Wild Horses

Chapter Forty-Four

In the trailer, Emma sat sobbing over Suzy's story. "You don't have to tell me any more. You don't have to talk about anything that scares you."

"I wasn't scared after the bad man left. Only I wanted Daddy to wake up. I told him I was hungry, and Mandy was hungry too. I shook him like I did sometimes to wake him up, but his head just rolled around. There was dark wet stuff under it."

"Baby, my sweet baby."

"I'm not a baby, Mommy. The phone in Mandy's purse rang. Daddy always gave it to me when he had a visitor. He told me to press the number one button if he yelled. But he never yelled. And he didn't answer the phone when it rang. I guess you can't talk on the  phone if you're dead, but I didn't know that then like I do now. I'm a lot older now, nearly eight."

"But why didn't you answer the phone?" 

"Daddy told me not to touch the phone unless he yelled to me to do it. I told you that, Mommy." Suzy's tone implied wonderment at the cluelessness of adults. "But I saw the letters on the screen -- E-M-M-A. I could read them. I knew it was you, Mommy."

"It was me, Suzy, me, trying to talk to you. Please promise you'll always answer when I call."

"I will, Mommy, since Daddy's deaded. And I liked knowing you were on the phone. It made me feel better, even when my tummy was growling. I stayed right there, listening, until the cars that made the bad noises came."

"The police cars? With the sirens?" Emma asked.

"Bad noises. They hurt my ears."

***

The feed sacks shrouding the dead coyote, even the animal's bones had washed away as if they had never been. Emma spent the rest of the day gathering armloads of brush washed down the gully in the story, determined not to sit helplessly in the trailer any longer, waiting until they were forced to drink water from the toilet tank. Dusk was falling as she stacked the brush by the shed, hoping it would provide the traction the car's tires needed to get out of the mud they'd churned up.

She stumbled back to the trailer, exhausted, arms scraped and fouled with mud. Early tomorrow morning she would start the car again. Not tonight. She didn't want to risk depleting the car's fuel on dark Wyoming roads deserted by everything but coyotes.

There was canned food in the pantry, including a can of evaporated milk. She mixed milk, cocoa, and sugar with a little of the rust-stained fluid from the water heater and persuaded Suzy to drink it and eat some dry cereal. Then she drew sparingly from the heater tank to wash off the worst of the mud and blood from her scratched arms, and splashed rubbing alcohol on the rest.

At first light next morning, she shoved a bundle of the gathered brush close against the treads of the car's tires and got behind the wheel. She had already strapped Suzy into her seatbelt in the back, afraid to trust the little girl to stay out of the way. Cautiously, she slipped the gear into reverse and eased onto the accelerator pedal. The little car rocked backward and stopped, tires churning again.

Emma turned off the ignition and stepped outside to check the results. The tires had rolled back enough to crush the brush under the treads. She carpeted the ruts with more brush in front as well as behind the tires. Leaving Suzy occupied with a pad of drawing paper and crayons, Emma ran back into the trailer, filling the trunk, trip after trip, with any small pieces of furniture she could carry, anything whose weight might increase the tires' traction.

Climbing back into the car, she tried the gas pedal again. The tires caught hold, brush crunching beneath them. When she tapped the accelerator, the little car rocketed out of the shed. Not until she reached a gravel pan in front of the trailer did she dare cut the ignition and empty the trunk of its extra weight. The fuel gauge now hovered just above empty.