Wayfaring Stranger: A Novel Read Free

against the glare, then got back in his car and started the engine and clanked the transmission into gear. The trees were so dry they made a sound like paper rustling when the wind blew through the canopy.
    “Hold up there,” Grandfather said to the man.
    I thought the driver would simply motor away. But he didn’t. He stuck his elbow out the window and stared straight into our faces, his expression curious rather than alarmed. “You talking to us?” he asked.
    “You’re on my property,” Grandfather said.
    “I thought this was public woods,” the driver said. “If there’s a posted sign that says otherwise, I didn’t see it.”
    The woman next to him was pretty and had strawberry-blond hair and a beret tilted over one eye. She looked like a happy country girl, the kind who works in a dime store or in a café where the truckers come in to make innocent talk. She leaned forward and grinned up into Grandfather’s face. She silently mouthed the words “We’re sorry.”
    “Did you know you have mud on your license tag?” Grandfather asked the driver.
    “I’ll get right on that,” the driver said.
    “You also have what appears to be a bullet hole in your back window.”
    The driver removed a marble from the ashtray in the dashboard and held it against the light. “I found this on the backseat. It was probably a kid with a slingshot,” he said. “I saw a kid up on the train trestle with one. You a lawman?”
    “I’m a rancher. The name is Hackberry Holland. You didn’t give me yours.”
    “Smith,” the driver said.
    “If you’ll tell me your destination, Mr. Smith, maybe I can he’p you find your way.”
    “Lubbock. Or anyplace there’s work. I work on automotives, mostly. Is that an antique firearm?”
    “A forty-four Army Colt. Most of the time I use it for a paperweight. You know automobiles, do you?”
    “Yes, sir, you could say that. I see automobiles as the future of the country. Henry Ford and me.”
    “Turn left at the paved road and stay due west,” Grandfather said. “If you see the Pacific Ocean, that means you passed Lubbock.”
    The man in the backseat rolled down the glass. He was short and not over 120 pounds and wore a suit and tie and a short-brim hat cocked on his brow the way a dandy might. He had a long face, like a horse’s hanging out of a stall. He also had the kind of lopsided grin you see on stupid people who think they’re smarter than you. His breath was as rank as a barrel of spoiled fruit. “My name is Raymond. This here is my girlfriend, Miss Mary,” he said. “We’re pleased to make y’all’s acquaintance.”
    The woman sitting next to him had a cleft chin and a broad forehead and a small mean-spirited Irish mouth; her face was sunken in the middle, like soft wax. She was smoking a cigarette, gazing into the smoke.
    “There’s a busted spar in my cattle guard,” Grandfather said. “Don’t pop a tire going out. I’d appreciate you not throwing that whiskey bottle in my trees, either.”
    “Tidy is as tidy does,” Raymond said.
    Grandfather rested one hand on the bottom of the window. He let his eyes roam over Raymond’s face before he spoke. “The man who kills you will rip out your throat before you ever know what hit you,” he said. “I’m not talking about myself, just somebody you might meet up the road, the kind of fellow who turns out to be the worst misjudgment you ever made.”
    “We apologize, sir,” said the woman in front, leaning across the driver so Grandfather could see her expression more clearly. Her smile made me think of somebody opening a music box. “We didn’t mean to bother y’all. You have a mighty nice spot here. Thank you for being so gracious and kind.”
    “No harm done,” Grandfather said.
    I wanted her to say something to me, but her gaze stayed fixed on Grandfather.
    The driver slowly accelerated the car, a nimbus of brown dust rising from the wax job, our visitors’ silhouettes framed against the