Impossible Things Read Online Free Page A

her and knelt over him.
    “I hit him,” she said bewilderedly. “I hit a dog.”
    “Get back in the jeep, damn it!” I shouted at her. Istripped off my sweater and tried to wrap him in it. “We’ve got to get him to the vet.”
    “Is he dead?” Katie said, her face as pale as the cream on her nose.
    “No!” I had shouted. “No, he isn’t dead.”
    The mother turned and looked up toward the zoo, her hand shading her face. She caught sight of the camera, dropped her hand, and smiled, a toothy, impossible smile. People in the public eye are the worst, but even people having a snapshot taken close down somehow, and it isn’t just the phony smile. It’s as if that old superstition is true, and cameras do really steal the soul.
    I pretended to take her picture and then lowered the camera. The zoo director had put up a row of tombstone-shaped signs in front of the gate, one for each endangered species. They were covered with plastic, which hadn’t helped much. I wiped the streaky dust off the one in front of me. “Canis latrans,” it said, with two green stars after it. “Coyote. North American wild dog. Due to large-scale poisoning by ranchers, who saw it as a threat to cattle and sheep, the coyote is nearly extinct in the wild.” Underneath there was a photograph of a ragged coyote sitting on its haunches and an explanation of the stars. Blue—endangered species. Yellow—endangered habitat. Red—extinct in the wild.
    After Misha died, I had come out here to photograph the dingo and the coyotes and the wolves, but they were already in the process of moving the zoo, so I couldn’t get any pictures, and it probably wouldn’t have done any good. The coyote in the picture had faded to a greenish-yellow, and its yellow eyes were almost white, but it stared out of the picture looking as hearty and unconcerned as Jake Ambler, wearing its camera face.
    The mother had gone back to the bug and was herding the kids inside. Mr. Ambler walked the father back to the car, shaking his shining bald head, and the man talkedsome more, leaning on the open door, and then got in and drove off. I walked back down.
    If he was bothered by the fact that they had only stayed ten minutes and that, as far as I had been able to see, no money had changed hands, it didn’t show in his face. He led me around to the side of the RV and pointed to a chipped and faded collection of decals along the painted bar of the W. “These here are the states we’ve been in.” He pointed to the one nearest the front. “Every state in the Union, plus Canada and Mexico. Last state we were in was Nevada.”
    Up this close it was easy to see where he had painted out the name of the original RV and covered it with the bar of red. The paint had the dull look of unauthenticity. He had covered up the “Open Road” with a burnt-wood plaque that read “The Amblin’ Amblers.”
    He pointed at a bumper sticker next to the door that said, “I got lucky in Vegas at Caesar’s Palace,” and had a picture of a naked showgirl. “We couldn’t find a decal for Nevada. I don’t think they make them anymore. And you know something else you can’t find? Steering-wheel covers. You know the kind. That keep the wheel from burning your hands when it gets hot?”
    “Do you do all the driving? I asked.
    He hesitated before answering, and I wondered if one of them didn’t have a license. I’d have to look it up in the lifeline. “Mrs. Ambler spells me sometimes, but I do most of it. Mrs. Ambler reads the map. Damn maps nowadays are so hard to read. Half the time you can’t tell what kind of road it is. They don’t make them like they used to.”
    We talked for a while more about all the things you couldn’t find a decent one of anymore and the sad state things had gotten in generally, and then I announced I wanted to talk to Mrs. Ambler, got the vidcam and the eisenstadt out of the car, and went inside the Winnebago.
    She still had the dishtowel in her hand, even