Read Online We Ate the Road Like Vultures by Lynnette Lounsbury - Free Book Online
Authors: Lynnette Lounsbury
Ads: Link
under my body weight, and I swore as loudly as I could at the police, âYou dumb fucking cops, help me with this. Youâre supposed to be helping people, arenât you? Not fucking killing them.â
The big one smiled a slow long smile that turned his eyes into dragons and said something to his men. They went back to their own truck and pulled a cable from the front, attaching it to the underbelly of the capsized one and turning on a winch. It must have hurt as the truck came off him, cos Adolf gripped my hand like a vice and closed his eyes, tiny lines appearing around his full mouth. When it went over his feet and hit the ground I saw how deep in the sand-bank Adolf was buried and I had a flame of hope,despite the sea-purple bruise on his stomach and lower chest and the twist of his kneecap. He pushed himself slowly to a sitting position and felt his legs a handâs length at a time, stopping at his knee and wincing as he pushed his loose kneecap back to where it should have been. I was trying to rip a bit of my T-shirt, which was suddenly all stout and industrial, when one of the cops threw him a dirty bandage from their truck. I didnât realise they had even moved, so focused was I on whether Adolf would die as soon as the blood flowed back into his body. I had seen enough medical shows, and even a cow caught under a fallen tree, to know that death could creep in at any second, even when you thought you were home free. I helped him lift his foot so he could bandage his knee and he smiled weakly, âItâs a bad knee anyway, I did this skiing when I was fourteen and, once again, when I was seventeen. It will be fine in a week or two.â I pointed silently to his belly and he smiled. âNot even any pain, just a bruise. No yoga tomorrow.â I blushed as I realised he had seen me watching him.
The captain gestured to his men who pulled Adolf to his feet, not roughly, but without any care for his injuries, and dragged him to the back of their truck where they pushed and pulled his body up onto the tray. He lay back and was silent, asleep or unconscious, I couldnât tell. They dragged another body from the cabin, one with a conspicuous bullet hole in its forehead, and threw it into the back next to Adolf where they both lay still and twisted. I had that sudden wash of horror where you know youâve done something stupid and you have no way of ever going back to the moment before you fucked up your world. I leaned forward and vomited, trying to get my tangled hair out of the way and wretching so hard I ended up on my knees.
âGet up, girl and get in the truck or I will have them do it.â The captain had a tight sort of smile on his face. âI know you didnât steal from the bank. I know you didnât fire the weapons. I know a great deal about you. Iâm not going to kill you, not even for being a stupid Australian girl.â
I snapped up at that cos there was no way he should know a fact like that, and we stared at eachother for a long time, his eyes with that disturbing glint, not quite evil but without goodness, and me with blood over my face and my hair everywhere and with as much mystery and dignity as I could muster. I shook off the other cop and limped over to the police truck which was so damn high I could hardly get in by myself, but I did it with the sheer force of the anger and fear I had inside me, and I wondered, as I sat back in the cigar-soaked seat, if there was any way I could possibly get out of this mess of Mexico and Germans and searching for Jack and Jesus. I wondered if our insignificant, âwhite person with lots of money and time for introspectionâ, quests were the whole reason the world was a fucked-up messâpeople like me stomping all over other peopleâs secrets and lives and quests and making it all a sloppy pile of mud and piss. And then I fell asleep.
5
Â
Â
You did not shoot a bank worker or steal thousands of
The big one smiled a slow long smile that turned his eyes into dragons and said something to his men. They went back to their own truck and pulled a cable from the front, attaching it to the underbelly of the capsized one and turning on a winch. It must have hurt as the truck came off him, cos Adolf gripped my hand like a vice and closed his eyes, tiny lines appearing around his full mouth. When it went over his feet and hit the ground I saw how deep in the sand-bank Adolf was buried and I had a flame of hope,despite the sea-purple bruise on his stomach and lower chest and the twist of his kneecap. He pushed himself slowly to a sitting position and felt his legs a handâs length at a time, stopping at his knee and wincing as he pushed his loose kneecap back to where it should have been. I was trying to rip a bit of my T-shirt, which was suddenly all stout and industrial, when one of the cops threw him a dirty bandage from their truck. I didnât realise they had even moved, so focused was I on whether Adolf would die as soon as the blood flowed back into his body. I had seen enough medical shows, and even a cow caught under a fallen tree, to know that death could creep in at any second, even when you thought you were home free. I helped him lift his foot so he could bandage his knee and he smiled weakly, âItâs a bad knee anyway, I did this skiing when I was fourteen and, once again, when I was seventeen. It will be fine in a week or two.â I pointed silently to his belly and he smiled. âNot even any pain, just a bruise. No yoga tomorrow.â I blushed as I realised he had seen me watching him.
The captain gestured to his men who pulled Adolf to his feet, not roughly, but without any care for his injuries, and dragged him to the back of their truck where they pushed and pulled his body up onto the tray. He lay back and was silent, asleep or unconscious, I couldnât tell. They dragged another body from the cabin, one with a conspicuous bullet hole in its forehead, and threw it into the back next to Adolf where they both lay still and twisted. I had that sudden wash of horror where you know youâve done something stupid and you have no way of ever going back to the moment before you fucked up your world. I leaned forward and vomited, trying to get my tangled hair out of the way and wretching so hard I ended up on my knees.
âGet up, girl and get in the truck or I will have them do it.â The captain had a tight sort of smile on his face. âI know you didnât steal from the bank. I know you didnât fire the weapons. I know a great deal about you. Iâm not going to kill you, not even for being a stupid Australian girl.â
I snapped up at that cos there was no way he should know a fact like that, and we stared at eachother for a long time, his eyes with that disturbing glint, not quite evil but without goodness, and me with blood over my face and my hair everywhere and with as much mystery and dignity as I could muster. I shook off the other cop and limped over to the police truck which was so damn high I could hardly get in by myself, but I did it with the sheer force of the anger and fear I had inside me, and I wondered, as I sat back in the cigar-soaked seat, if there was any way I could possibly get out of this mess of Mexico and Germans and searching for Jack and Jesus. I wondered if our insignificant, âwhite person with lots of money and time for introspectionâ, quests were the whole reason the world was a fucked-up messâpeople like me stomping all over other peopleâs secrets and lives and quests and making it all a sloppy pile of mud and piss. And then I fell asleep.
5
Â
Â
You did not shoot a bank worker or steal thousands of
Similar Books
