Voodoo Heart

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THE BLIMP PASSED FIRST, SILVER WITH SIX WHITE FINS AT THE tail, like a giant bullet fired slowly through the sky. It glided far above the sugar pea field, too high to cause a stir. Its long black shadow skated over the dirt road between the rows of bright green plants, over the barn beyond, and then the blimp was gone and for a long moment all was as before. A spotted rabbit scampered out into the road, sniffed the air, then darted back into the trellised stalks just as Preston Bristol’s Model T came crashing through, trailing a thick cloud of dust and chalk. The car was weather-beaten—one headlight missing, the other yellowed and cracked, the tires patched with flapping runs of tape. As it bounced along, tiny continents of rust rattled loose from the peeling hood and were whisked up and off.

Inside the car, Pres had his right foot jammed on the gas and his left foot pressed on top of his right. He squinted through the sunlit windshield at the blimp up ahead, still unable to accept it as a fixture of the sky and not something conjured up by his eye, a floater, a stain. He’d lost the blimp in a cloud formation over the Arkansas border and hadn’t seen or heard mention of it in nearly a week. Now, suddenly, here it was, right in front of him, coasting along not even a quarter mile ahead. Pres could see the great aluminum blades of its propellers. He could see the windows of the blimp’s cabin—the windows! He tried to find Claire behind one of them, but all the curtains were drawn shut.

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