One Door From Heaven

him. They must know how outgunned they are, but they've plunged in nonetheless. He can't help but admire their kick-butt attitude and their courage, even though they would eventually subject him to experiments if they had custody of him long enough.
        Gabby can drive even faster than he can talk. They are rocketing across the salt flats.
        To avoid drawing unwanted attention, they're traveling without headlights.
        Failure to employ headlights between dusk and dawn is against the law, of course, but he decides that to broach this subject with Gabby would qualify as poor socializing. Besides, Curtis has, after all, broken the law himself more than once during his flight for freedom, though he's not proud of his criminality.
        The clouded sky casts down no light whatsoever, but the natural fluorescence of the land ensures that they aren't driving blind, and fortunately Gabby is familiar with this territory. He avoids whatever roads might cross this desolate valley and stays on the open land, so there's no risk of turning a bend and ramming head-on into innocent motorists, with all the unfortunate physical and moral consequences that would ensue.
        The salt flats glow white, and the Mercury Mountaineer is white, so the vehicle shouldn't be easily visible from a distance. The tires spin up a white plume behind them, but this is a wispy telltale, not a thick billowing cloud, and it quickly settles.
        If FBI agents or the worse scalawags are using motion- detection gear to sweep the flats either from a point atop the valley crest or from an aerial platform, then Gabby might as well not just turn on the headlights but fire off flares, as well, because this white-on-white strategy won't be clever enough to save them from being turned into buzzard grub like the man who had come tumbling in flaming ruin between the buildings.
        "… hogtie 'em with one of their aggravatin' seat belts, douse 'em with some bacon grease, throw 'em in a root cellar with maybe ten thousand half-starved STINK BUGS, an' just see how all-fired safe the God-mockin' bastards feel then!" Gabby concludes.
        Seizing this opportunity to change the subject, Curtis says, "Speakin' of stink, sir, I ain't farted, and I don't think I'm goin' to, neither."
        Though he doesn't reduce their speed and might even accelerate a little, the old caretaker shifts his attention away from the salt flats hurtling towards them. He fixes Curtis with a look of such open-mouthed bewilderment that for a moment it prevents him from talking.
        But only for a moment, whereafter he smacks his lips together and gets his tongue working again: "Judas humpin' hacksaws in Hell! Boy, what the blazes did you just say an' why'd you say it?"
        Disconcerted that his well-meaning attempt at small talk has excited something like outrage from the caretaker, Curtis says, "Sir, no offense meant, but you're the one who first said about burnin' the wind and haulin' ass."
        "Here's that spit-in-the-eye-malefactor side of you what ain't a pretty thing to see."
        "No offense, sir, but you did say it, and I was just observin' that I ain't farted, like you expected, and you ain't neither, and neither ain't my dog."
        "You keep sayin' no offense, boy, but I'm tellin' you right now, I'm bound to take some offense iffen your dog starts fartin' in my new Mercury."
        This conversation is going so badly and they are tearing across the salt flats at such a scary speed that changing the subject seems to be a matter of life and death, so Curtis figures the time has come to compliment Gabby on his celebrity lineage. "Sir, I dearly loved Helldorado, Heart of the Golden West, and Roll on Texas Moon." "What in tarnation's wrong with you, boy?" The dog whines and twitches in Curtis's lap. "Look ahead, sir!" the boy exclaims.
        Gabby glances at the onrushing salt flats. "Just tumbleweed," he says dismissively as an enormous prickly ball bounces off the front fender, rolls across the hood, over the windshield, and spins front to back across the roof with a clitter-click like skeleton fingers clawing at the underside of a coffin lid.
        Nervously but valiantly making another effort to establish better rapport with the caretaker, Curtis says, "Along the Navajo Trail was really a fine movie, and The Lights of Old Santa Fe. But maybe the best of them was Sons of the Pioneers." "You say movies?" "I say movies,