of your face and the light in your eyes. I know you. And you know me.”

“I fucking don’t. I’d remember you.”

His eyes thin, but his smile doesn’t leave. “Perhaps not… perhaps you were described to me by someone, long ago… I never thought I’d meet you here, wandering these roads. These dark roads. They go a lot of places, the roads. You find a lot of things, if you keep walking.”

“Then please keep walking.”

“What are you doing out here?” he asks softly.

“Go away,” says Mona. “Just turn around, walk, and go away. It ain’t hard.”

“What’s your name?” he asks. “Where are you from? You’re not from here. So where?”

“Turn around. And walk.”

“You were in his house, weren’t you?”

Mona swallows but does not answer.

“Yes,” he says. “Once I knew a woman who was brave and strong and beautiful. We lost her to the horizon. She went a-walking and I saw her only once after that, one sad little moment. For then she died. She died for you. For me. For us. For everyone.”

Mona tries to ignore how her flashlight beam is trembling a little.

“I want to bring her back,” he says. “And I think you do too.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Mona says.

He leans forward a little. “She whispers to me, from deep in the earth,” he says. “Wrapped around the mountain’s spine. Do not lose hope. She is not gone. She is only sleeping. She is waiting for you. She’s been waiting for you from the beginning.”

“You have me mistaken for someone else,” says Mona. “Now get the hell out of here, or I will shoot, and it will fucking hurt.”

“I can show you,” he says. He extends a hand. “Take my hand.”

“Mister, did you not just hear what I said? I am going to fuck you up like no tomorrow if you don’t get moving.”

“You can’t hurt me,” he says. “Nothing can hurt me. I’ve died so many times. Gone walking through so many starlit fields. I lie rotting in so many barrens, even now. Nothing can hurt me.”

“Then you won’t mind me putting a round in your knee,” says Mona. She points the