The Deputy by Victor Gischler Page A

smeared the dust and blood across my face. I leaned back against the Nova, kept the gun up, waiting for somebody to come kill me.
    Nobody did.
    I belly crawled up the embankment, saw what had happened.
    Fifty yards away, the Mustang had gone off the road on the other side, its nose over the embankment. It scraped bottom as it rocked back and forth, gunning its engine, trying to unstick itself. The back tires kicked up dirt and rocks. It would rip free any second and come back for me.
    I reached back into the Nova and grabbed the bag with the diapers and milk. I began jogging across country back to town. It was less than a mile away, the lights clearly visible. Even with the moon out, they wouldn’t be able to spot me across the vast black of the night landscape. Let them hunt for me near the flipped Nova. I jogged a minute and allowed myself a quick look back.
    The Mustang was loose again, cruising slowly. It parked more or less near the overturned Nova, the headlights stabbing the night. If I got lucky, maybe they’d piss away a whole hour cruising around the wreck looking for me.
    I turned back toward town and kept jogging.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    > "Holy crap!” Molly muffled herself to a hoarse whisper.
“What happened?”
    “How’s the boy?”
    “Still sleeping. Are you going to be okay?”
    “It looks worse than it is. Mostly dirt. Let me in please.”
    She stepped aside, and I handed her the convenience store bag on the way to her bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t pretty, face a caked mix of blood, dirt and sweat. I filled the sink with cold water, splashed my face. The water stung the cut over my eye. I ignored it, kept splashing until I looked almost human again. I wiped my face on one of Molly’s clean towels, smudged it brown and red, tossed it on the floor. I drained the water, turned on the cold tap again and scooped handfuls of water until I got the dirt taste out of my mouth.
    I took a leak, flushed.
    Molly hovered in the hall, waiting for me to come out.
    “Toby, stay here. Every time you go out there, something—”
    “I have something to do.”
    I walked past her and into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator. She’d put my other two energy drinks in there. I took them. There were two chicken legs on a plate. I took them too. Back in the living room, Molly looked at me, frowning with her whole face, arms crossed. I didn’t have time to think of anything I could say to make her feel better. I looked at the boy. He was still sleeping. Good.
    I went toward the front door.
    “Toby, please.”
    “Molly, just watch TJ, okay? Stay here and watch him.”
    I left quickly before she could think of anything else to say to me. I went through my pockets until I found the right set of keys. I unlocked Roy’s Peterbilt and hauled myself up into the cab. The truck was a fucking monster. I sat, looked over the gearshift and gauges, trying to remember back a few years when I’d driven a pal’s big-rig a total of twice just for laughs. I started the engine and cranked the air-conditioning.
    The air felt good. I sat there a second, not moving, just letting the air conditioning hit my dirty, sweaty skin.
    I sat and ate the chicken legs, tossed the bones out the window. The armrest was also a storage compartment for CDs. I flipped through Roy’s music collection with a raised eyebrow. He had Celine Dion, Kenny G, Lionel Richie, Abba Gold, Three Tenors, Sade, Britney Spears, Seal, Clay Aiken …
    Damn, Roy. What the fuck?
    I shoved Abba into the CD player, drowned out the opening seconds of “Dancing Queen” grinding the Peterbilt into first gear. The thing finally lurched forward, and I was off and running. I eased out of the residential neighborhood, trying not to flatten mailboxes or picket fences as I went. I made a wide slow turn onto main, found the alley I was looking for the other side of Skeeter’s.
    I pulled past, then attempted to back in but had to stop before taking out a railing on