The Run by Johnny Quarles

Author:Johnny Quarles [Quarles, Johnny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

25

ALMA WAS MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE GRATEFUL for the food they’d received. Ben, Roy and Keith had treated her and Toby Ray with kindness, and she had a brief chance to lessen her fears, if only a little.

Trust. That was the word that kept coming to Alma’s mind. She had to trust these three men. After considerable thought, she had agreed to their suggestion that they ride together for a piece.

More than anything else, Alma wanted to make tracks and put distance between themselves and the Tubbses’ place. The only problem was, Keith, who seemed to be the strongest of the three, was in no hurry to move on. They sat for some time, chewing jerky and querying her about George and Elken Tubbs. Keith said he’d always known they were strange, but he hadn’t believed them to be as bad as Alma and Toby Ray suggested. Ben, who was still nursing his swollen lips, was particularly fascinated by the story of the dead woman.

“We grew up a few miles east of here,” he said, pointing his finger. “I remember hearin’ about her dyin’, but, come to think of it, I don’t recall no funeral. How ‘bout you, Roy?”

Roy scratched his head and thought. “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember nothin’ about her,” he said.

Keith shrugged his shoulders. “I remember hearin’ that she’d died, but nobody ever said nothin’ about a funeral. ‘Course, I never really kept up with such things. There were lots of stories about the brothers bein’ crazy, but shoot, you hear all kinds of stories about people.” He shook his head sadly, looked at Alma, then quickly looked away.

Alma could sense that Keith had taken a particular liking to her. Every time their eyes met, he started to blink nervously. Alma wished he was better looking, but the fact was, he was about as homely a man as she’d ever run across. In fact, all three of the men were ugly enough to stop a clock. They all had buckteeth and eyes that seemed too large for their sockets. Alma figured their mothers must have been plain women, at best. The three seemed to have perpetual smiles, made even more pronounced by their protruding teeth. To Alma, they looked like three squirrel heads sitting on human bodies. They had other features in common: They all stood about five feet eight or nine and were skinny as rails. Every bone in their bodies seemed to stick out through their clothes. Another thing that struck Alma as odd was that they all carried chews of tobacco in their cheeks. The brothers, Ben and Roy, took their chews out and laid them on the ground while they ate. Keith ate with his chew still in his jaw. Alma figured this accounted for their having yellow teeth at such a young age.

As Keith nervously looked around, he commented, “Well, I have no doubt you’re tellin’ us the truth, and I’m real sorry it happened to you. You’re free to travel with us.

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