She’d been sitting so long in one place that her back ached, and her semiparalyzed left leg was thrumming like a piece of sheet metal in a windstorm. When she drove with Jacob he would pull over every half hour or so to recline her chair, move her legs, or otherwise give her relief, but she wasn’t about to ask Chip Malloy to help, and what could he do anyway? He sat up front, staring through the swishing wipers at the taillights of the grain truck in front of them, his hands rigid as grappling hooks on the steering wheel. Her sons had been nervous at first, but they began to relax twenty or thirty miles north of the Ghost Cliffs and soon fell asleep, Daniel slumping forward, and Jake with his head against Fernie’s shoulder, rumbling like a cat. She wished she could join them in sleep. Maybe when she woke this nightmare would be over. But even as the adrenaline faded, leaving her drained, the ache in her back and leg spread. Malloy fiddled with the radio until he found an AM station out of Denver, with a signal strong enough to reach across the Colorado Plateau to the desert wilderness.
