‘You watch out. You look bad. You ain’t in a condition to take that heavy truck over the mountain.’
‘Cut it out!’ Dan said shortly. ‘I tell you I gotta get on.’ He sipped the scalding coffee, sighed. ‘I got five hundred cases of grapefruit and the damn stuff’s going rotten on me. I gotta shift it, Andy. It’s all the dough I’ve got coming to me.’
Andy grunted.
‘Well, if it’s like that... How’s Connie and the kid? Hope you’ll bring them over next trip. I’d like to see them again.’
Dan’s fact lit up.
‘They’re fine. Can’t bring them on a trip, Andy. It’s too tough. I gotta hustle all the time.’ He finished his coffee. ‘I reckon to get home for a night before long. I ain’t been home in weeks.’
‘You’d better. That kid of yours will be socking you in the eye when you kiss Connie if you don’t see more of him.’
‘That’s right,’ Dan said, got to his feet. ‘This rain gives me colic. Hark at it.’
‘It won’t stop tonight,’ Andy said. ‘Watch yourself, son.’
‘Sure. Well, so long. See you next trip if I’m lucky to get a load.’
‘You’ll get one,’ Andy said cheerfully. ‘Keep awake over the mountain.’ He picked up the money Dan had dumped on the table. ‘So long.’
It was cold in the cab after the warmth of the café, and Dan felt more awake. He gunned the engine, pulled out into the road, sent the truck roaring into the darkness and the rain.
Away to the right, off the highway, he could see the lighted windows of the Glenview Mental Sanatorium, and he wrinkled his snub nose in an uneasy grimace. Each time he passed the Sanatorium he had the same morbid thought: if he didn’t run off the road, hit something, get burned up in the truck, he’d land up in a nut-house. The long hours at the wheel, the monotonous roar of the truck engine, the constant lack of sleep were enough to drive anyone crazy in time. He looked again at the receding lights of Glenview. Well, he wouldn’t be locked up there: only rich nuts could afford Glenview.
The wind slammed against the truck, and the rain beat down on the hood. It wasn’t easy to see the road, but he drove on, his hands clenched on the wheel so tightly that they hurt.
Suddenly he leaned forward, peered through the windshield. His headlights picked out a girl standing by the side of the highway. She seemed oblivious to the rain that poured down on her, made no sign as the truck approached.
Dan automatically kicked his brake pedal, skidding the back wheels. He pulled up beside the girl, hung out of the cab. She was now out of the beam of the headlights and he couldn’t see her clearly, but he could see she was hatless and her hair was plastered flat by the rain.
He was puzzled and a little startled.
‘Want a ride?’ he shouted, pitching his voice to get above the roar of the wind. He swung open the door.
The girl didn’t move. He could see the white blur of her face, felt unseen eyes probing at him.
‘I said do you want a ride?’ he bawled. ‘What are you doing out there, anyway? Don’t you know it’s raining?’
‘Yes, I want a ride,’ the girl said. Her voice was flat, casual.
He reached down, caught her hand, swung her up into the cab beside him.
‘Pretty wet,’ he said. ‘Pretty damn wet night.’
He leaned across the girl, slammed the cab door shut. In the dim light from the dashboard he saw she was wearing a man’s trench-coat.
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yeah, pretty damn wet,’ Dan repeated, not sure of her, puzzled. He released his brakes. The engine roared as he changed up and he drove on into the darkness.
In the distance there came a faint sound of a tolling bell.
‘What’s that?’ Dan asked, cocking his ears. ‘Sounds like a bell.’
‘It’s the asylum alarm,’ the girl said. ‘It means someone’s been lucky to get away,’ and she laughed softly, an odd metallic little laugh that somehow set Dan’s teeth on edge.
The mournful sound of the bell, carried by the wind, pursued them.
‘You mean one of the loonies has escaped?’ Dan asked, startled. He peered into the darkness, half expecting to see a wild, gibbering figure spring out at the truck from the thick bushes lining the road. ‘I bet you’re glad I came along when I did. Where are you heading for?’
‘Nowhere,’ the girl replied. She leaned forward to peer through the rain-lashed windshield. The light from the dashboard fell on her long narrow hands, and Dan noticed a deep puckered white scar on her left wrist. ‘Near the artery,’ he thought; ‘must have given her a scare at the time.’
‘Nowhere?’ he repeated, and laughed. ‘That’s a hell of a long way away.’
‘I’ve come from nowhere and I’m going nowhere and I’m nobody,’ the girl said. There was a strange bitter note in her hard fiat voice.
‘Telling me to mind my own business and not pulling any punches,’ Dan thought, and said: ‘I didn’t mean to be curious. I’m going to Oakville if that’s any use to you.’
‘It’ll do,’ she said indifferently, fell silent.
They were climbing now and the engine grew hot, filling the cab with warm fumes, making Dan sleepy. His body ached for sleep and his brain grew numb, so that he drove automatically, forgot the girl at his side, swayed like a rag doll to the lurching of the truck.
He had had only six hours’ sleep in four days and his resistance was now stretched to breaking-point. Then he suddenly couldn’t keep awake any longer and he fell forward, his head striking the steering-wheel. He awoke immediately, Straightened up, cursing himself under his breath. He saw the edge of the road rushing towards him: the grass vividly green in the headlights. He dragged over the wheel, and the truck skidded round with a screaming of tortured tyres. The off-wheels mounted the grass verge, thudded back on to the tarmac. The great towering load of cased grapefruit, lashed down by a tarpaulin, creaked and shuddered, swayed dangerously. For one sickening moment Dan thought the truck was going to turn over, but it righted itself, continued to crawl up the twisting road.
‘Gee! I’m sorry,’ he gasped, his heart banging against his ribs. ‘I guess I must have dozed off.’ He glanced at the girl, expecting to see her shaking with fright, but she sat peering through the windshield, calm, quiet — as if nothing had happened. ‘Weren’t you scared?’ he asked, a little irritated at her calmness. ‘We nearly went over.’
‘We’d’ve been killed, wouldn’t we?’ the girl said softly. He scarcely heard her above the noise of the wind as it slammed against the cab. ‘Would you be afraid to die?’
Dan wrinkled his snub nose.
‘It’s unlucky to talk like that in a truck. Guys get killed every day in trucks,’ he said, and rapped with his knuckles on the wooden dashboard.
He slowed to take a sharp bend which would bring them on to the mountain road.
‘This is where we climb,’ he went on, shifting in his seat to bring himself closer to the steering-wheel. ‘You watch it — it’s some road.’
They were hedged in now; on one side by the towering granite mountain and on the other side by a sheer drop into the valley. Dan changed down. The truck began to crawl up the steep gradient, its engine roaring.
‘The wind’ll be bad half-way up,’ he shouted to the girl. And already the wind seemed to increase in violence, and somewhere ahead heavy falls of rock crashing into the valley added to the din. ‘It blows across the plain and smashes itself against the mountain. I did this trip last year in a wind like this and I got stuck.’
The girl said nothing, nor did she look at him.
‘Rum kid,’ he thought. ‘I wish I could see more of her. She shapes like a looker.’ He yawned, gripped the steering-wheel tightly. ‘I’m nobody from nowhere. Funny thing to have said. Maybe she’s in trouble: running away from home.’ He shook his head, worried about her.