Page 2 of Nomad

“Which bed do you want?” he asked.

She looked at the two beds with trepidation, but didn’t answer.

“Okay, then. I’ll take that one.” He pointed at the bed closest to the door.

He divided up the vending machine haul. Two candy bars on top of his bedspread. Two candy bars on top of the other bedspread. Two chips on each. Two cheese and peanut butter crackers on each.

Setting the glasses next to each other on the table by the ancient console TV, he poured an inch of bourbon into each glass. “This will warm you up.” He downed his in one gulp then set the other glass on the bedside table that wasn’t his.

“When I finish taking care of my ride,” he went on, “I’m going to get a hot shower and put on some dry clothes. Do you have anything dry?” Apparently she was hiding some kind of shoulder bag under the poncho. She lifted it up slightly in silent response. “Okay. Well. You can use the shower after me and put on dry stuff. You got a name?”

She cleared her throat and answered so quietly that Cann almost didn’t understand. “Bud.”

“What’s that?”

“Bud,” she said a little louder.

“Look, if you don’t want to tell me your name, just say, ‘Fuck off,’ but don’t make up something stupid.”

Before he turned back to toweling off the Harley, he thought he saw a tiny burst of flame in eyes that looked too old and tired for her face.

“It’s not stupid. It’s my name.”

He looked up at her and cocked an eyebrow. “If you’re on the level, then I guess I should apologize. You just don’t strike me as a ‘Bud’.”

“My daddy… I guess he wanted somebody else.”

Cann looked her over. “Why don’t you take that thing off? Eat something. Gulp down that bourbon over there. You don’t need to be afraid of me. My name’s Cannon, but people usually just say Cann.” Before she realized that she’d let her guard down a little, he saw a small smile. “What’s funny?”

“Uh, nothin’. It’s just that your name is kind of…”

“Kind of what?”

“Kind of stupid, too.”

Cann stared at her for a few beats before shaking his head. “You got an odd way of accepting hospitality. How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“The hell. You are not twenty-five. Gonna ask again, but I hate repeatin’ myself. How old are you?”

Her shoulders sagged. “Seventeen.”

“Yeah. Sounds more like it.”

He glanced over after she pulled the wet poncho over her head. She looked around for a place to hang it and finally settled on spreading it out on the floor.

She was tiny. At six feet two he outweighed her by almost a hundred pounds. He didn’t have any trouble understanding why somebody that size would be hesitant to accept a bed from a stranger who looked like him.

She was wearing one of those oversized knit shirts and jeans with a hole in one knee. He thought it was more fashion statement than poverty.

Her hair was dirty blonde and natural. All in all, she was entirely too cute to be hiding behind a drink dispenser at a ratty rundown motel.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched her look around the room as if she was deciding what to do. She’d pulled the strap of the shoulder bag over her head so that it was cross-body. He guessed it was easier to carry that way. When she took it off, she let the bag drop on the bed then sat down on the side of the mattress.

Cann could see she was shivering. After he finished toweling off the bike, he pulled a light blanket down from the closet and handed it to the girl before going off to the shower.

She unfolded the blanket and draped it over her shoulders, feeling almost tearful with relief from the cold. It felt like it had been a very long time since she was last warm.

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