He heard the sound of a car, then saw its headlights.
“A car,” he said.
Shanda advanced two steps into the road. Henderson shook Bryant awake. She had been leaning against him, his elbow locked beneath her armpit. A looping filament of saliva glimmered between his jacket shoulder and her mouth, then she brushed it apart with a flopping wave of her hand.
Shanda stuck out her thumb and her pregnant belly. The car turned out to be a pickup. It stopped. The driver was a young man in a peaked cap.
“Mornin’,” he said. “Where you all goin’?”
Shanda explained. Henderson couldn’t hear what she said but stood behind her with a friendly grin on his face. The door was opened and Shanda and Bryant got in.
“You get in back, darlin’,” Shanda said. Darlin’? He obeyed. The back of the pickup was empty apart from a spade and two piles of sacks in the corners. Henderson sat down on one of them.
“Y’all OK back there?”
“Yes,” he said faintly, and the pickup moved off with a lurch. The other pile of sacks stirred, sat up and panted. A black dog, of indeterminate breed. A little unsteadily, like a man on a heaving deck, it advanced across the ribbed floor of the truck, its claws scratching on the pressed steel.
“Hello, boy,” Henderson said wearily. A bit of rope led from the dog’s collar to an attachment on the truck side. The dog sniffed at Henderson’s knee and gave it a cursory lick. It took a step or two forward and nosed at his groin. What is it about me and dogs, he thought. The dog was intrigued and snuffled more enthusiastically, its tail beating gently against the tin cab back.
Henderson crossed his legs and turned away.
“Shoo,”he said. “Clear off.”
The dog sat down and looked patiently at him for the rest of the journey.
♦
At Atlanta airport, where the obliging driver had taken them, Henderson climbed stiffly out of the back and retrieved his suitcase. Bryant had been asleep the whole journey and had to be woken up again. The driver helped Shanda out and shook Henderson by the hand.
“Thank you very much,” Henderson said.
“Good luck, sir,” the driver said seriously. He was a young chap with, Henderson was surprised to notice, no incisors in his top row of teeth.
“God bless you, sir. God bless you.”
“Thanks. Don’t mention it.”
When he’d gone Henderson asked Shanda what she had said to him.
“I said we was married, I was pregnant and Bryant was my little sister who was, you know, not quite right, you know, in the head? And that you had said she could come and live with us. He thought that was real kind. Then I said our car had broke down and we had to catch a plane.”
Henderson looked suspiciously at Shanda. In the clarity of the early morning sunlight she seemed obnoxiously fresh. Her dyed blond hair gleamed and was quite fetch-ingly tousled if one ignored the inch of dark brown root that was exposed here and there. Her large milky breasts and swollen belly strained at the pattern of her dress. She had rolled up the too-long sleeves of Freeborn’s jacket and he noticed for the first time a little tattoo on her right forearm, but he couldn’t make out what it was.
Bryant stood for a moment unsupported, blinking like an idiot, her head wobbling, as if unwilling to rest on the slim pedestal of her neck.
“Duane now,” she said.
“Let’s get inside,” Henderson said. “I’ll get the tickets.”
He couldn’t get on the first four flights out of Atlanta, but eventually found them three seats together on a plane leaving at half past ten. They left Bryant sleeping soundly on a velveteen bench and went in search of a coffee shop. There, Henderson drank some orange juice but pushed away his plate of fried eggs and bacon garnished with a scone and jam. Shanda tackled hers with speed and efficiency.
“What are you meant to do with that?” Henderson asked, pointing at the scone. “I’ve always wondered.”
“The biscuit?”
“The scone.”
“We call it a biscuit. Usually I just cut it in half and leave it.”
He smiled encouragingly and watched her eat. Now he thought about it he should in fact be very angry with Shanda for foisting herself on him in this way, but he was too tired to get indignant. There would be time enough to sort things out when he got to New York. He rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours. So what else was new? He pressed hard, with all ten fingers, on his zygomatic arch, closing his eyes. They would have discovered his absence now at the Gage mansion. Would Duane have realized his betrothed had been spirited away? And would Freeborn, Sereno and Gint have learned of the destruction of the paintings? He supposed he should have been experiencing some sense of outrage but nothing was forthcoming. The usual priorities seemed absurd today.
Shanda lit a cigarette.
“Y’all right?” she asked, blowing a gust of smoke into the air.
“I don’t know,” he said seriously. “I really don’t know.”
♦
Henderson, Shanda and Bryant made their way through the fabulous modernism of Atlanta airport. They boarded a driverless subterranean train in which a robotic disembodied voice told them where to stand and where to alight. At the robot’s first words, Shanda gave a squeal of pleasure and Bryant said “Duane?” They zipped along beneath the airport and disembarked at the correct place. Now the air was filled with a soft maternal voice breathing information about the various modes of transport available within the terminal complex. Henderson felt suddenly safe and secure, until he realized that was precisely the effect aimed for and so became prickly and irritated.
They walked for — it seemed — a good mile down the plush spur of a terminal concourse until they found their departure lounge, full of immaculate businessmen.
Their tickets had been issued in the names of Mr, Mrs and Miss Dores. Bryant fell asleep whenever she sat down and woke up obediently whenever they had to move. An attentive, concerned stewardess allowed the Dores family to board the plane first because of Shanda’s condition. As he ushered a mumbling Bryant—“Duane, Duane,”—down the aisle, one of the cabin staff asked if she were all right.
“She’s retarded,” Henderson said with a sad smile. “She thinks she’s in a train.”
Sympathy and prompt service cocooned them from then on. Henderson asked Shanda to conceal her tattoo (an intertwining of the letters F, G and S, M set in a garland of leaves and flowerlets) as he thought it didn’t chime with the aura of sacrifice and endurance that enshrouded them. They sat down and then had to move when Shanda requested a seat in the smoking section (they lost some moral ground there) but eventually they were established.
The plane filled up with large clean businessmen, slinging, briefcases in the overhead racks, breaking open newspapers, folding expensive trenchcoats with reverential care. Then two dozen enormous young men with very thick necks and wearing identical blazers swayed down the aisle to calls of welcome and good luck from many of the passengers. (A circus act, Henderson thought? A eugenics experiment?) Shanda excitedly told him who they were and what they were doing — the Ranchers gunning for the Cowpokes or something — but he assumed he had misheard.
And then the engines started and the plane moved away from its ramp and taxied out to the runway. Soft bells pinged, calm voices ran through crisis procedures and Shanda tried to order a screwdriver. As the engine noise increased and the plane began to rush down the runway she reached across the dozing Bryant and took his hand.