He waved the comment aside, embarrassed, yet gratified that after being locked away with nothing but men for eighteen months, he still had enough polish left that a pretty woman would give him a second look. “Watch out, Suze. I don’t want Buddy gunning for me.”
The door opened and a couple came in. Tourists, by the look of them. Suze told them to sit anywhere they liked, then took Dalton’s order—bacon cheeseburger with extra onions, fries, iced tea, and a piece of Mellie’s lemon meringue pie for desert. She started toward the kitchen, hesitated, then turned back, a flush rising up her cheeks. “Look, I’m not sure if you heard, but Karla left. Moved to Fort Worth just after Christmas.”
“I know. She wrote to me.”
Suze looked relieved. “She talked about leaving Rough Creek all her life. The only reason she stayed so long was because of you.”
Dalton had no response to that. He hadn’t been surprised that Karla had cut and run after he was sent to Huntsville. Not many women as smart as she was would want to pin their futures on an ex-con. Still, he missed her. She’d been fun to hang with, even though he’d known from the beginning that she’d eventually move on.
His meal came in record time and was every bit as good as he remembered.
By the time he finished, the place was filling up with late diners, probably heading home after a local high school sports event. Spring football practice, or maybe soccer or baseball, judging by the uniforms. He recognized a few of the customers, but despite some curious looks pointed his way, no one approached him.
“How was it?” Suze asked when he went to the register to pay his tab.
“Best meal I’ve had in a long time. Especially that pie.” Seeing how busy the place was, he didn’t linger, told Suze to tell Buddy “hi,” then stepped outside.
A sense of hope spread through him. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe he really could put it all behind him and make a fresh start.
“Heard those idiots on the parole board let you out early,” a familiar taunting voice said behind him.
Or maybe not.
Dalton turned to see Deputy Langers coming from the direction of the sheriff’s office down the street. He and Toby Langers hadn’t gotten along since high school, when Dalton, a fourteen-year-old freshman, had taken over the older, smaller boy’s position on the football team. After Dalton’s arrest and while he’d been in county lockup awaiting sentencing, the taunting had only gotten worse. Not surprising, since Toby was the county commissioner’s local toady, and it was Commissioner Adkins’s nephew that Dalton was supposed to have killed. He had hoped the animosity between him and Toby might have cooled during his absence, but Dalton could see it hadn’t.
“Thought you’d have sense enough not to come back to Rough Creek,” Langers said. “’Specially now that Karla’s gone.” At one time, Toby had had his eye on Karla, himself.
“It’s my home, Toby.”
“Maybe not for long. And it’s Deputy Langers to you.” Puffing out his chest, Langers hooked his thumbs in a duty belt that boasted more paraphernalia than Dalton had ever carried as a grunt in Sandland. “I’m guessing you haven’t been out to the ranch yet,” he went on, rocking back on his heels so he wouldn’t have to tip his head back so far to smirk up at Dalton.
“Heading there now.”
“How?” Langers made a show of looking around. “You got a car? Oh, that’s right. You’re not allowed to drive, are you?”
Not strictly true, since his suspension was for only a year. But Dalton didn’t want to get into a discussion about it. “Thought I’d walk.”
“Probably wise. Hard for ex-cons to get rides nowadays. Best start now, if you plan to get there before midnight.”
Dalton turned and started walking, his jaw clamped on a rush of angry words best left unsaid.
“You be careful,” Langers called after him. “Lot of bad things happen on that road. But then, you already know that, don’t you? Be sure to give my best to your folks, in case I don’t see them before they go.”
Go where? But Dalton didn’t prolong the conversation by asking.
Luckily, he didn’t have to walk more than two miles before he heard a truck rattling up behind him. Spinning a one-eighty, he walked backward, facing the oncoming vehicle, his thumb out.
The truck slowed, tailpipe popping out a barrage of backfire that jittered along Dalton’s nerves and made him think of Iraq. He recognized the driver. Harve Henswick, an elderly man who lived two miles past his parents’ place and just over the county line.
With a belch of black exhaust, the truck rolled to a stop. The driver sat for a moment, studying him through the dust-and-bug-smeared windshield, then nodded.
“Thanks.” Dalton climbed in. Not sure if the old man remembered who he was, he stuck out his hand and was about to introduce himself when Henswick turned and gave him a hard stare.
“When’d you get out?” he asked.
Dalton let his hand drop to his thigh. “This morning.”
“Thought you were in for two years.”
“I got six months off for good behavior.”
“Well, then.” Henswick shifted into gear and gave the engine enough gas to make it shudder forward in fits and starts.
And that was the extent of their conversation for the next eighteen minutes.
Dalton watched ten miles of barbed wire fence roll by, broken by the occasional metal gate leading to wooden holding pens with loading chutes. In the middle distance, windmills slowly churned, their grit-scoured blades flashing orange in the lowering sun, while here and there, rusted pump jacks sat silent, their walking beams tilted down, heads to the ground like grazing horses.
The pickup began to slow. When it finally rolled to a stop, Dalton climbed out and shut the door. “Thanks for the ride,” he said through the open window.
“Tell your pa I’m still waiting for that ratchet he borrowed. I’d prefer he didn’t leave town with it.” Without waiting for a response, Henswick pulled out slow enough that Dalton was only mildly peppered with pebbles and black soot.
He stood listening to the rumble and pop of the truck’s exhaust until it faded and all that broke the silence was the rustle of the gentle breeze through new grass, the distant hum and whir of big irrigation sprinklers in nearby hay fields, and the skree of a hawk floating past on rising thermals. After a year and a half living in close quarters with almost two thousand restless convicts and shouting guards, the still openness was a balm to his battered senses. Even the air felt better.
Dalton closed his eyes and breathed deep.
Gradually the stink of sweat, disinfectant, rancid cooking oils, and harsh cleaners gave way to the familiar smells of alfalfa, cow and horse manure, and good old Texas dust, all underlaid with the faint scent of petroleum rising out of the abandoned wellheads.