The three soldiers were talking and joking as they drove away.
After they had been driving a minute, he began to laugh quietly.
‘What were you thinking?’ asked his wife.
‘I remember an old spiritual. It goes like this:
‘I went to the Rock to hide my face
And the Rock cried out, “No Hiding Place,
There’s no Hiding Place down here.”’
‘I remember that,’ she said.
‘It’s an appropriate song right now,’ he said. ‘I’d sing the whole thing for you if I could remember it all. And if I felt like singing.’
He put his foot harder to the accelerator.
They stopped at a gas station and after a minute, when the attendant did not appear, John Webb honked the horn. Then, appalled, he snapped his hand away from the horn-ring, looking at it as if it were the hand of a leper.
‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
The attendant appeared in the shadowy doorway of the gas station. Two other men appeared behind him.
The three men came out and walked around the car, looking at it, touching it, feeling it.
Their faces were like burnt copper in the daylight. They touched the resilient tyres, they sniffed the rich new smell of the metal and upholstery.
‘Señor,’ said the gas attendant at last.
‘We’d like to buy some gas, please.’
‘We are all out of gas, señor.’
‘But your tank reads full. I see the gas in the glass container up there.’
‘We are all out of gas,’ said the man.
‘I’ll give you ten pesos a gallon!’
‘Gracias, no.’
‘We haven’t enough gas to get anywhere from here.’ Webb checked the gauge. ‘Not even a quarter gallon left. We’d better leave the car here and go into town and see what we can do there.’
‘I’ll watch the car for you, señor,’ said the station attendant. ‘If you leave the keys.’
‘We can’t do that!’ said Leonora. ‘Can we?’
‘I don’t see what choice we have. We can stall it on the road and leave it to anyone who comes along, or leave it with this man.’
‘That’s better,’ said the man.
They climbed out of the car and stood looking at it.
‘It was a beautiful car,’ said John Webb.
‘Very beautiful,’ said the man, his hand out for the keys. ‘I will take good care of it, señor.’