“Where you headed?”
“Moline.”
“You got a long ways to go.”
“Know that. We figured to stop in a hotel someplace tonight. Or thought maybe we could pay someone to stay over.”
“You don’t want to stay here,” Doc said. “My woman has black fever.”
The man didn’t know what black fever was any more than Doc did, but he took a step backward.
“I can get you some water,” Doc said.
“No, thanks,” the man said. “We’ll be shoving off. When I get to the road, I turn left or right?”
“Left’s the only way that’ll head you toward Moline. There’s a town an hour down the road got rooms above the general store.”
“Thank you kindly. You want us to tell the sheriff or anybody to send a doctor for your wife?”
“I’m a doctor.”
The man got back into his car. He didn’t believe Doc was a doctor any more than he believed in the man in the moon.
“She’s dying,” Doc said, “and we want to be left alone for what time’s left.”
“I appreciate that,” the man said, got in the car, and drove off slowly so as not to scatter too much dust in Doc’s direction. Doc hurried to the house, opened the door of the back room, and said, “It’s okay, Johnny. Travelers. Sent them on their way.”
“I hate this.”
“Hate what, Johnny?”
“Hiding like a rat. I wasn’t made for it. I want to walk around like a free man.”
“You’ll sure be able to do that,” Doc said, “soon’s the heat’s off. Johnny, I’m old enough to be your father. You been real good to me, so I’m going to chance saying something.”
He wished Dillinger wasn’t looking at him with those stony eyes.
“Say it!”
That man was sure on edge, Doc thought. “You take too many chances. You’ve got to head south, I don’t mean Texas, I mean all the way to Mexico, where they can’t catch you, Johnny.”
“That means getting across the border.”
Doc poured whiskey into a spare glass and pushed it across to him. “Listen, Johnny, a few years back I had dealings with a man who ran people into the country from Mexico illegally. European refugees, people like that.”
“So?”
“West of El Paso, there’s a small town called Sutter’s Well. Used to be a silver mine. It’s a ghost town now. The back trail out of that town crosses the Mexican border. No border post, no customs, no police. That’s the way we used to bring them in.”
“Will it take a car?”
“Oh, sure. Dirt road, but sound enough. You need to carry plenty of spare gas. Six or seven five-gallon cans in the trunk should cover you. Couple of spare fan belts. I can let you have a set of tools. Know your way around an engine, Johnny?”
“I know my way around a car, Doc, the way a cowboy knows his horse.”
“Good. I can give you the address of a Mexican in El Paso, big fat fellow called Charlie, can get you a passport that looks better than the real thing, just to cover you in case you get picked up.”
“I’m not planning to get picked up.”
“I know you’re not planning to get a bullet hole in your radiator either, Johnny, but be damn careful.”
“That Ford out there is going to be hotter than hell when Harvey gets back to town. I’ll need to switch cars.”
“I can help you there,” Doc said eagerly. “You take me down to the south barn in the woods. I’ll surprise you. Here, better take your fifteen thousand back. And take your hardware. You might need both in Mexico.”
He carried the case for Dillinger, who carried the machine guns. They went out and got into the Ford. Dillinger drove around to the rear of the farm and took the track down through the trees beside the swamp, following the old man’s directions and finally braked to a halt beside an old dilapidated barn in the trees.
They got out. Doc unbarred the double doors, Dillinger helping him, and pulled them back. A white Chevrolet convertible stood there. It looked brand-new.