heard of before, however vaguely. There was bound to be a gas station here.
But the first few minutes in Fort Sumner weren’t promising: the only buildings fringing the road were barns or warehouses, all of them dark. She caught a glimpse of a neon sign up ahead, but it was a Super 8 with vacancy lit up underneath, the motel all dark except for a strip of emergency lights in reception. No sign of a gas station.
They passed the Billy the Kid Museum, its brick exterior inexplicably covered with wagon wheels. The yellow sign depicted a cartoon Billy in jeans and a bandanna, a rifle resting by his side, his ten-gallon jauntily perched on his head. He looked more like an amiable cowboy than a murderous outlaw. A sign underneath boasted that the museum had once appeared on prime-time TV.
Who came to these places? Rebecca wondered, but as soon as the thought ran through her head, she remembered going to places just like it when she was a kid and loving every one of them. Rebecca, aged seven, would have jumped at the chance to go to the Billy the Kid Museum, would have happily posed for a photo next to the wagon wheels, would have begged for her very own bandanna from the gift store.
Grief washed over her in a single powerful wave. How many times had she dreamed about her and Patrick bundling a pink-cheeked, still-drowsy toddler into the car one early weekend morning and pointing the car in a direction just to see where it would take them. Small hands sticky with roadside ice creams, cheap souvenirs that would be lost as soon as they were bought, the long, quiet ride back home, the radio on low, a gentle snore coming from the backseat. She reached her hand to the little gold cross around her neck and held on until the edges dug into her palm.
More buildings, no lights. She could feel Cait’s body straining next to her, both of them waiting for something to appear.
She spotted an RV park half full of trailers, and a light on in one of them.
“We could ask them for gas?” Cait suggested, pointing toward it. “RVs usually keep extra gas on hand.”
Scott shook his head. “The gas station’s just ahead,” he said. “Besides, I don’t think they’d look too kindly on us knocking on their door at this hour of the night.”
Cait settled back into her seat. Rebecca felt an itch building at the back of her throat. They’d been in the truck for too long now. Over twenty-five miles. The town stretched on. Fred’s Restaurant. Fort Sumner High School. First United Methodist Church. A few auto parts stores that raised her hopes briefly before dashing them. Lights out everywhere. Not even the streetlamps were lit.
There wasn’t a gas station in this town, and even if there were, Scott wasn’t going to stop for it. She thought she’d sweet-talked him enough to keep them safe, but she’d been wrong. He was going to keep driving until he found whatever place he had marked out in his head, and then he was going to kill them. Her hands started to shake, and then her arms and legs, and soon her whole body was quaking like she was undergoing her own personal earthquake.
Cait placed a hand on Rebecca’s knee to try to steady her, but it was no good. The truck felt suddenly, stiflingly hot. Sweat trickled down her spine and pooled in the seam of her cotton underwear. The stars pressed down on them through the windshield, suffocating. Her breath turned shallow.
Cait gripped her knee so hard she let out a yelp of pain. “Look.” Rebecca followed Cait’s outstretched finger to the glowing white-and-yellow sign that loomed ahead: allsup’s.
Scott turned to them with a smile. “I guess it was further up the road than I thought. Sorry about that.” He swung the eighteen-wheeler into the parking lot of the gas station and killed the engine. “I’ll go in and talk to the guy about a gas can.”
In the end, all three of them went inside. Scott held the door open for them, and Rebecca had to work to keep her legs from shaking as she walked in. The attendant was waiting for them, one eye watching the TV mounted above the register, the other trained on them. “Evening, ladies,” he said, arching an eyebrow and tipping an imaginary hat toward them. Rebecca knew instantly that he had taken them for a