Mad River

bit, to include the farmhouse in the shot, and she saw the line of distinctive blue silos they’d passed at a farmhouse down the road, a mile or so away. From left to right, there was a short one, then two very tall ones, then another short one, and one that was middle-sized.
    The cops were on the other side of the silos, but were coming their way.
    She said, “Jimmy. Jimmy, you gotta wake up.”
    Jimmy opened his eyes and groaned and said, “Man, I hurt.”
    “You’re better, though. You passed out for a while, and I cleaned up your leg. Cleaned it out. I think you’re healing up now.”
    “Jesus, it hurts,” he said. “How many pills we got left?”
    She crawled across the living room floor to the pill bottles, looked at the OxyContin bottle, and said, “Three.”
    “Gimme two.”
    “I think one would be better.”
    “Need two,” he said. “Gotta find someplace . . .” His tongue flicked out, skittering over his dry lips. “. . . find someplace to get more.”
    She gave him two with a glass of water and said, “Jimmy, they’re searching everywhere, and there was a helicopter, and, shit, Jimmy, they’re right next door. They’re gonna find us. We gotta go.”
    He looked at her for a moment, and she thought he didn’t understand, then he said, simply, “Okay.”
    She took all the food and some blankets and a water jug out to the old man’s truck, which was an old red Dodge. She put the passenger seat down as far as it would go, then helped Jimmy pull on a pair of the old man’s pants, and helped him out the door. The stairs down through the mudroom were the worst part, but once he was outside, he hopped along fairly well.
    “You’re looking a lot better, honey,” Becky said.
    “Hurt like a motherfucker, though,” Jimmy said. His face was so pale it was nearly green.
    She had to help him into the truck, and when he was inside, asked, “Should I take anything else?”
    He thought for a minute, then said, “Move the other truck into the barn and lock it up. Maybe, if they come up here, they’ll decide he ain’t home, and they won’t come looking for this truck.”
    She nodded and ran to the Townes’ black truck and drove it to the barn, hopped out, pulled open the barn door, and drove the truck inside. She closed the door, and ran back to the old man’s truck.
    “What do you think?” she asked. “Go for it? Head south? Hide?”
    “Hide until tonight. Find a place, then we get the fuck out of here. You bring the money?”
    “Yeah, I got all the money.”
    •   •   •
    SHE TURNED THE TRUCK around and they rattled back down the hill. Off to the northwest, she could see a helicopter circling over the countryside. Hoped it wouldn’t come after them . . .
    She drove away from the farmhouse with the silos, staying on the smallest roads and the narrowest tracks. Every time she hit a bump, Jimmy groaned, and she said, “Sorry,” and he said, “Keep going.”
    They’d gone maybe three miles when, as they were crossing the crest of a hill, Becky saw the remnants of an old farm on the hillside, the house burned to its foundations, and the outbuildings caved in. The driveway was covered with grass.
    But the thing was, the woodlot was still standing on the north side of the house. She said, “I think I found a place.”
    Jimmy, who’d been slumping in the seat, pushed himself up and asked, “Where?”
    “Go back through here, and hide in the back of the woods. Unless you go back and look, you’d never see us.”
    “Only got to last a few hours,” Jimmy said. “Let’s do it. I can’t take much more of this fuckin’ road, until the pills kick in better.”
    She turned into the driveway, threaded past the remnants of the ruined buildings, down an alleylike depression that led to the woodlot, and then found an even deeper hole in the woodlot itself. She drove carefully into it, and there, couldn’t see out. She worried about getting stuck, but what was done, was done. She killed the engine and said, “I think we’re okay.”
    Jimmy didn’t respond for a moment, then said, “Fuckin’ helicopter can see us.”
    “Not very well.”
    •   •   •
    BUT SHE WORRIED ABOUT IT, and when Jimmy seemed to have dozed off again, she covered him with a blanket, got out of the truck, and looked around the abandoned farmstead.
    Anything of value had been stripped off the place, but behind one of the outbuildings she found three old rolls of tar paper, the kind you