Chapter Two
We told Jim and Judy during lunch that I would be staying awhile in Mesquite. Judy gave me a searching look and Jim said they'd try to keep busy somehow until I got back, which earned him a round of laughs.
I borrowed Jim's truck to run home and pack a bag. My Dad gave me twenty dollars for pocket money and another quick lecture about behaving myself as I packed for the trip.
Jim and Judy rode in his truck and I rode with Anne. Kelly was on the back seat in a carrier cage, trying to look in all directions at once and making a great deal of Siamese noise.
"He'll settle down in a few minutes," said Anne.
"I know. We have two cats. They don't like disruptions in their routines, either. You'd think cats would be a little more adventurous."
Anne negotiated city streets to the DFW Turnpike and headed us east toward Dallas at about fifty. The truck was having no trouble keeping up. Kelly settled down when we stopped having to turn corners.
"How do you like this car?" she asked.
I noticed she didn't say 'my' car, but referred to it as 'this' car. It was a white 1965 Mustang with a red interior.
"Nice," I said, looking it over.
"It was Frank's. I hate some things about it. I don't mind shifting gears, but I still have to reach hard for the clutch if I sit far enough back to have the steering wheel off my chest, and white cars always look dirty ten minutes after they're washed. But Frank just had to have it. He practically lived in this damned car when he wasn't on duty."
Anne silently stared straight ahead for a moment or two.
"Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to unload on you just now."
She busied herself with driving for a time, then said, "That after-school time never seemed to bother you. No steady girlfriend?"
"Nope. Gabrielle went back to Germany."
"That was almost three months ago, Ed, and I know Rachel Cook was interested in replacing her."
Shrugging, I said, "We went out once. Didn't click."
"What about friends to hang out with?"
"I have about four close friends. I don't get along well enough with guys to have many as friends, Anne. All my friends are female except Jim, and I don't let any of them monopolize me. Michelle wanted to go steady last year, but it caused trouble. I tutor English and History for pocket money, and she wasn't very trusting of my tutoring of other girls. After a couple of weeks with her I felt like a possession instead of a friend. I'd rather just be a tutor."
Anne looked at me with a grin. "So she's history, and you still tutor the subject?"
"Yup. I get along well enough with the exchange students, too. They're usually fairly interesting for a while. The local girls seem mostly to be in continuous mindless pursuit of each others' boyfriends. Exchangers aren't."
"I see," said Anne, "You hate PE, too, but you don't look as if you're out of shape. Some of those boxes were full of books."
"Walking everywhere helps, I guess. And I go out to the lake a lot."
"What's at the lake?"
"Fish, people," I said, "Snakes." She laughed, remembering Jim's snake story. "Outdoors," I continued, "Small animals. Trees. Sky."
"I hadn't thought of Mountain Creek Lake as some sort of Walden pond," said Anne. "While Frank was stationed at the Navy base out there, about all I saw of it was the Base Exchange. The lake was their emergency crash site."
"Yeah, I know. When they dropped a jet out there last year there was fuel all along the shorelines."
Some sort of ice had been broken, and we chatted the rest of the way to Mesquite. Her new home was at the end of a dirt lane that led off the main road. The house was a rough-looking construction of stone and wood that had been topped with a shake roof.
The nearby barn looked to be in serious need of paint and repair, and an old Aermotor windmill that once pumped water to troughs for cattle stood unmoving in the breeze. The circular gravel driveway was full of potholes.
Anne steered around the deeper holes to the front porch. Jim backed the truck into position beside us and dropped the tailgate.
"At least we can get to what needs fixed," I said, pushing some wires that dangled from where the porch light had been back into the fixture.
I stamped on the porch boards and listened for looseness. Some of them rattled. Anne carried Kelly into the living room. I followed with her big ice chest and Jim and Judy carried in some chairs.
We spent some time poking around and discussing where to put things. The electricity wasn't on yet, but the phone worked and water came from the faucets. The house had been cleaned when the previous owners left, but a layer of dust coated everything. Jim, Judy, and I opened windows in all the rooms while Anne called the electric company.
"...but I need electricity out here. I have to be out of my apartment by tonight, so I have to be moved in here by tonight. Yes. No. I don't care. You have my money and I would like electricity out here tonight."
This went on for a time before the phone landed heavily in it's cradle and Anne stomped out to the car. She came back with a folder and rooted through papers until she found one in particular.
"Damn, damn, damn," she muttered.
"Not today, huh?" asked Jim.
Anne pitched the folder into a box. "On Monday. Before noon, she thinks." She made a face and said, "Wonderful. A fine first night in my new home."
We managed to get all her belongings transferred in three more tiring trips across Dallas. Somewhere around nine-pm the sun was setting and a breeze blew through the house as the four of us lounged on the floor, couch, or boxes in various states of exhaustion.
We lay around and soaked up soft drinks and talked. After a certain amount of mutual congratulation about finishing the move in one day, there seemed little more to say. Jim and Judy were ready to leave, but Anne kept them a moment longer.
"I keep thinking how much this would have cost me in rentals and paying for the help," said Anne, "and although you all volunteered, I want to give you something."
She produced three envelopes with our names on them and distributed them. "I don't know how to thank you enough," said Anne. "No arguments. You worked hard for me today."
Jim and Judy opened their envelopes. I stuck mine in a back pocket. Judy saw her crisp new twenty-dollar bill and started crying. Twenty was a bit more than a day's pay for a lot of people in 1966.
Jim said thanks a couple of times as he tried to calm Judy. Anne put an arm around each and walked them to the truck, thanking them again. Judy hugged Anne goodbye.
We watched from the porch as they left, waving back to them, then went inside to fish in the boxes for candles before it became too dark to see. We used jar lids and saucers as candleholders and placed them strategically around the kitchen and living room. I heard a rather exasperated sigh from Anne.
"To hell with this," she said, "We've had a hard day. Let's go find a steak dinner and rooms with air conditioning and hot water."
Anne used the phone while I put our suitcases in the car and closed windows. Kelly was already in his carry-cage; he wasn't about to be left behind in a dark farmhouse in the middle of nowhere if he could help it. His food and water dishes and cat food went in a paper bag and the bag went in next to his still-unused scratch box with some new litter. Anne came out as I installed Kelly and his stuff in the car.
"I found a restaurant. Do we have everything we need?" "Yup. We have Stuff, Other Stuff, Cat Stuff, and Specifically-Needed Stuff to go with the Absolutely Necessary Stuff."
Anne grinned at that.
"Okay, then. Six miles on the turnpike service road, across the turnpike, and half a mile north to the restaurant."
I watched her smoothly shift gears as we accelerated. If she was having trouble reaching the pedals, it wasn't obvious to me. Her long legs switched back and forth effortlessly, as far as I could tell.
Anne drove confidently, with one hand near the top of the steering wheel and one atop the shift bar. Her hair was rather dramatically aloft in the wind from the open windows and her usual grin was back. She turned on the radio and made a face as the sounds of someone's nasal whining about failed love filled the car.
"Fix that noise, please," said Anne, "I don't like reaching around the dash when the car's moving, and the radio is as far away as everything else in this car."
"What do you like?" I asked, turning the dial.
"I'll let you know if I like it."
"Good enough," I said, walking the needle slowly across the numbers. I found the opening bars of the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe", and the station jingle blared slightly louder just before the song really got going, "K-L-I-F... Eleven-ninety!"
Anne became more animated, tapping the shifter in time to the music and bouncing slightly in her seat, so I left it there and slouched back in my seat to rest a bit.
I drummed on the dash and watched the road go by for a while, then studied her features in profile until she noticed me looking and gave me a questioning glance. Reaching over, I plucked an imaginary piece of lint from her shoulder and made a show of letting it go outside my window.
"What was it?" she asked.
"Don't know," I said, grinning at her, "But it wasn't moving."
We found the restaurant with no problem. A big red sign high above the turnpike guided us like a beacon into a rather empty parking lot. The restaurant looked as if it could seat a hundred people, but there were only two other cars and a couple of trucks in the lot as we pulled into a slot near the doors.
Anne checked her watch.
"It's already nine," she said worriedly, "But the woman said they'd be open."
They were open. The restaurant had only two other customers at that hour; a pair of truckers finishing meals and inhaling coffee before climbing back into their rigs. We found a booth near a window and scanned menus for a few minutes until a short blonde waitress ambled over to our table. She looked and sounded as tired as we were.
"What can I get y'all?" she asked, fishing in an apron pocket for an order pad.
We ordered steak dinners and iced tea and sat back on the overstuffed vinyl seats to wait. The waitress left with our order. She looked back at us rather quizzically on her way to the kitchen. I smiled and nodded back at her.
"I didn't think she was all that cute," said Anne.
She was grinning at me when I turned to face her.
"I didn't either," I said, grinning back at Anne. "But it was an expected response. Who am I?"
"You're you, I think. You may want to verify that, though."
"Ha, ha," I said, "I mean; am I your brother, a cousin, or what? That's what our waitress was trying to figure out."
I stirred tea and stared into the glass as I waited for Anne's response. She poured some sugar into her tea and stirred. There were a few moments of silence at the table. When she spoke, it was with considerable irritation.
"That kind of routine nosiness is one of the reasons I bought that farm. I was tired of being under a goddamned microscope all the time."
Anne set her spoon on her napkin and took a sip of tea. A little more time passed before she wearily rubbed her face with her hands and leaned back. Anne picked up her spoon again and tapped on the napkin-covered surface, then put it down and picked up the tea glass. Her finger drew little patterns in the condensation on the sides.
"Teachers are supposed to be perfect," she said. "No vices beyond coffee or cigarettes. Married, preferably with children of their own. Quiet people who have no obvious difficulties in life which could ruin the fine example they're supposed to be setting for their students."
She looked up at me. Her face was grim as she gripped the glass with both hands and added, "But we aren't."
Anne leaned forward and set the glass down firmly.
"Some of us are beset with special little problems. Like widowhood. Like a small matter of no longer being able to have children and having everyone know about it because being carried to an ambulance from the middle of a class generates questions. Like being almost six feet tall and female."
I was surprised to notice that she was trembling a little with anger.
"Some people treat me as if I were crippled," she said. "Some sympathize with me publicly and some pity me privately, but most women don't trust their husbands around me, so they're happy to see me leave."
"They're women who can't envision life without being a Mrs. Somebody and having children to prove it and who think I'm too attractive to be trusted. They're men who make bets about who will be the first to get in the widow's pants and men who have to look up to see your face and hate you because it's difficult to be condescending to an Amazon."
She finished her small diatribe by thumping her spoon on the table.
I asked softly, "You want to know what I think?"
"Why would it matter what you think?" she snapped, "You can't do anything about anything. You can't even vote to get the idiots off the school board."
Anne's eyes widened in shock as she heard her own words to me and her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, God," she said, "I'm sorry, Ed. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say that..."
I repeated the question. "Do you want to know what I think?"
"Yes, please," she said, "I'm sorry..." She sounded both apologetic and patronizing as she averted her eyes.
"Then just listen for a minute," I said, "And stop apologizing. I'm not broken, just a little bruised. I'll probably live."
I took a sip of my tea to get my bearings. I was a little irritated, but as I said, not incapacitated.
"Anne, I think you've probably always done your best as a teacher, and my Dad has always said that your best is all anyone can expect of you. I know you kept kids from failing, not by passing them to get rid of them, but by putting out lights along the paths they couldn't seem to find for themselves. That's what my aunt called it. 'Pathlighting'. She taught school back in Pennsylvania."
"Thank you," she said, "I always..." I stopped her with a raised hand.
"I also saw someone who seemed to be wearing a backpack full of rocks all the time. Sometimes I thought you were going to start crying for no apparent reason. When my aunt lost her husband, she looked like that, too. She'd had close to forty years with him, I think. It absolutely wrecked her; for almost a full year, we were afraid she might try to join him. Nobody knew how to reach her to let her know she was loved and needed, and that's the way things were when Mom and I went up there for Thanksgiving last year."
I took another sip of tea. Anne was waiting politely to hear the rest of my speech. She probably intended to take me straight back home after dinner.
"My aunt didn't really know me. She hadn't seen me since I was in diapers. When the adults got together at someone's house to shoot the breeze about the family, my cousin James was kind of assigned to me for the day. My aunt was on the front porch in her usual state. Nobody else was there." I paused again as the waitress came by to refill our teas.
"And..?" Anne prompted me to get on with the story.
"And," I said, "James wound up rescuing his cousin Ed from the pond, which was all of about 8 feet deep at worst. We had taken some boards and nails out to see about reinforcing the ancient little fishing pier. James went to the house for something. The end of the pier collapsed under me."
I paused to stir another packet of sugar into my tea, then continued, "I was thrashing and screaming and not making much progress toward getting out of the pond. My aunt saw the situation and caught James as he came out of the tool shed. She shoved him toward the house with orders to call for help, ran down to the pond, and started to splash to my rescue on her own. James barely got there in time to keep her dry. He jumped off the side of the pier and dragged me to shallower water, where I managed to recover enough to be helped up to the house. My aunt then gave us a very long lecture on common sense and safety."
Anne drummed her fingers impatiently.
"You're saying that an emergency brought her out of her funk," she said, as if to cap off the story quickly.
"Oh, it did. It also made a hero out of cousin James at a time when he needed some extra leverage with his father. His Daddy had been a jock in school and had a hard time with the fact that James wasn't. James had asthma; it kept him out of a lot of things. The incident made the local paper, the pier was fixed, and my aunt took a sub-teaching position to get back among the living."
"That's a wonderful little story," said Anne, gazing at the table while fiddling with her spoon. Her tone was slightly patronizing.
"Damned right it was," I said.
Anne looked up, startled.
"My mother thought so, too," I said, "And therefore never mentioned to anyone in the family up there that I swim as well as most fish. She understood exactly what I had been up to. That story also did something for us just now, Anne."
I reached to tap her hand and continued, "It provided us with the time to back away from a bad moment. All we have to do is relax a bit, eat dinner, and go on with things. I don't want to go home."
Her expression was one of surprise. Her face reddened slightly.
"So we're telepathic now, are we?" She smiled weakly.
"We're just making a very easy guess," I said. "You were embarrassed about your outburst; the first thing embarrassed people usually do is look for an exit."
"Oh, hell," she said, "Now I'm even more embarrassed."
"My opinion of you hasn't changed, Anne. You're no different from before we came in here. Neither am I. Not one damned thing is different for or about either of us."
She sat silently, not looking in my direction. Each of us needed a few minutes to ourselves, so I got up and prowled the place looking for maps, real estate guides, and the like. I brought the loot back to the table when I saw the waitress coming through the swinging doors with plates. She set them down and went back into the kitchen.
Anne looked more than a little thoughtful as I sat down. After a couple of false starts, she gave a little laugh and tossed her spoon on her napkin.
"What planet did you say you were from?"
I smiled at her and handed her a brightly-illustrated guidebook of Mesquite, Texas. Anne had something on her mind; she was animatedly but aimlessly flipping through the booklet and avoiding my eyes.
I didn't say anything. My tea seemed to need stirred again. One of the pamphlets about Mesquite's local industry looked interesting, but I noted that the cars in the pictures were all from the late fifties and looked fairly new, which meant the pictures were fairly old.
"Ed, I have to know something. It's really begun to bug me."
I put the booklet down. "Shoot," I said.
"Well," she faltered, "You don't act or talk like a sixteen year old. You never really have, that I recall. You have always talked as if you keep a dictionary and perhaps even an encyclopedia in your head."
"Are you annoyed by my confident familiarity, my candor, my fine facility with English, or my modesty and sense of humor?"
"Yes to all of the above," she said, "And sometimes by your mildly sarcastic nature."
"I know exactly what you mean. I've annoyed lots of people that way. I mentioned that my aunt was a teacher. Two more of my aunts are teachers, and my grandmother was a principal. In my family, you learned proper English, major historical events, and geography by osmosis if by no other means."
"I see," said Anne, "Weren't there any other children your age in your family? Or were you surrounded by adults?"
"There were other kids in school. None who mattered to me. Our nearest neighbors were Amish, about two miles down the road."
"I see," she said again. "That would explain a lot, wouldn't it? Did you ever even have a childhood?"
"It didn't suit me at the time," I replied. "What's wrong with that? I didn't like being around children when I was one."
"How about the way you talk to people twice your age?"
"You've only got about ten years on me. Age. Status. Socially-imposed differences that set people apart, impede communication, and prevent getting along easily."
"THAT's exactly what I mean!" she said. "You tossed that back without even a little hesitation or reservation. You act as if we've known each other for years. You act as if there weren't any differences between us at all."
Anne was pointing her spoon at me. She noticed this and put it on the table as I answered her.
"There aren't really any differences between people like us, Anne. We don't fit society's easy, accepted patterns that work for most everyone else. We're different from the herd, for whatever reasons."
I sipped my tea and continued, "To some we're pariahs because of widowhood, height, or brains; to others because the grades they have to bust ass to get fall on us without much effort and we're bored spitless by team sports."
I paused to give her a wry grin.
"Football: A game which calls for twenty-two guys in tight pants to try to hurt each other for the privilege of putting something that resembles a gigantic suppository in an end zone. There's something wrong with that entire concept."
She rewarded me with a chuckle and a grin.
I continued, "We're people who go our own ways in life, Anne, sometimes because we want to and sometimes because we can't go the normal, socially acceptable ways." I aimed my spoon at her. You're tall, strong, and intelligent. So am I. You have an education. So have I, even if it's osmotically acquired. All I need are your terms."
"Osmosis is definitely an unofficial way to educate people," said Anne. After a moment, she said, "Terms? Terms for what?"
"Terms for personal acceptance."
I met her gaze and waited. Anne leaned back and looked up to the ceiling, rolling her eyes. She laughed as softly as she'd spoken before.
"Damn, damn, damn..." Suddenly she sat straight in her chair and said hurriedly, "I'm NOT laughing at you, Ed. I'm truly only laughing at me."
"So let's go back to your original offer for a minute," I said, "Do I stay and help you with the farm? It would be my pleasure to help you repair your new home, Anne."
Anne regarded me strangely for a moment or two. Her spoon tapped on the table as she thought. I remembered seeing her do the same thing with a pencil many times when faced with a difficult student.
"And if things don't work out?" she asked, watching me closely.
"Then I go home," I said, "But first let's find a good reason."
I could almost hear the wheels of thought turning in her head. Her eyes never left mine as the silence stretched on. I leaned my elbows on the table and propped my chin on my knuckles and gazed back at her, taking the opportunity for what I realized could be the last time to study her features.
She broke the silence with a small smile and, "Okay! You're re-hired. Welcome aboard and all that. You're going to work your butt off this summer, boy. I want everything fixed like new. We're going to have to find a way to get two horses down from Frank's family's place in Virginia, so the barn has to be watertight soon, and that pile of junk behind the barn has to go away right away. Do you think the windmill's fixable?"
I just grinned at her as she went on that way for a while, animatedly listing all the things needing doing right away, soon, and someday.
Her chatter trailed off while she was saying something about the derelict tractor in the barn. She smiled a nervous little smile at me and picked up her tea again, sipping at it and peering at me over the rim.
"I must have sounded pretty silly just then," said Anne.
"Enthusiastic," I corrected her. "And that's great, if you're going to try to get all that done in one summer."
With a chuckle, she said, "You're being kind, sir. I thought it was silly of me."
"I disagree. It was entertaining to watch, but hardly silly."
As her blush moved up a notch, I held up my steak knife, flipped it over, and offered it to her handle-first across my left forearm as I said, "My lady, I would be most pleased and honored to be of assistance to you in founding your empire. You have but to make your wishes known."
Anne laughingly took the knife and tapped me on each shoulder once, then on my head.
"I dub thee Sir Edward, and I charge thee with never telling how easily one can achieve a knighthood around here. And don't ever let me catch you attacking my windmill."
Saluting, I said, "The name's Edward, not Quixote, ma'am."
"Ha!" said Anne, "The only difference so far is that his life was ending, while yours is just beginning."
"Are y'all okay over there?" asked the waitress from across the room.
"Oh, just fine," I said, "I was fired, rehired, and promoted at the same time, that's all." That sent Anne into a small fit of laughter.
The waitress eyed us dubiously for a moment.
"Yeah, well, that's real nice," she said, "Y'all's steaks'll be right out soon."
She turned back to her register with a only two backward glances at us. Anne thought that was hilarious and tried to contain herself from laughing aloud again. We were winding down when the steaks arrived with more tea. The sight and smell of the steaks put laughter on hold for a while as we dug into the meal. We were more than half finished when I tossed out something else to consider.
"So," I said, not looking up, "Now I'm a knight. I don't think I want to identify myself in that manner to a motel clerk, though, so we're back to 'who am I?'. What do we tell the natives?"
"Uhm," said Anne, "That does need some more thought, doesn't it?"
"Anne, I'm sixteen for one more week, and trouble comes cheaper and easier than anything else in this world. By tomorrow there won't be a soul for miles who hasn't heard about the two loonies in here tonight."
I cocked a thumb in the direction of the waitress. Anne froze with a forkful halfway to her mouth, staring at me.
"We could just go back to the farm, Anne. Heat a pot of water for bathing and camp indoors."
She looked at me with a pained expression, but nodded her agreement. We finished dinner, left a fair tip, and had the waitress bag some of the leftover scraps for Kelly.
"Y'all heading east or west?" asked the waitress.
"Neither," I said, "My sister just bought a farm down the road. We got all her stuff in and came here to eat."
Anne raised an eyebrow at me.
The waitress asked, "Y'all from up North?"
"Not lately," I said, "Pennsylvania, once upon a time, but Sis has been teaching school on the other side of Dallas for some time now."
"Oh!" said the girl, "Are you the widow woman who bought the old Maclin farm?" She made a face at the mention of the farm, then hurriedly added, "No offense, but I been out that way, and y'all got a helluva lot of work ahead. Two of the creek fences is down, too. Billy fixed 'em last year, but they wash out again every year. If y'all see a few head of cattle, y'know how they got acrost the fence, now. Y'all know anythin' about cattle?"
Anne shook her head, amazed at the torrent of words from the girl.
"Well, y'just take a stick and slap 'em with it on t'opposite side of where y'all want the cattle to go. There ain't no bull out there, so don't you worry none about that. If y'all need help with 'em, just call this here number and ask for Billy, Ray, Tom, or me. I'm Susan. We'll come get 'em."
She stopped talking while she scribbled on the back of a ticket.
"Wow," I said, "Look what time it is. We better get moving, Sis. Your cat'll have his legs crossed by now."
"Y'all better hope he's got his legs crossed," said Susan, "'Cause you won't never get the smell out if he did anything in y'all's car."
She handed me the ticket, which I handed to Anne. As I held the door for Anne, Susan bellowed, "Y'all come back now!"
"You bet," I said. "Thanks a bunch, Susan. We'll look out for the cattle."
She smiled and waved as we headed for the car. We smiled and waved back.
Anne said nothing as we got into the car. Kelly, on the other hand, was letting us know in his loud Siamese fashion how he felt about having been left in the dark in a cat carrier on the back seat for the last hour or so.
I reached into the cage to ruffle his chin and talked to him as Anne got us moving. She was really bothered about things; ordinarily she would have spent a moment with Kelly as she had when he'd sounded off during the move, petting him and talking to him until he forgot what he was upset about.
Facing stiffly forward, she glared out at the road ahead and shifted gears with what appeared to be excessive force. The radio was still on; she angrily snapped it off. I noticed she had no trouble reaching it when she was angry.
I closed the door to Kelly's carrier and settled into my seat, then made a show of locating and carefully fastening my seat belt and checking to see that it was thoroughly secure. Our speed was a steady sixty miles per hour, and neither of us had bothered with seat belts before.
Anne looked at me as if to ask 'What the hell was that for?'.
I gave her my best look of innocence in return, folding my hands in my lap and returning my gaze to the road.
"Why the hell did you tell her so much?" asked Anne.
"An orchestrated leak of modified information, to paraphrase Nixon," I said. "You became my sister, which eliminates most of the speculation about us."
"First, Quixote," Anne muttered, "Now Machiavelli..." She turned her angry gaze back into the night ahead, but her grip on the wheel seemed to relax a little.
Silence reigned until we were a mile or so from the farm. Anne suddenly banged her fist on the steering wheel.
"She knew so damned much about me!" she shouted.
"Not really," I said, grinning at her in the pale light from the dash instruments, "Sis."
Anne gave me a sharp glance. "I'm beginning to wonder again if this is a good idea."
"Me, too," I responded seriously, "I don't know much about cattle."
Anne giggled. The giggles turned to laughter.
"I don't feel quite so tired anymore," said Anne, getting her breath.
"Me, neither," I said. "We may survive the first night in the wilderness after all."
"Damn right," she declared, thumping her fist on the wheel again for emphasis.
Anne's attention was diverted from road for a second as she grinned at me. Some small creature with eyes glowing bright in the glare of our headlights chose just that moment make a dash across the road. It stopped halfway across, seeming to realize it had made a bad choice.
A rabbit stared back at us as it fatalistically waited for death.
Anne stood on the brakes and violently swerved the Mustang to the right as she tried to miss the rabbit. Tortured rubber screamed and loose objects bounced wildly around the Mustang's interior as the right wheels hit the dirt at the edge of the road, then we were bounding across grass.
The car lurched completely into the air, engine screaming, and slammed back to the ground well off the road. Anne fought to control the car in the high grass. We slid to a stop with the front bumper hanging over the edge of a deep concrete drainage ditch.
For several seconds, Anne sat as if frozen, staring straight ahead with a deathgrip on the wheel. The brake pedal creaked from the pressure of her feet until she unlocked her trembling knees. She let her breath out in a gasping sob and began to tremble violently all over, then swallowed a couple of times and leaned forward to rest her forehead against the steering wheel.
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