Timberline Road

Outside, rain ticked against the awning. The air had the cold smell it got after a day of mill smoke and wet leaves. Across the lot, the phone booth was dark except for the square of glass above the receiver. Scott stood under the awning and counted the money in his pay envelope without taking it all the way out: two twenties, a ten, four ones. Sixty-four dollars. His mother had told him to bring home forty for the electric bill. He had planned to keep ten for a used cassette deck that a guy at school said he could get cheap. The rest was his for gas, food, whatever it took not to be asking.

He looked south toward the highway. Cars passed without slowing, tires making a long wet sound. He could take the shoulder to the junction, cut across Timberline Road, and come out close to the old mill gate. From there it was another mile to his parents’ place. Timberline was patched and narrow in spots, but people used it all the time: shift workers, kids cutting home, service trucks that did not want the highway lights. It was shorter than going around.

His mother hated it after dark. She hated a lot of things after dark, most of them because she had seen something on the local news and never forgot it.

Scott pulled his cap down, checked the door once more, and started walking.

At the edge of the lot he turned back because he had left his lunch pail inside. He had bought it himself at the coast outlet store, blue metal with a dent in the lid. His father called it a kindergarten box. Scott did not care. It held a thermos and two sandwiches without soaking them in oil.

He went back through the door, got the pail, and locked up again.

By the time he reached the first dark stretch beyond the Dairy King, the rain had thinned to a mist. He shifted the lunch pail from one hand to the other. The pay envelope pressed against his back pocket. His feet were wet through the sides of his shoes.

At the junction he saw headlights coming down the county road. For a second he thought it might be Dean, his sister’s fever forgotten, circling back because guilt had got to him. The car passed without stopping. Scott lifted one hand anyway, more at the light than at the driver.

Then he crossed toward Timberline.