Between building road weariness and constant glancing into the rear-view mirror, Leila forgot to look at the gas gauge. The analog needle sat low in the orange mark when it did catch her eye.
She looked around, more aware for a change of her surroundings than of the receding road in her mirrors. Fenceposts. Sage brush near and far. To her left, an outcropping of red rock. Rolling prairie under an impossibly big sky. No side roads. No sign of civilization as far out as she could see. And here in central Wyoming she could see a long way.
A new anxiety built itself on the bedrock of her constant nervous tension. Soon the car would start to choke, jerk, and stutter and then she would be stranded with not a person in sight and not a single place to hide the car. Stu would find her. She wondered if, when her husband came for her, she would run. The thought made her legs rubbery.
Three stressful miles later, a modest green sign announced "Elk Crossing" in white letters with an arrow to the left. She turned, hoping this place wasn't far and furthermore had its own gas station. So many towns out here merited signs and then consisted of nothing but a few weather-beaten, boarded up buildings.
Pressure behind her eyes, a dry mouth, the rear-view mirror, the gas gauge, the mirror. And then, like an oasis, a tall sign announcing a universal brand of gasoline came into view.
She pulled up to the nearest island and popped her door open. The wind almost pushed it closed again and her legs barely held her upright. The crumpled money which came out of her pocket amounted to $11.37. So Elk Crossing was it. No more play in her finances. Her stomach felt tight and small under her waistband.
Four dollars of cardboard hoagie and six dollars of gas later, Leila shifted from one size eight shoe to the other at the cash register. She could hear Stu mocking her as she struggled to ask a desperate question of the teenaged girl behind the counter.
She firmed her trembling chin. "Um. Is there any work around here?"
For the first time in their interaction, the cashier's blue eyes met Leila's brown ones and actually focused on her.
"I don't think we're hiring," the girl said, flattening her hands on the counter between them. Leila noticed her blunt, square fingernails, the calm way the hands rested, fingers pointing across the counter.
The stillness of the girl's hands somehow kept Leila from crying, although she wanted to.
"No. I mean..." she took a deep breath, "I mean I'm looking for a job--any kind." She glanced up, saw a fleeting wince of pity, looked at the hands.
"You'll want to talk to Randy at the hardware store. Straight west into town. It's the one with the flags on the right. You can't miss it."
"Thank you," Leila managed, and fled.
#
Leila's flight from her husband Stu had started the day before in Sunnyvale, California. With a gasp of panic, she awakened beside Stu and lay there, heart thudding in the pre-dawn. She checked the clock and released her gasp of breath when she saw it was the appropriate time to wake up. All her weekday mornings started like this. Stu wouldn't allow her to have an alarm clock because it would disturb his sleep. But she was required to have coffee ready and breakfast on the way by the time his alarm went off.
She handed him his backpack and a hot travel mug and held the door for him, both hands gripping the frame. As he did every morning, he pinched her bruisingly on his way past her. She waited, shivering, until he got into his red Mustang and closed the door.
The morning diverged from normal at that point. Instead of going to the kitchen to cry and wash dishes, Leila stood facing the curtains over the door glass and shook. Her thoughts whirled fast and then faster until she couldn't identify an individual thought at all, simply the drive to get out.
She stumbled to the laundry room and dug down into the box of detergent. Soft grains of detergent lodged under her nails and with a revelatory bit of insight Leila realized it didn't matter if all the detergent ended on the floor. She wouldn't be there to pay for the mess and then clean it up.
The detergent spilled onto the floor, a wad of fragrant cash falling out last. She stuffed it in her pocket without counting. No matter the exact amount it would have to be enough. She was leaving.
#
Leila's misgivings about the cashier's simple directions proved unfounded. The town of Elk Crossing rose up out of the prairie over the next rise. The highway transitioned into Third Street. She passed a stop light, the first she had seen in hundreds of miles. Four blocks down, she saw another but before she got there she found the hardware store, a squat building with American flags flanking the doors.
"I can do this," Leila said as she sat in the ancient Buick and stared though the plate glass. She shuddered. The bald statement had carried her through too many years of picking herself up from the floor and going on as though she hadn't been knocked down.
A bell rang when she pulled the door open. She stepped out of the sun and wind into the cool exterior of a store which smelled of wood and fasteners and fertilizer.
"May I help you?" asked a man.
Leila turned to see a diminutive older gentleman with a nose which seemed too sharp for the rest of his features. She breathed once, twice, and fought the tears of desperation.
"I--I'm looking for work?"
"Well now," the man said, "what sort of work?"
"I can do a lot of things. Cooking, cleaning, secretarial work--I was an English major in college."
The man stood silent beyond a point Leila thought she could bear. She lay her shaking hands flat against her thighs and lifted her chin to keep from crying, both techniques she had used with Stu many times.
The man nodded and came around the counter. He neglected to offer his hand, but he did offer his name.
"I'm Randy. Randy Ostermyer. There is a job--I just don't know if I should tell you about it. Maybe not for the faint of heart..."
She recognized the contrast between how she acted and what she knew of herself. After what she had just escaped she knew she could handle whatever she had to.
"Anything."
"The man's name is Bill Colvin. Owns a horse operation. He's looking for someone to watch his kids."
The man—Bill Colvin—answered her call on the first ring. Randy had dialed for her using an grimy, old rotary phone which sat on the equally grimy counter. Leila focused on the smudges in the dirt and said the first thing which came to mind.
“This…this is Leila?”
“Yes?” The snap in his baritone voice told her she should get on with it.
“I was wondering—I heard—do you need someone for your kids?”
“I’m in town. Where are you?”
"The hardware store."
When she told him, he instructed her to wait there for him. Randy said she should wait inside. She stood near the front door and looked out the plate glass window, her view framed by the handles of an upturned wheelbarrow.
A large, red truck pulled into a diagonal space in front of the hardware store, fenders hanging out over both flanking yellow lines. The man behind the wheel jumped down and strode into the store, catching the door behind him when the wind caught it. He spotted her immediately and, cowboy boots striking the floor a pounding blow with each step, closed the distance.
“Miss Leila?” He said.
She nodded and he offered to shake. She had to look up quite a bit to meet his eyes even at her five foot ten height.
“Bill Colvin.” His large, rough hand felt as if it had square edges. His browned face was also rough, starting with a forehead truncated by a red cap and ending in a square jaw.
He looked around and made a face. “Let's talk somewhere more private,” he said. “Get in the truck and I’ll tell you about the job.”
Leila walked out the door behind him despite the alarmed voice clawing for purchase in the back of her mind. She mocked herself for her alarm and her compliance, thinking of the experiment where the dogs slobbered every time a bell rang.
Colvin’s hand on her elbow helped her negotiate the high step up to the truck’s cab. Her expectations of the character of a ranch vehicle were quashed by the plush comfort of the interior and she relaxed. He let the wind slam his door shut, cutting the noise level.
#
“Miss Leila, I’m not going to beat around the bush here. I haven't had a vacation in longer'n I can remember. I need to get away for awhile. But someone’s gotta watch the kids. Are you interested?”
Leila quelled the urge to tell the man she had no experience with children.
“I’d be honored.”
“All right.” He hesitated a moment then turned to look at the dashboard. "How're you doing for gas? It's a drive."
"Only a couple of gallons," Leila said, also looking down.
"Meet me at the gas station on the way out. That'll be your down payment."
The alarmed voice in her head ratcheted up its volume. Despite her need for food and a place to stay and the ever-present, gnawing worry about Stu finding her, a question emerged.
"What? That's it?"
Bill turned to her. "What's it?"
"You--" she cut herself off, afraid of losing the job. "You're giving me the job?"
He chuckled and his gaze caught hers for a moment before she looked down and away.
"I flatter myself," he said, "on my instincts about people. You're the perfect person for the job. Trust me."
#
Bill's red truck turned off the highway onto an unpaved road and accelerated. Leila concentrated on pushing the old Buick fast enough to keep him in sight. Bald tires struggled to grip the road and the car slewed and fishtailed when she changed speed. The truck disappeared over the top of a ridge. Leila held her breath until she topped the rise, too, and saw the truck speeding into a valley.
Yes, Leila thought, as they raced around corners and up and down ridges, Stu will never find me out here. Elation drew her lips into a smile made a bit tense around the corners by her struggle to keep the car on the road.
Half an hour later she began to wonder whether the drive would ever end. Hard on that thought came the fear that Bill had some nefarious purpose in mind, that he had lured her to the middle of nowhere to hurt or kill her.
She remembered his strong, calloused hand wrapping around hers. A chill crept down her back. The sensation obliterated her awareness of the dust and the stiff feeling in her hands from gripping the wheel too hard. Despite the sensation of doom, she urged the Buick up another rise and saw the red truck pull off the road and into a wide gravelled space next to a house.
With perfect irrationality, she heaved a sigh and her hands loosened. The existence of a house, a destination, reassured her Bill's intentions were honorable. She continued at a more reasonable pace, watching as Bill jumped out of the truck before the dust settled behind him and strode into the house.
Safe in the drive, Leila sat for a moment and worked to consciously relax her shoulders. As she climbed from the car, Bill reemerged with a suitcase. He heaved it into the truck's bed before walking to her.
"Payment up front," he said, and handed her an envelope. She took it, wordless in the wind and sunlight. The last of the dust settled in her wake as the truck started and backed up. She stared in shock for a second or two. The truck came to a stop on the road. When she saw Bill shifting and turning the wheel she began running down the drive.
"Wait," she yelled. "Wait!"
Bill turned toward her. He smiled and waved as the truck tires spun rocks up and sped off.
Later, she would try to lie to herself about what happened next, ashamed of her mindless panic. She actually did, however, sprint after the truck for a short way, yelling and begging, and stand in the dust long after the tail lights disappeared over the rise.
#
Finally, because there was nothing else to do, Leila walked back toward the house. Accusatory questions occurred to her every couple of yards. How long did he say he would be gone? Why didn't I ask how many kids he has? How old are they? Gravel shifted under her when she stopped in the drive and stared at the house.
She thought back to the hope she had allowed herself this morning when Bill offered the job. The unfamiliar sensation had lifted her, carried her to this place, and dropped her just as happened with her marriage. The realization shook her with the understanding it is possible to feel really good about something and have it go horribly wrong.
The longer she stared at the house, the less interested she felt in going in. The windows lacked curtains, the gutter over the front door sagged, and the paint stood up in little peeling cups. The texture of the paint on the eaves reminded her, inexplicably, of the smell of a decaying carcass. This impression of a putrid scent threw her back to the first time she experienced it.
“You never could do anything right,” Stu had said.
She had spilled coffee grounds on the kitchen floor and he beat her right there, holding her face to the tile like rubbing a puppy’s nose in its own shit. Then, she lacked the distance from the experience to consider why she smelled rotting meat. Now, she had too much time to stand and consider. No matter how she considered the question, however, she could not form even a theory about why she smelled rotting meat--then or now. She decided it must be an oddity of her brain.
The wind gusted with such force that a chunk of her curly, dishwater blonde hair ended in her mouth along with a teaspoonful of grit. She staggered back a step and wondered whether the wind itself was trying to tell her not to take the job. She gave herself a mental slap, a reminder it was too late for doubt. There were children inside waiting for her, needing her.
Leaning into the wind, dragging her feet forward, Leila eyed the house even as she moved toward it. The wrong angle of the eaves, the shadows crawling on the green front door, and the blank windows conspired with the wind buffeting her face to make her imagine fleeing.
The familiar safety of her battered Buick called to her. She clutched the envelope to her chest, acknowledged its power to buy her a lot of gas money, and kept slogging to the front door.
Touching the door knob required effort. She didn’t know what she expected, something unpleasant, but the sun-warmed knob turned easily. Pushing the door open turned out to be another matter. It wouldn’t budge. She tucked the envelope under one arm and pushed again. No luck. The door stuck fast in the frame.
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. She could feel the relentless wind bearing the house out of true, warping lines so the door wouldn’t budge. Stashing the envelope under a gritty, red rock by the door, she turned the knob, set her shoulder against the door, and shoved so hard the shock of impact traveled to the balls of her feet. The door gave a little then snapped back.
Desperation took over. She needed to get inside. Had to. A brief prayer welled spontaneously from the depth of her need. Please let me get in. She mocked herself for the plea. Prayer ceased being an option years ago, when she noticed Stu beat her whether or not she beseeched God for mercy.
Acknowledging the certainty of a sore shoulder in the morning, Leila leaned back and threw herself at the door. With a splintering sound, it bashed open so hard the door knob jerked out of her hand and the door slammed against the inside wall. She put a foot inside, bent and freed the envelope from the rock, and walked in.
The stink didn’t hit her until she closed the door. The house reeked of filth and dead things. The smell brought to mind an overflowing outhouse stuffed with dead mice. Outside, she longed to run away when she imagined the smell of rot. The reality cowed her into shoulder-slumping defeat. She saw the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window as dimness. The ruddy tile of the floor, the rough-hewn trestle table flanked by benches, even the white refrigerator, everything she saw was transformed into muddy unreality by the smell.
"Holy shit." She breathed the words into the dead, fetid air and it seemed to smother them before they lived. She recalled Bill's sun-lined face and simple, practical clothes and wondered who really lived inside those clothes, behind that face. Who on earth would live like this--especially who on earth would let his children live in such a place? Leila formed a plan. She would gather the children and get them out of the house.
“Hello,” she said.
The word, her first attempt to carry through her plan, emerged feeble and meek but still elicited a response. A low, muttering growl filled the room. The hair on her neck prickled up and she turned toward the sound. The darkened doorway at the opposite end of the kitchen had obscured the dog’s massive form. Now it lifted its head, German Shepherd ears stiffly pointed in her direction, and rumbled again.
Leila whimpered. The world went wobbly around her and she needed to sit. Slowly, inching her way down, never taking her eyes off the dog, she lowered herself onto the nearest bench. The angry dog's presence destroyed the last wisps of her hopeful mood and the words "not fair" were stuck on repeat in her brain.
Her vision swam as the tears started. Once she realized the inevitable breakdown she gave in, cushioned her head on her arms, and started sobbing. A well of self-pity opened before her and she jumped in and began listing every single damn thing which seemed specifically designed to make her life a living hell. With each remembered insult or obstacle, her sobbing ratcheted up another notch.
Something hard poked upward under her biceps. Dimly, she wondered what poked her. She cracked open an eye previously squeezed tight in denial and looked down. There sat the dog by her side, its eyes now soft and wide, its shaggy front paws planted primly side by side on the tile floor, less than a foot from her. The reversal of the dog’s mood and the release of a good hysterical break-down served to calm her.
“Well, look at you,” she said, and with great care reached out and touched the dog’s head.
Underneath the thick, silky fur she felt hard ridges of skull. The dog allowed her to pet it, a gingerly process which produced no reaction in the animal. It was, Leila thought, tolerating the experience for her own good.
The dog’s solicitous behavior released the last of the tension in her shoulders. She sighed. The dog sighed. The envelope sat fat and cockeyed on the table before her.
The abundance of the money inside shocked her.
She counted the thick wad of one hundred dollar bills and found fifteen of them.
Stu managed all their money during her marriage. She’d never seen so much before. Again she wondered how long Bill would be gone and heard Stu's voice repeating one of his maxims about her: You are so stupid.
A deepening of cold in the kitchen alerted Leila just before the dog’s head turned toward the living room. The stink in the house once again pressed on her consciousness and she dreaded looking up. A conviction settled on her that something horrible stood in the doorway to what she presumed was the living room. A small scuffing sound magnified the silence instead of breaking it.
The dog’s tail brushed the tile once back and forth. She looked up and saw a little girl framed by the door. Still as the dead, her pale, expressionless face reflected the white of her nightgown.
Leila startled and jumped up. Without a sound the girl whipped around and disappeared into the gloom.
“Wait!” Leila’s voice sounded weak and hopeless, an echo of her life to date.
Either a ghostlike child or a childlike ghost inhabited the house. Leila decided for the ghostlike child. She didn’t believe in ghosts and Bill had hired her to watch children.
#
She knew finding the children should be her first priority. But something within her refused to wander through the house, refused even to let her raise her voice to call out. Irrational fears haunted her. She thought again of calling for the children and could only imagine something evil crouching in the shadows, waiting for her invitation. Her imagination of touring the house terrified her even more. She searched for some reason for her profound foreboding and found nothing. She hunched her shoulders. The physical action recalled how she always held herself in Stu's presence. When she thought of her constant fear and anticipation of being hurt when she was with Stu the memory seemed clear and rational compared with her current experience.
The thought of Stu brought up a knee-jerk reaction to make dinner. It must be ready on time. It's getting late. She hadn't brought a watch with her when she left California so she looked around the kitchen and saw the microwave oven didn't have the time programmed, the gas stove lacked a time display, and no wall clock decorated the kitchen.
"Whatever," Leila told the dog. "It must be around dinner time."
She paused in front of a door which looked like it should lead to the pantry, her heart beating hard. She would open the door and behind it would be something horrible, something terrifying.
The dog contradicted her, dancing from foot to foot and poking its nose repeatedly at the door. The eager behavior encouraged Leila and, still prepared to scream or faint or something, she swung the door open to a completely normal, rather large pantry. In rushed the dog and shoved a bag of dog food with its nose. Leila looked at the shaggy animal and stroked its side, finding the thick fur hid a row of protruding ribs.
"Oh, you poor thing," she murmured, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She filled its dish to overflowing, refreshed the water bowl, and watched with pleasure as it inhaled the chow.
She studied the boxes and cans stacked on the pantry shelves with a dull confusion. Which one of these is not like the other? The shelves bowed with the weight of their contents--everything she could imagine was stacked there, not just one but two, three, four of each item. The disparity of the smell in the house and the poor condition of the dog with the abundance in the pantry created a dissonance in her which wouldn't shut up.
A term of blank staring produced her first positive idea. Perhaps the children were as hungry as the dog. If she filled the kitchen with the smell of food, if it could possibly compete with the enveloping stench…the children might come to her.
The refrigerator's offerings matched that of the pantry in scope. Blinking into the fridge light, she chose a package of hamburger.
Despite a small thrill of discomfort every time she made a loud noise, Leila banged pots and pans onto the stove as she worked to alert the children. The silence continued and as pasta boiled and hamburger browned she wondered if she had really seen a little girl earlier.
Road weariness gripped her as she stirred the hamburger until her hand relaxed on the spatula and her eyes lost their focus. The drive eastward pulled her back into its embrace. Her long drive had soothed even as she clung to the twin pressures of the need for flight and the worry over how much gas she could afford. The alien landscape of desert and prairie, so different from lush Northern California, whispered to her. Here you can get lost. This vast emptiness will defeat him.
The first time she attempted escape he tracked her down, hauled her back to their house, and beat her. The last thing she heard before she passed out were his threats to kill her if she ever ran away again.
Spare, flat Nevada contradicted him, assuring her he couldn't find her. Farther on, the salt flats of Utah assured her freedom. The red rock spires tempted her to awe. The grind of driving through endless western Wyoming dulled her into complacency.
Cheyenne, so sudden in the long prairie, reminded her a flight due east along I-80’s major arterial flow lacked subtlety. She turned north on I-25, began making turns at random. A dearth of population emphasized the variety of the landscape. One year of her childhood—maybe when she was eleven or twelve—she read every Western she could get her hands on. For the first time, the vocabulary in those books made sense. Butte, outcropping, escarpment, box canyon, ridge…and the smell of burning hamburger refocused her into the present.
Leila flicked the stove off, combined hamburger with pasta and sauce, and served dinner for one. Hopefully, she left a stack of plates and forks beside the food.
Hunger redeemed the loneliness of the meal. Subsisting on jerky, trail mix, and coffee for the last two days gave her an appetite. When she realized she could eat no more, Leila sighed. The food aromas had failed to produce children.
Only after the dishwater cooled under her hands did she hear a sound. A soft scraping of the top plate’s removal. The clink of a spoon against the pan of food left on the table. Leila froze for a second, then consciously released the tension in her shoulders.
A moment of thought and a gulp against the lump in her throat prepared her. She hummed the first song she remembered from childhood. The lullaby made her hesitate again when she recognized it. Hush little baby, don’t say a word… Her earliest memory of mother’s love and comfort in a comfortable home invited just the behavior this child displayed--utter silence.
Last dish done, she pulled the drainer plug and turned. The little ghost girl sat on her knees to position herself high enough on the bench to eat. She hunched over the plate and shoveled food into her mouth with both fork and fingers, jaw moving fast. Muscle moved under the skin of her forearms, clearly visible with her movements. No baby fat, Leila thought. Finger-shaped bruises marred the pale skin. Her tangled, mousy-blonde hair hung into the spaghetti sauce.