Rock Springs Read Free

rolling was some distance from the town, though you could see the clear oudine of the interstate in the dark with Rock Springs lighting up the sky behind. You could hear the big tractors hitting the spacers in the overpass, revving up for the climb to the mountains.
    I shut off the lights.
    â€œWhat’re we going to do now?” Edna said irritably, giving me a bitter look.
    â€œI’m figuring it,” I said. “It won’t be hard, whatever it is. You won’t have to do anything.”
    â€œI’d hope not,” she said and looked the other way.
    Across the road and across a dry wash a hundred yards was what looked like a huge mobile-home town, with a factory or a refinery of some kind lit up behind it and in full swing. There were lights on in a lot of the mobile homes, and there were cars moving along an access road that ended near the freeway overpass a mile the other way. The lights in the mobile homes seemed friendly to me, and I knew right then what I should do.
    â€œGet out,” I said, opening my door.
    â€œAre we walking?” Edna said.
    â€œWe’re pushing.”
    â€œI’m not pushing.” Edna reached up and locked her door.
    â€œAll right,” I said. “Then you just steer.”
    â€œYou’re pushing us to Rock Springs, are you, Earl? It doesn’t look like it’s more than about three miles.”
    â€œI’ll push,” Cheryl said from the back.
    â€œNo, hon. Daddy’ll push. You just get out with Little Duke and move out of the way.”
    Edna gave me a threatening look, just as if I’d tried to hit her. But when I got out she slid into my seat and took the wheel, staring angrily ahead straight into the cottonwood scrub.
    â€œEdna can’t drive that car,” Cheryl said from out in the dark. “She’ll run it in the ditch.”
    â€œYes, she can, hon. Edna can drive it as good as I can. Probably better.”
    â€œNo she can’t,” Cheryl said. “No she can’t either.” And I thought she was about to cry, but she didn’t.
    I told Edna to keep the ignition on so it wouldn’t lock up and to steer into the cottonwoods with the parking lights on so she could see. And when I started, she steered it straight off into the trees, and I kept pushing until we were twentyyards into the cover and the tires sank in the soft sand and nothing at all could be seen from the road.
    â€œNow where are we?” she said, sitting at the wheel. Her voice was tired and hard, and I knew she could have put a good meal to use. She had a sweet nature, and I recognized that this wasn’t her fault but mine. Only I wished she could be more hopeful.
    â€œYou stay right here, and I’ll go over to that trailer park and call us a cab,” I said.
    â€œWhat cab?” Edna said, her mouth wrinkled as if she’d never heard anything like that in her life.
    â€œThere’ll be cabs,” I said, and tried to smile at her. “There’s cabs everywhere.”
    â€œWhat’re you going to tell him when he gets here? Our stolen car broke down and we need a ride to where we can steal another one? That’ll be a big hit, Earl.”
    â€œI’ll talk,” I said. “You just listen to the radio for ten minutes and then walk on out to the shoulder like nothing was suspicious. And you and Cheryl act nice. She doesn’t need to know about this car.”
    â€œLike we’re not suspicious enough already, right?” Edna looked up at me out of the lighted car. “You don’t think right, did you know that, Earl? You think the world’s stupid and you’re smart. But that’s not how it is. I feel sorry for you. You might’ve
been
something, but things just went crazy someplace.”
    I had a thought about poor Danny. He was a vet and crazy as a shit-house mouse, and I was glad he wasn’t in for all this. “Just get the baby in the car,” I said,