asleep smoking and caught a whole dang bus on fire.”
“Right, ruin it for everybody else.”
“Ain’t good for you anyway, I believe,” said the man.
“Most things not good for me I enjoy every now and again.”
“What’d you do to get locked up? Kill a man?”
Archer shook his head. “Never killed anybody.”
“Guess they all say that.”
“Guess they do.”
“Guess you were innocent.”
“No, I did it,” admitted Archer.
“Did what?”
“Killed a man.”
“Why?”
“He was asking too many questions of me.”
But Archer smiled, so the man didn’t appear too alarmed at the veiled threat.
“Where you headed?”
“Somewhere that’s not here,” said Archer. He took off his jacket, carefully folded it, and laid it on his lap with his hat on top.
“Is all you got the clothes on your back?”
“All I got.”
“What’s your ticket say?”
Archer dug into his pocket and pulled it out.
It was eighty and dry outside and about a hundred inside the bus, even with the windows half-down. The created breeze was like oven heat and the mingled odors were…peculiar. And yet Archer didn’t really sweat, not anymore. Prison had been far hotter, far more…peculiar. His pores and sense of smell had apparently recalibrated.
“Poca City,” he read off the flimsy ticket.
“Never been there, but I hear it’s growing like gangbusters. Used to be the boondocks. But then it went from cattle pasture to a real town. People coming out this way after the war, you see.”
“And what do they do once they get there?”
“Anything they can, brother, to make ends meet.”
“Sounds like a plan good as another.”
The older man studied him. “Were you in the war? You look like you were.”
“I was.”
“Seen a lot of the world, I bet?”
“I have. Not always places I wanted to be.”
“I been outta this state exactly one time. Went to Texas to buy some cattle.”
“Never been to Texas.”
“Hey, you been to New York City?”
“Yes, I have.”
The man sat up straighter. “You have?”
Archer casually nodded his head. “Passed through there on account of the war. Seen the Statue of Liberty. Been to the top of the Empire State Building. Rode the rides over at Coney Island. Even seen some Rockettes walking down the street in their getups and all.”
The man licked his lips. “Tell me something. Are their legs like they say, friend?”
“Better. Gams like Betty Grable and faces like Lana Turner.”
“Damn, what else?” he asked eagerly.
“Had a box lunch in the middle of Central Park. Sat on a blanket with a honey worked at Macy’s department store. We drank sodas and then she slipped out a flask from the top of her stocking. What was in there? Well, it was better’n grape soda, I can tell you that. We had a nice day. And a better night.”
The man scratched his cheek. “So, what are you doing all the way out here then?”
“Life has a crazy path sometimes. And like you said, folks heading this way after the war.”
The man, evidently intrigued now by his companion, sat up straighter, allowing Archer more purchase on his seat.
“And the war was a long time ago, or seems it anyway,” said Archer, stretching out. “But you got one life, right? Less somebody’s been lying to me.”
“Hold on now, Church says we get two lives. One now, one after we’re dead. Eternal.”
“Don’t think that’s in the cards for me.”
“Man never knows.”
“Oh, I think I know.”
Archer tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and grabbed his first bit of shut-eye as a free man in a long time.
Chapter 2
ARCHER GOT OFF at Poca City seven hours later and too many stops in between to remember. People had gotten on and people had gotten off. They’d had a dinner and bathroom break at a roadside diner with an outhouse in the back, both of which looked only a stiff breeze away from falling over. It was nearly eight in the evening now. He stood there as the bus and the rube with too many queries and the remaining nervous folks clutching all they owned sped off into the night chasing pots of gold along dusty roads with nary a helpful leprechaun in sight.
Good riddance to them all, thought Archer. And then, a second later, his more charitable consideration was, Well, good luck to them.
We all needed luck now and then, was his firm belief. And maybe right now he needed it more than most. The point was, would he get it?
Or will I have to make my own damn luck? And hope for no bad luck as a chaser?