A topographic map, with its tiny handwritten notes, flashed into Selena’s mind. The map that Aunt Amelia had hung in the bedroom of the house named ...
“Jackrabbit Hole House.” Selena stared at Father Aguirre. “You told me that she’d changed the name a few years ago. But jackrabbits don’t live in holes.”
“Oh shit,” Grandma Billy said. “Oh shit. That was just a few months after she started talking about Snake-Eater.”
Selena got to her feet. “I’ve got to check the map, but I will bet you anything that Aunt Amelia wrote it down. And that Jackrabbit Hole is the name of the place she met Snake-Eater.”
Getting back to Jackrabbit Hole House was unexpectedly fraught. Grandma Billy had been all set to walk back in a knot and shoot anything that looked at them funny. Father Aguirre was not terribly happy with this plan and kept saying things like, “Innocent bystanders” and “Collateral damage.”
Finally the priest held up a hand. “After we get the map, we’ll have to go out in the desert, correct?”
Grandma Billy allowed as how this was so. Father Aguirre heaved a great sigh and said, “Then I suppose we’ll have to take my truck.”
Grandma let out a whistle. “Can I drive?”
“Over my dead body.”
“You have a truck?” Selena asked. She’d only ever seen the priest walk places.
“He’s got aclassic,” said Grandma Billy.
Father Aguirre led them to the small locked building next to the church, paused for a moment with his hand on the garage door and said something brief and heartfelt in Latin. Then he pushed up the metal door, revealing a large dustcover with wheels.
With a flourish like a magician yanking away a tablecloth, the priest pulled the cover off and revealed an ancient pickup truck with a rounded hood and a cab that looked as if the corners had melted. It was deep green and someone had lovingly polished every part of it until it blazed like an emerald in the shadows of the garage.
“If I was wearing a hat, I’d take it off,” said Grandma Billy, gazing at the vehicle with wistful avarice.
Selena had managed to go her whole life without learning anything about cars, and wasn’t about to start, but still knew what was required of her. “It’s beautiful. But whatisit?”
“That,” said Father Aguirre in equal parts pride and despair, “is a 1950 Ford F-1 pickup truck.”
“But that’s over a hundred years old!”
“It was my great-grandfather’s,” the priest said. “They made them to last in those days.” He heaved another sigh. “And now I am about to drive it through the desert, probably off anything resembling a road. Saint Christopher have mercy upon my paint job.”
“It’ll love it,” Grandma Billy assured him. “Truck like this wants to be used, not sit around in a garage all day. The other trucks’d laugh at it if they knew.”
Father Aguirre took the keys from a hook on the wall. “Give me ten minutes to pack. Anddon’t touch the truck.”
Grandma Billy waited until the priest had vanished back into the rectory and then immediately began touching it. “Look at this baby,” she said, opening the passenger door. “He drives it around at Thanksgiving and Christmas, deliverin’ all the food packages, and takes it to the parade in Jerome once a year. I ain’t never been inside it.” She hopped up into the cab. “Oooh ...”
“Are you sure you should be touching that?” asked Selena, more because that was the script in her head than because she had any hope of stopping Grandma Billy from doing whatever the hell she wanted.
“Can’t ride in it without touching it,” the old woman pointed out. She rubbed one bony hand across the dashboard, which was the same green metal as the outside of the truck. “Man, forget what the father said about the church being his homeplace. It’s this truck right here.”
I am asking a man to drive the place of his heart through the desert to get scratched and dented and maybe break.Selena closed her eyes briefly.
Copper took advantage of her distraction and jumped up into the cab after Grandma Billy, who obligingly scooted over. Unable to beatthem, Selena climbed up to join them on the long bench seat, which was made of faux leather in a questionable shade of burnt orange.
When Father Aguirre came back out of the rectory, carrying a heavy pack under each arm, he didn’t seem at all surprised. He tossed the packs into the back, then went back inside and came out with two five-gallon jugs of water that sloshed as he walked. “Right,” he said, setting the jugs in the back of the truck. “Let’s go.”
There was a brief pause when, after leaving the garage, he stopped the truck and took the keys out of the ignition before going back to close the door. “You don’t trust me?” asked Grandma Billy, oozing wounded innocence.
“Not even a little,” said Father Aguirre.
The drive to Jackrabbit Hole House was much shorter than the walk. That was good, because the truck jounced and rattled over the washboard road so violently that Selena thought her tailbone was going to separate from her spine.
“I guess the suspension’s from 1950 too, huh?” said Grandma Billy snidely.
