How utterly illicit it felt to draw breath on this soil; to tread on the back of this behemoth stirred something acidic in his blood, a betrayal of his bygone patrimony. Not that Bell would voice such a notion aloud - a fanciful thought best reserved for one more poetic than he.
He had hit the ground at sunrise, let loose by a fool with a fortune, armed with a volatile disposition inclined to hold a grudge - and so be it.
Who was he to judge? Bell was a capricious weapon to be directed at the will of the highest bidder - and whether he would trade it all to be back in Berlin at that very moment was immaterial. Besides - he had been reimbursed for this little jaunt rather generously.
The words had twisted in his throat and caught on his tongue; the gangly youth behind the counter of some fluorescent gas station had snickered without a hint of repentance when he had stopped to inquire. Equilibrium had been restored swiftly enough; with his airway constricted it had been Bell’s turn to claim ignorance to his rasping pleas - yet the retch and thrash of unfiltered terror in the throes of asphyxiation was - as it turned out - universal.
Russian. German. American. It made little difference; they all squealed like stuck pigs when they went down.
With a mile or so more between his impromptu execution, a looming beam emerged from the dim and smeared his shadow across the asphalt like inky roadkill. Bell turned, one hand raised to shield from the light, whilst the other - against his better judgement - shot out to hail a ride.
Two, three, steps out of the direct glare, four, five up to the purring body of a beast - they didn’t make engines like these at home - and he leaned down with as affable a smile as he could muster.
“Would you take me wherever you’re going?”
Willard Russell had a sick wife at home.
Sick? How sick?
Doctors like to use the word ‘terminal’ when referring to the missus’ cancer.
Prior to Charlotte Russell falling ill, Willard had only heard the word ‘terminal’ when boarding planes or buses.
He met Charlotte while on a bus route home from the war.
After fighting on the front lines, it was a wonder Willard had returned at all.
He still had nightmares about the air raid sirens.
Gasping awake from an armchair situated next to Charlotte’s bedside, Willard begins to cough, feeling his sleeping spittle caught down the wrong pipe.
Charlotte, deep in a peaceful sleep brought on by morphine, doesn’t stir ... doesn’t rouse.
She sleeps so still Willard hastily gets up and steps towards her bed. In a frightful hurry, he feels for her bare neck through her tangle of hair and slouched nightgown.
Charlotte’s pulse takes a moment to register against her husband’s big, weathered hand. But when it does, relief washes over Willard so profoundly he has to hold on to the headboard to prevent falling.
The Lord was testing him.
And Willard was not about to give up.
He considers a more ... satisfactory offering for the prayer log.
The sound of Willard collecting his pick-up keys preludes his departure into the night.
It was late. But if Charlotte or anyone asked, Willard was driving into town for food, Charlotte’s prescriptions, the essentials …
Willard’s boot eases off the gas as he spots a pedestrian wandering on the side of the road.
Deer and other scurrying animals tended to wind up dead when they did that sort of thing. Willard feels like doing the stranger a favor and stops where the boy stands hailing a ride.
At this hour, Willard finds the boy’s cocksure strut to the pick-up truck to be unusual. No matter the hitchhiker’s predicament or jubilation for hailing a ride this time of night, Willard considers it may be strange to only him as he did not anticipate it to be this easy to find a potential lamb …
Feeling his luck was turning around, Willard says nothing as the boy barters for a lift.
From beneath the brim of his earth brown-fedora, Willard leans forward in his seat and looks the boy over in what little light the late night provides.
❝ You ain’t runnin’ from the law—in some kind of … trouble, are you? ❞ Willard asks in a slow, deep drawl complementary to the engine on the pick-up truck that continued to rustle beneath the bonnet even as Willard remained parked.
He was serious in his inquiry and expression. Eyes that haven’t slept proper in some time bulge from Willard’s head as he tensely awaits the boy’s response.
It would sure shoot a hole Willard’s plans to if he had to drive off and look elsewhere for a tribute ...
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