Page 151 of The Reformatory

Splashing was coming from the creek behind them. So close now.

“Hey!” a reedy voice shouted from a distance, but not far enough. “Stop!”

They’d been spotted! The trackers’ guns would start firing next. Robert imagined the bloody body in the creek again, but this time he saw himself. Gloria’s gun fell out of her jeans in her hurry to climb; it tumbled down into the brush. Robert knew without Gloria saying so that neither of them could slow down to find it, just when they needed it most.

Gloria was scaling the hillside so fast above him that Robert worried he would not keep up. She could not hold his hand now like in the creek. The soles of his boots were slippery, sliding on the moss when he tried to get a good footing. He glanced up at the trestle again, the angle slightly different, and still saw no truck waiting.

“Is it Uncle June and Waymon?” Robert asked. “Maybe they drove off, Gloria.”

“No,” she said firmly. “They didn’t.” Robert wondered if she knew that or if she was just guessing, but he decided she knew the same way she knew Mama’s ghost was watching.

Worrying would not help him climb faster or outrun the dogs.

Gloria grabbed the rope, which met them only halfway up. He was relieved when he saw the ease with which she pulled herself up two-handedly like a mountain climber. After moving around a prickly dead tree, Robert finally reached the frayed end of the rope after her and held tight. His palms were no longer slippery, so his grip was strong. He held the rope with only his right hand so he would not drop the envelope he’d hidden down his shirt, pinned by the waistband.

Pebbles sprayed down from Gloria’s shoes, but he didn’t complain, trying to keep her in sight above him. Robert felt so much more scared now than he had facing Haddock in the creek, when having Blue on his side made him feel like he could do anything. The railroad trestle had felt like a fairy tale then, but now that it was real and solid, his desperation to reach it made it hard to catch his breath.

“Gloria…,” he said. “I can’t breathe…”

“You’re just scared,” she said. “Me too. Keep climbing, Robbie!”

Red spots and shapes wiggled in front of Robbie’s eyes as he felt dizzy, but he never let go of the rope, forcing his wobbly legs on. Gloria’s silhouette blazed above him in the setting sunlight like an angel. He held on to the rope. He followed his sister. He tried not to think about breathing as his lungs and throat burned.

The rapid splashing in the water below did not sound like men. Robert risked one glance back down and saw two loose dogs running toward them, German shepherds like Mister Red’s dog Duke, but bigger. And moving fast.

“The dogs!” Robert called to Gloria, and she did not look back before she somehow climbed even faster. She was already only three feet from the road.

“Come on, Robbie! The truck’s here!” Gloria couldn’t hide the relief in her voice.

When he looked up again, he saw the white paint on the back of Miz Lottie’s truck. The brush below rustled with the dogs’ approach. They ran as fast as demons.

Robert’s foot slipped, and he swung wide on the rope, his feet wheeling as he tried to touch something solid. His weight pulled on Gloria as she grabbed the rope and cried out: for a long moment he was certain she would fall on him and they would both tumble into the jaws of the dogs. But his hands slid down only a few inches, scraping his palms raw, and he held on. Then he pressed one hand back against the envelope just as it was jarring loose.

“You okay?” Gloria called down to him. “Hurry up!”

Two more big steps, and Gloria was at the top. Robert thought she would wait and pull him up, but she vanished toward the road. He heard her say, “Miz Lottie! Dogs! Start it up!”

The truck wasn’t even running? And Miz Lottie was driving?

“I got Ole Suzy turned around, but she needed another rest,” Miz Lottie’s voice said from where she sat just out of sight. “Where’s Robbie?”

“He’s coming! Start the truck! Hurry!”

One foot up, his other foot up, then the other again. While he climbed, Miz Lottie’s truck choked as she tried to start it just out of sight. The second time Miz Lottie tried, the truck came to life, the engine as loud as an angry baby.

“Start driving slow. We’ll catch you!” Gloria said.

“You sure, pumpkin?” Miz Lottie said. “Shouldn’t I—”

“I’m sure!”

Gloria’s face appeared from six feet above, open-mouthed and scared. She reached her hand down to him. “Robbie, look out!” Gloria said. Robert looked: pale brown fur moved past the brush with growls like death, close enough for Robbie to see gnashing yellow teeth. Robbie didn’t have time to think before he kicked Papa’s boot in the dog’s face as hard as he could and the dog tumbled back down several feet with a yelp. The other dog tangled with him in the brush. His last piece of luck, he thought. Maybe his sure kick had been a gift from Blue. Or, more likely, Mama. Robbie could breathe again.

Carried by his memory of flying in the woods, Robert scrambled up the rest of the slope without the rope to support him. Gloria’s hand was there to meet his, clamping tight. She pulled him with the strength of a grown man, and the ground was flat beneath his feet again. They emerged just below a railroad trestle that hadn’t been used in years, wrapped in rust and weeds. The road under the trestle was just as old, more weeds than dirt. Miz Lottie’s truck was chugging forward, already fifteen yards beyond them. She leaned out of her window to look back, waving with a grin only because she was happy to see them. She didn’t know the rest. Her smile was so full of light that Robert vowed he would never tell her.

“We gotta go!” Gloria said, but Robert was already running behind her.

Gloria sprinted ahead of Robbie, grabbing the truck’s rear panel while he trailed her by ten strides. Pressing his hand against the envelope so tightly was slowing him down. Gloria took a leap to hoist herself into the back of the truck.