Emmetsburg: Fifty-six

Vermillion rose from the umber haze and lavender dusk, like a ghost, like a destination; a concoction of umber shadows, like tombstones set against the dying horizon. Not that the town was John’s intended destination necessarily. Not that it wasn’t either. Outrunning fate, he figured, could entail the smallest of actions as well as the boldest. A body is always a heartbeat away from a thousand different fates.

There was nothing much to distinguish tiny Vermillion, save for the church, the college, a feed store and pale wood frame houses that almost appeared organic, as if they had grown from the table flat plain on their own, and were now being slowly consumed by the land once more. Some were refined, in a Victorian sort of way. Others appeared cobbled together. A few leaned precariously, or settled poorly, as if they were melting into their foundations. The town stood at the edge of time, still clinging to that other century as the new one struggled for purpose.

Side streets were unpaved and deeply rutted, and as still as a graveyard. Candlelight glowed faint from a handful of windows, but otherwise the place might have been deserted. An ivory moon grew from the eastern horizon, fat and squat. That moon only added to the emptiness of the place, and made it seem as if it was frozen in time, like a perpetual memory.

John went slowly through the town. The truck found uncomfortable paths among the criss-crossing ruts, or dipped and slid into muddy holes that might easily snap an axle, bust a spoke or shatter a tire. The rattling old truck and the engine’s pained assertions as it climbed over holes brought yelps and howls from a couple of dogs somewhere. It made him feel like more of an interloper, like an unwanted thread through the simple weave of the town. A mangy gray cat scuttled across the road, hissed at the truck then disappeared down an alley.

John stopped in the center of town, at something of a cross street. Like the dust coming to settle around the truck Johns rampaging emotions, which had carried him here, fell around him. They filled the cabin of that tiny truck, and gave a terrific weight to the warm evening air. To the west the day died quiet as a sliver of crimson, fading to a legacy and a promise to the coming day. Stars blanketed the sky, interrupted here and there by lazy pale yellow clouds still holding desperately to that last bit of daylight. Night deepened at the edges of town.

Grief and regret tore his heart in two. John gripped the wheel tight in both hands and pushed himself hard against the seat. A long low groan escaped him as the realization of what he had done became apparent. He’d left her. How could he have left her? John covered his face and pressed his dirt and sweat streaked forehead to the wheel, still warm from his hands. Would pride and the great wall of shame ever allow him peace for that grievous act?

All of this, Louis, the storm, Burt Himmel and Anna, they all whipped like a cyclone in John’s thoughts. Made all the worse in his despair and physical exhaustion. All of it had whipped like a cyclone in his mind for days. It was made all the worse for his exhaustion. John knew full well there wasn’t enough gas to get back home, even if he’d been in a place to make that decision. Nor was there enough money in his pocket, even if he’d wished. John had painted himself into something of a corner. For better or for worse any decision would have to wait till morning when he was better rested and could see more clearly. There would be a chance then to make a better accounting of things.