"I don't get it," fumed Lana, holding her battered old map up toward the truck's ceiling with her legs propped up on the dashboard. "I just don't get it, Pamela, I really don't get it, not one bit. I—eek!" Several seconds of frantic paper rustling followed her yelp.
Pamela gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on the steering wheel, trying to ignore the bright light swinging haphazardly hither and thither somewhere behind her and to her right. Kept looking straight ahead at the dark road through the windshield, framed by never-ending cornfields. "Don't distract me while I'm driving, Lana, how many times do I have to tell you?"
"Sonja!" Lana squawked, ignoring Pamela completely, "Sonja, you didn't fall asleep on me, did you, huh? Please don't tell me you fell asleep, Sonja, you need to hold the flashlight so I can read the map! Uh, Sonja? Sonja…!"
There was a long, sighing yawn from the backseat. "Sorrry, Lana, I think I… fell…asleep…" Again, the light moved jaggedly from side to side, blinding Pamela every time it reflected off the rearview mirror. It settled after a few seconds.
"That's better," Lana chirped, followed by more obnoxious paper rustling. "That's definitely better, Sonja, thanks! Now, where was I…um, where was I again, Pamela?"
"Why would I know where you were? I'm not the one with the map." Pamela tapped her index finger against the steering wheel, craving caffeine, craving sleep. A timpanist beat pain against her skull in a two-four meter. "I don't know why you're looking at a map anyway. This backwater road is going to stretch on for miles and miles without a single turn in sight."
Lana's legs slid off the dashboard. "That's what I don't get, see!" she exclaimed, slapping the dashboard with the palm of her hand. Pamela winced. "Going off this map, we should have passed at least one hotel by now! A town! But all we're passing is cornfields! This map's gotta be phony, Pamela, it just has to be phony."
"You're the phony," Pamela muttered, and then shook her head. "No, you're probably just reading it wrong. You really think there are going to be hotels way out in the middle of nowhere? Forget about it. Look, just let Sonja sleep, okay?" She lifted her foot off the gas pedal slightly, and the truck slowed to a crawl – which was fine, since they really were out in the middle of nowhere – and she twisted in her seat so that she could get a good look at the younger girl.
Thanks to the still-on flashlight, she could make out Sonja sprawled across the luggage filling up the back of their truck, burrowed under the warmest blanket the three had in their possession. Sonja clutched the flashlight with both hands, and every time she nodded off the flashlight wobbled.
She's so young. Perhaps it was a ludicrous statement for Pamela to make – after all, Pamela had yet to turn twenty, and it wasn't as if twelve year olds were really children, but that was what Pamela felt all the same.
"…Let her sleep, okay?" Pamela repeated, more softly this time. "It's going to be ages before we reach the next town. You should get some sleep too. You've got a blanket, right?"
Lana sniffed, shifting in her seat so that she could draw the thin blanket over her legs. "But someone should stay up with you, you know? You could fall asleep at the wheel, you really could."
Privately, Pamela acknowledged that Lana did have a point. It was, of course, an acknowledgement that she'd never voice out loud. "I'm not having this argument with you again," she said. "I've stayed up plenty of times to drive while you two sleep. And if I get so tired I can't keep my eyes open, I'll pull over, okay?"
"Y-you'd better!" Lana covered her mouth with one hand in a futile effort to keep to etiquette. "If you end up crashing the truck I'll never forgive you, you hear? Never…ever…!" She yawned again, and this time didn't bother to cover her mouth. Instead, she reached 'round and plucked the flashlight from Sonja's hands, turning it off — much to Pamela's relief. With that out of the way, Lana settled into her seat and promptly nodded off.
Thank goodness.
The roar of their truck's engine filled the silence, thrumming underneath her legs and through the steering wheel. Lana had fallen asleep despite it, as had Sonja, and Pamela sometimes worried over how she and Lana had become exceptionally skilled at ignoring something as loud as the engine when their way of life favored light sleepers. Sonja had been a lost cause from the start, sleeping through thunderstorms and emergency sirens without a peep.
Except for whenever Lana and Pamela argued. Sonja tended to wake up when arguments occurred. She also tended to tell both women off before promptly falling back asleep.
Lana had been the opposite. She'd been skittish the first few weeks of her and Pamela living together, waking up every time Pamela so much as sneezed in her presence. Every time a dog barked, or a car backfired. It was the sort of nervous condition that had been cultivated directly through Lana's petty thief lifestyle – constantly on her toes, flight and never fight. (Except when it came to Pamela. With Pamela, Lana was all fight.)
Pamela snuck a peek over at the passenger's seat. Lana lay with her head against the window and her hands folded in her blanketed lap. She'd forgotten to take her glasses off, and Pamela couldn't help but smile at the way they just perched on the tip of Lana's nose where they had slipped all the way down.
Maybe it was time for Pamela to stop worrying. Light-turned-heavy sleeper or not, Lana was sleeping more peacefully these days than she used to, and Sonja needed all the sleep she could get as at the tender age of twelve. Pamela would just have to be the light sleeper for the three of them.
Speaking of sleep… Pamela grimaced, her headache still pounding away with no signs of stopping. With the grimace came the realization that she'd subconsciously furrowed her brow against the pain, and she heard her mother's voice clearly: don't make that face, you're giving yourself wrinkles. So Pamela deliberately relaxed, quietly exhaling one…two…three until she had no more air to expel.
She inhaled. Pressed her foot firmly on the pedal. Their hardy truck sped onwards, outstretched corn leaves brushing against Pamela's and Lana's windows as the dirt path narrowed. An hour passed, in the rattling of window-glass and moonbeams bleeding through the windshield, the engine thrumming up through the seat cushion, up through Pamela's thighs and stomach and throat and shaking her teeth in their sockets until she couldn't tell where the truck ended and she began.
Ten hours passed. The truth of it was that only a second hour had passed, but as far as Pamela was concerned it felt like ten, and she pulled over as far as she could to the side of the road (which is to say, she couldn't) and switched the engine off. Silence flooded the space where the engine's roar had been – and Pamela hunched over in her seat and pressed her knuckles into her forehead in a desperate effort to knead her headache away.
It didn't work. Pamela let out a long, quiet sigh and settled back into her seat, folding her arms across her chest. Already she missed the roar of the engine, felt too keenly the Autumn chill seeping through the windows. There was no helping it; she closed her eyes, and tried to sleep.
Heat prickled down Pamela's left side. She shivered, shifted, but no matter what she did the heat remained – and it was the heat of eyes upon eyes condemning her. Cards weighted her sleeves, ace of spaces, ace of hearts, king of hearts – she knew them all, had marked them all. Every time she moved the eyes moved with her and the jewelry and coins from Lana's latest haul clinked in her pockets and when she looked to the right she saw her mother sitting in the passenger seat, her hands folded in her lap. You're frowning, she said, you're earning yourself wrinkles, and Pamela glanced at her reflection in the windshield.
I know, she replied. I can't stop.
Her mother narrowed her eyes. I hope you're treating that girl right.
I don't know what to do. Pamela swallowed painfully, ran her hands over her thighs. She deserves better. They both deserve better.
Her mother's lips moved. She must have been speaking, but Pamela couldn't hear her over the chorus of guns cocking – hundreds of guns, thousands, their barrels poking out between the cornstalks on her left and right. Footsteps thundered down the road in front of the truck; she hardly registered the police horn blaring behind her as she scrambled for the steering wheel and slammed the accelerator – only, the truck didn't move.
Knocking at the window – a police officer, and she froze. Cold metal slid past Pamela's cheek, and the sound of a gun cocking went off near Pamela's left ear.
Sonja, she cried, Sonja, don't–!
The gun's barrel jerked – a bullet whizzed through the space where the truck's windshield had been and found purchase in the shadows beyond the scope of the truck's headlights. There was a cry, and a man crumpled forward into the light.
Oh God, Sonja…
The gun went off. Again. Again. One-two-three, in rapid staccato. Pardon me, ma'am, said the officer. "Begging pardon," he said, and Pamela opened her eyes and found a middle-aged man wearing a battered felt hat and a crumpled button-down shirt rapping on her window.
Pamela scrubbed at her eyes and cranked the window down, her mouth sticky from sleep. The man took a step back and removed his hat once the glass was rolled down. "'Scuse me, ma'am, but you're blocking the road and, well, my family and I need to get by. I honked my horn but I guess you were out cold."
Out cold? Hell. I'm supposed to be the light sleeper. Pamela leaned out the window and saw an automobile stopped a few feet behind her truck. A girl about seven years old stared back at her, her arms folded over the sill of her door's window. Huh…maybe not so backwater a road after all. "Sorry about that," she said. "I didn't – I, uh – we'll be on our way."
"Don't you worry about it," the man assured her. "My wife and I were sorry for waking you."
"Nah…I needed that. Not exactly a comfortable way to sleep anyway. Really, thanks." Pamela stifled a yawn, massaging her right shoulder in an effort to dislodge the crick that had settled there some time during the night. An idea struck her. She sat up straight. "Actually, do you know of an auto camp or something up ahead, some place we can refuel and lie low for a few days? We're not from around here."
The man brightened. "Sure do. We're headed there ourselves. It's only a few miles up ahead – can't miss it."
"Really?" Hey, great news for once. "Glad to hear it. Guess we'll do the same."
Pamela and the man saw each other off with a wave, and she reached for the window crank and rolled the window back up. She took a moment to reach for their shared thermos – really should get another – and practically inhaled the stale coffee within before hastily screwing the cap back on and starting up the engine. Didn't want to inconvenience the family any more than they already had.
Pale sunlight skimmed the top of the cornfields, the sky a pale dusty blue. It was a pleasant sight to wake up to, and Pamela almost had the mind to wake Lana and Sonja up just so they could witness the dawn with her. She didn't, of course, because sleep trumped everything else and, well, there would always be another sunrise.
Provided she didn't get the others killed.
"Heyyyy Pamela, I'm hungry…"
Oh. Sunrise was a go after all. For Sonja, at least. "There should be some cans in the back," Pamela replied, keeping her eyes forward and her hands firmly on the wheel. "Uh, pork 'n beans, corned beef hash…I think there's some canned tuna you could open – you know what, can you wait a little while? We're going to arrive at a camp soon, and Lana and I can heat up the hash there."
She caught a glimpse of Sonja sitting upright in the back, her hair tousled…adorably so. "I guess I don't mind," Sonja said, rubbing her eyes. "But… I am hungry…"
"C'mon, doesn't hot hash sound good? I bet you're sick of eating cold food straight outta the can. I know I am," Pamela wheedled, keeping her voice as soft as she could so as not to wake Lana.
"Well…it does sound pretty good," Sonja admitted. "Okay, Pamela, I'll wait."
"Good. Good, that's – that's good. Maybe if we're lucky one of the other campers will have some fresh eats they won't mind sharing." Her mouth watered at the idea of crackling bacon, fresh vegetables – anything that wasn't canned. God, she craved it the way her aunt craved cigarettes.
Sonja sighed. "Mmm…sounds nice."
"Sure does." Pamela sighed in turn, a touch wistfully. "You should comb your hair before we get there, by the way. Lana's purse might have a hairbrush or comb you could use. Oh, and whatever you do, don't—"
"Hey Lana, where's your purse?"
"—Wake Lana up," Pamela finished, watching Lana stir out of the corner of her eye. Lana let out an enormous yawn and took her glasses off to rub at the spot where the right arm had been digging into her skin. "Sorry about that Lana – I wanted to let you sleep longer, but Sonja needs one of your combs."
"Huh? She does? You need a comb, Sonja?" Lana said, raising her hand to cover another yawn. She wrinkled her nose. "Gah, I stink."
Sonja hugged Lana's headrest. "Yes please!"
"We all stink," Pamela said, less as a comfort and more as a factual statement. "Breath and body. I really hope there's a pump or some sort of plumbing where we're going."
Lana bent down to pick up her purse by her feet, placing it on her lap. As she rummaged through it, she asked, "Hey, where are we going, anyway? Did you find a hotel?"
"Nope." Pamela shook her head. "Look behind you – there's a family following us. The driver said there's an auto camp a few miles ahead."
"Another auto camp!" Lana hmphed and turned to hand Sonja a comb. She took out a hairbrush and began brushing her own hair. "Can't we stay in a hotel? Hey, Sonja, don't you want to stay in a hotel?"
Pamela scoffed. "You and your hotels – you know just as well as I do that we can't afford them a lot of the time. And even though auto camps have a lot of people, they're less likely to remember you and less likely to care about you, and that's what we want, Lana. A place to camp out and stretch our legs, running water for hygiene – we don't want to be remembered. We don't want to be cared about."
"Not until I make us rich," Lana said, blithely. She'd sat up straight, the way she always did when she thought she had a bright idea. "Once we're rich it won't matter if people remember us."
"Yeah, and how are you going to do that? Why don't you remind me how much cash and assets we have on hand. Go on."
Lana deflated. She set down her brush and reached into her purse again. When she pulled her hand out, she was holding a few necklaces and rings. Leftovers from one of her recent sprees. "W-well, we have the jewelry I took, and a couple wallets..."
"Right. But we can't pawn them at an auto camp, so they're useless right now." You're too blunt for a lady, said her mother. Pamela ignored the memory. "And we've got some cash from the last place I gambled at, but it's not enough for a hotel. Might be enough to rent a cabin, if the camp has them. And that's that."
She expected Lana to retort with something like "That isn't that!" as was the usual way, but Lana instead dropped the jewelry back into her purse and resumed brushing her hair. Maybe she was still drowsy. "Hey Pamela," Lana said, after a moment, "How much sleep did you get last night, huh? How much?"
"I…" Pamela honestly didn't know. "What time is it?"
Lana reached into her purse and pulled out a pocket watch – stolen, of course. "Six twenty. Um, in the morning."
Pamela snickered. "Wow, and here I thought it was evening."
"Y-you!" Lana reddened, puffing her cheeks out. "I was just trying to be helpful! Excuse me for trying to be helpful!"
"No fighting…" That was Sonja, and she stuck her head between the two front seats to reprimand Pamela and Lana more effectively. "I mean it."
Pamela winced. "Right, right. Which reminds me, Lana, let's have a truce for the auto camp. Any fighting will only draw negative attention towards us."
"A t-truce? Does that mean we were at war?" Lana wielded her hairbrush like a rapier, aiming it at Pamela. "Then I don't surrender! I'll never surrender!"
"Lana…" Pamela sighed – she'd been sighing a lot, lately – and forced herself to think of more pleasant things. Like a shower. God, she needed a shower. She felt dirty every time her skin scraped against fabric. Pamela the grime-monster. "If you ruin my chances for a bath I'll never forgive you. Understand?"
Lana retracted her arm. "…I want a bath too."
"Good. Then we have a truce."
"…Truce."
Lana settled back into her seat and fussed with her hair for a few more minutes. Pamela dared to think that maybe she'd been let off the hook – or, more likely, that Lana had simply forgot – but her hopes were dashed when Lana perked up again.
"Wait just a minute! You never said when you went to sleep!" She twisted in her seat to look at Pamela full-on, and Pamela hated that she could perfectly picture the crafty gleam in Lana's eyes. "So! So, how long did you sleep for, huh? I bet you thought you were getting away with it, but I remembered!"
"You sure did," Pamela grumbled. "As for me, I don't remember. When I went to sleep, I mean."
"Well, I went to sleep around eleven," Lana said, smugly. Of all the things Lana could have recalled… "So work it out from there."
Pamela hesitated. She thought she'd maybe driven for around two hours more after Lana had fallen asleep, but maybe it had been longer – or less. The headache hadn't been any help. Four hours? Five? "Six hours," she lied. "I think."
Lana didn't move for a few seconds, and Pamela got the feeling that she was being stared at. Eventually, Lana retreated. "Well, that's good then." Lana nodded to herself. "Not the greatest, but not the worst, right? And if we're staying at the auto camp, then maybe you can catch up on sleep there. Hey, how long are we staying for anyway?"
"That's…a good question," Pamela admitted. "I—"
"Sonja! Sonja, did you hear that? Pamela said it was a good question!"
Pamela loudly cleared her throat. "I'm not sure yet," she continued, speaking over her friend. "We can figure that out when we arrive. The whole point of stopping is so we can regroup and make plans, after all. I mean, the past few days have been mostly us running from the police, so…this is our chance to take stock of what we have, figure out what we need and where we should go next."
Lana quieted at that. Their last criminal activities had earned them a police chase all the way through town before Pamela had managed to lose them, but they hadn't relaxed once they hit the highway. Not wanting to stick to a main road for too long, they'd veered off toward the countryside and lost themselves in farmland. Pamela hoped it had been enough. Pamela hoped that the police didn't have a detailed description of their truck.
"…I guess we won't be sticking around for too long, huh…" Lana murmured, her head turned toward the window.
Pamela's eyes ached. "We never do."
Cornfields gave way to trees on either side of the road, and a friendly honk from the auto behind them had Pamela turning down a forest road that had no signs marking it as such – just two trails of depressed grass. Can't miss it, he said.
After a minute or two, the road opened up to a large sun-dappled clearing surrounded by russet-leaved trees, which Pamela might have called pretty had the clearing not been occupied by four other automobiles – and tents. Folding chairs and tables. A lanky man sitting in one of the chairs jumped to his feet and waved at Pamela, using his hands to direct her around the clearing's perimeter and to an empty patch of grass in the back.
Once Pamela parked the car, Lana leaned in close and gave her an accusatory glare. "Hey Pamela… I thought you said that there'd be cabins. There aren't any cabins, Pamela! You – you misled me! You misleader, you!"
"I only said that there might be cabins," Pamela countered, as evenly as she could. "This is pretty standard fare, all things considered."
"Oh yeah?" Lana narrowed her eyes, clearly gearing up for a trump card. "You know what else I don't see? A water pump. What was all that about running water, huh? What was all that, miss I'll-die-if-I-don't-have-a-shower?"
Pamela opened her door and hopped out of the truck to look for herself, ignoring Lana's indignant yelp. All four of the automobiles were Model T's – as was the automobile of the family currently parking next to her, making five – and each one had a canvas tent pitched next to their cars. Two of the autos were hitched with trailer carts. A few people sat at tables outside their tents, their breakfasts announced through the kerosene and oil permeating the air.
"And! And! I don't see a gas pump anywhere, do you? Well, do you?" Pamela turned back to her truck, where Lana had scooted over to the driver's seat to give Pamela a triumphant look. Then she smirked, and in a singsong tone said, "Oh…and Pamela?"
Pamela might have killed her right then and there. "What."
Lana's expression was positively devilish with the promise of victory. "We. Don't. Have. A. Tent."
Not a muscle, Pamela told herself. Not a twitch. Giving Lana the emptiest expression she had in her repertoire, she replied, "…And? That's not exactly news."
Lana's face fell. She struggled to regain the upper ground. "Uh, so we can't stay here, right? I was right about the hotel and you were wrong?"
"Not a chance," Pamela said, folding her arms. "This is nothing. You just wait and see."
She turned her back on Lana and the truck, just in time to see the man who'd woken her up heading her way. His wife and daughter behind him had also left their auto, the latter stretching her arms and jumping up and down as if to say I'm free!. The man tipped his hat at her recognition. "Well, what do you think?" he asked, gesturing toward the campsite. "Paints a pretty picture, my wife said."
"It's…" Pamela paused. "The thing is, I'm not sure if we're equipped for camping out."
The man gave her an understanding smile. "I'm sure we can ask around and see how things work around here. I got the feeling you weren't a tin can tourist like these folks plainly are – and you know something?" He winked. "Neither are we."
Pamela allowed herself to enjoy the pleasant feeling of camaraderie at his words, and she found herself rushing to affirm his assumption. "You felt right," she said. "We may not be from around here, but we're no tin can tourists. I can't remember the last time we actually traveled to tour something."
"I can," the man replied, and he'd lost some of his earlier good cheer. He looked over at his family, and lowered his voice. "Just the once – back when we could afford it. We're drifters, now. Guess we'll keep on drifting until I finally find myself steady work." He gave Pamela a cautious once-over. "Maybe you're the same way."
"…Yeah," Pamela managed, looking down at her feet. "Yeah."
A hand entered her field of vision. She looked up. The man had taken off his hat with his other hand. "I'm Walter McGraw. Pleased to meet you."
Pamela wondered if she had it within her to smile. "I'm Pamela," she said, and hesitated."Just…Pamela."
She shook his hand. The smile never came.
Pamela and Walter spent the next ten to fifteen minutes getting to know the other campers, all of whom were more than happy to show them around the site and answer their many questions. She suspected Walter had been right when he'd pegged them as tin can tourists – the first family they spoke to had all sorts of top-of-the-line camping equipment that suggested they camped for recreation and not out of necessity, including a brand-new camp stove, an auto-refrigerator with a water spigot, an insulated picnic basket ("lined with asbestos," its owner had boasted) and even a scuttle of firewood that Pamela thought a little excessive.
She didn't voice that thought out loud, of course. She oohed and aahed, remarking on their equipment's fine craftsmanship and the wife's becoming dress in-between complimenting the family's foresight and preparedness – and when the husband offered Pamela the use of their spare tent (of course they had a spare tent), Pamela graciously accepted. Then she remembered that Walter had a little girl and felt guilty, but as it turned out the McGraws had a tent of their own.
"Me and the boys will pitch the tent for you, ma'am, don't you worry," the husband said, and though he'd meant his two sons Pamela could spot a few of the older men from the other families standing up and looking in their direction, poised to help out.
"That's very kind of you," she said, "Thank you. We'll repay you somehow."
"Never!" the husband exclaimed, aghast. "Letting you girls to fend for yourselves would be unconscionable."
Pamela thanked him again, and when she returned to her truck she found Lana still sitting in the driver's seat, her arms crossed. She glared at Pamela as soon as she saw her, and Pamela had no doubt that she'd be subjected to one of Lana's lectures if she didn't strike first.
She struck first.
"First of all," Pamela said, "Do you see those men behind me? The ones setting up the tent? That's for us. Second of all, no, they don't have a drinking pump installed yet – the local farmers plan to install one, but until then there's a large stream a few minutes away from here that we can use for laundry and washing. I think they said there are some buckets stacked by some rocks we can use. And there's an outhouse somewhere in the woods. So this'll do just fine for a couple days, all right?"
Lana gaped at her, and scrambled for a counterattack. "B-but! But! You…you forgot the gas pump! Yeah, you forgot it!"
Pamela tasted victory. "You're not telling me you forgot about the gasoline casks, right? You're not telling me you forgot that we carry extra gasoline around specifically because gas stations aren't always available, right?"
Lana wilted in the face of defeat, sliding forward in the driver's seat until her knees touched the dashboard and her arm dangled limply over the side. "Oh, hell."
Finally, finally, Pamela felt like smiling. She walked forward and offered her hand to Lana, who begrudgingly took it and exited the truck with less-than-graceful movements. Pamela decided to be nice for once. "It's not like I'm happy about there not being a gas pump," she said. "I'd have preferred it if you were right, if only this once. Apparently someone from town sometimes stops by selling gasoline drums though, so maybe we'll be able to refill after all. If not, we'll just stop by the station once we head into town. And–"
"Pamela…?"
Sonja had clambered forward to stick her head between the front seats again, this time wearing her helmet. Pamela didn't have to guess at what she wanted.
"I know, I know. You're hungry. C'mon, let's get you out of there – don't you want to stretch your legs?"
"Yeah," Sonja agreed, and she ducked back into the trunk bed. Pamela circled around to the back and opened up the canopy of the luggage compartment. Sonja slid over the luggage to greet her. "And I want to work on my guns."
Pamela froze. "Keep your voice down!" she hissed, though Sonja hadn't actually been speaking all that loudly. "We've talked about this – you can't just say stuff like that willy-nilly."
"But we passed by lots of farms," Sonja replied, cocking her head. "People use guns all the time on farms."
"I know, but…even so, I don't want people knowing we've got them. Understand?"
Sonja pouted, but made no further complaints. She didn't need to. Her feelings on the matter were plain. Pamela would just have to make it up to her. "Hey, you still up for hot hash?"
Sonja brightened. "Uh-huh."
Pamela grinned at her. It was easy to smile when it came to Sonja, even though half the time looking at her caused Pamela nothing but guilt. Maybe it was because when it came to Sonja, Pamela smiles were for her just as much as they were at her. "Me too," she said. "So hurry up and hand me the stove before my stomach eats itself, would you?"
Pamela dumped their little kerosene stove on Lana and returned to the canopy for the corned beef hash and their sole skillet. They kept their canned goods along with bowls and utensils in a box toward the end of the truck for easy access – next to the gasoline casks – and the boxes containing Sonja's guns as far back as possible. Pamela carefully avoided looking at those boxes while she opened up their food crate and picked up a single inventory sheet they'd started using a while back on her insistence. It contained a list of what canned foods they had and how much they'd cost, with new items added on and consumed items crossed off regularly.
One Three tomato soup, .24c all
Two Three canned tunas, .26c/can
One Two canned sardines, .25c bulk
Three canned pork & beans, .25c bulk
Four c.b. hash, .29c/can
After a moment's contemplation, Pamela crossed out Four and wrote Two, taking out two cans of corned beef hash, three bowls, and three spoons before replacing the sheet where she'd found it and closing the box (if she stared too long at the canned food she'd only depress herself).
"Hey, Sonja," she called, reaching for the skillet and can opener wedged behind the box, "Can you come help me carry all this stuff?"
Sonja appeared by her side moments later, holding her helmet upside-down with both hands. She held it straight out in front of her.
"Really? You don't mind?"
Sonja shook her head. She dashed back to Lana after Pamela reverentially placed the bowls, spoons, and can opener into her helmet, too impatient to wait. Pamela couldn't fault her for it, and tucked the skillet and their picnic blanket under her arms, hugging the cans close to her chest.
Lana had the stove running outside the tent by the time Pamela joined them, and she yanked the blanket off Pamela and shook it out with excessive vigor. Pamela chuckled. Guess she's just as hungry as the rest of us. She dumped the cans onto the blanket, and held the can opener out to Lana. Lana blinked at her in confusion. "Huh? What are you giving me that for? Aren't you sitting down?"
"I want to close the canopy first," Pamela said, giving Lana a look. "I don't want to leave it open."
Lana stared at her blankly, and then her eyes widened. "Oh! Because of the gu—"
"—I mean," continued Pamela, her look now a death glare, "Who knows what sort of wild animal could get into the truck if we leave it open?"
"Huh? Oh. Um. Right." Lana had yet to take the can opener. "But…I think it'll be fine. I really think it'll be fine, you know? Because we're right next to the truck. No, um, wild animal could get by us without us knowing."
Pamela shrugged. "It'll make me feel better," she said, and trudged back to the trunk bed.
Lana yelled after her, "Fine! Be that way! But you're the one who'll have to open it up again, or so help me!"
Once Pamela returned, she sat down cross-legged on the blanket next to Sonja, who'd set out the bowls and two of the spoons while she'd been gone. Lana had the hash cooking in the skillet, and Pamela leaned in close to inhale the comfortingly welcome smell of beef and onion. "I was beginning to think maybe we should have gone to wash up by the stream first," she said, dryly, "but now I've changed my mind."
Lana didn't spare her a glance, most of her attention focused on the skillet – but she stopped stirring the hash with the third spoon long enough to ask, "How many cans do we have left?"
"Two." Pamela didn't miss the disappointment on Sonja's face, and added, "We'll try to buy more in town if we have the money. We've got pork and beans, tuna, and sardines left, so lets eat the pork and beans tonight and save the rest of the hash for another day."
Neither Lana or Sonja objected. When Lana spooned the hash out into their bowls, Pamela was pleased to see that Sonja's portion was bigger than Lana's and Pamela's. Lana met her eyes, and Pamela gave her a tiny nod of approval.
Sonja attacked the hash immediately. "Don't eat it too fast," Pamela warned, as much a reminder to herself as it was to Sonja. "Try and savor it, okay?" Fine words from someone who'd wolfed down meals like a rabid animal more than once, but Sonja – dear, trusting Sonja – only nodded and slowed her pace.
Any and all conversation was put on hold for the sake of food, and they ate in hunger-induced silence. Savoring was all well and good, but it could only do so much when your bowl was barely half-full – and before they knew it, they'd polished off the hash. Pamela could have cried from disappointment. Lana in fact did shed a tear, which Pamela might have laughed at under other circumstances. She was more preoccupied with Sonja's utterly forlorn expression.
"You know…why don't you go say hi to the McGraw girl and some of the other kids?" Pamela suggested, nudging Sonja's arm with her elbow. "Maybe you'll get along." Maybe they'll offer you some of their food. And maybe this'll keep you away from your guns.
"Okay." Sonja got to her feet, and waved at someone somewhere behind Pamela – probably a McGraw — before heading off.
Pamela leaned back, putting her weight on her hands. Her stomach grumbled when Lana turned the stove off. "So…" she began. "How does a bath sound?"
Once they'd packed away the stove and the dirtied kitchenware, Lana and Pamela fetched their respective spare outfits and ex-hotel towels along with a new cake of soap and the picnic blanket and headed down the little grassy footpath one of the campers had pointed out to Pamela earlier. Leaves crunched underfoot as they walked, sunlight filtering through the overhead foliage in dreamy haze of dandelion yellow. The noise of the campsite faded as they ventured further into the woods, replaced by the rustling of leaves and the occasional birdsong.
An odd sense of peace settled over Pamela, unfamiliar – but warm. She stole a glance at Lana, who'd tilted her face up toward the sunlight with a smile and an uncharacteristically relaxed countenance. ...Ah.
Pamela's breath hitched. She rubbed at her burning eyes with the palm of her hand, and willed her tears away.
Neither of them dared to break the silence once they reached the stream. Not at first. Mutual reluctance hung between them, and they busied themselves with mundane tasks such as finding the buckets, picking out a branch by the footpath to drape the picnic blanket over, choosing the driest rock to lay their clean clothes on.
Lana joined Pamela in rinsing out the buckets by the stream, and it was Lana who broke the silence. "I'm glad we didn't go to a hotel after all," she said, softly. "This place is nice."
"...Yeah." Pamela dumped out the water in her bucket, filled it again, and set it down on one of the rocks near the stream. "It is."
"When we end up rich, I think I'll live near a forest," Lana hummed, doing the same. "With the most beautiful path ever. Even better than this one."
Pamela didn't have it in her to dash Lana's dreams this time. "That'd be nice," she agreed. "I hate to ruin the mood, but do you want to go first or second?"
"Huh? Me? Well…" Lana bent down and dipped her hand into the stream, and immediately withdrew it with a yelp. "It's-it's cold! Pamela, it's cold! Why didn't you tell me it was cold?"
"But I didn't test it? And in case you forgot, it's Autumn."
"Y-you should've!" Lana exclaimed, burying her hand in her towel like it was burned. "And anyway, I'm going second! So there!"
Pamela shrugged, dipping her finger into her bucket. Lana was right; the water was cold. "Fine by me."
Lana draped her towel over another branch, and disappeared behind the picnic blanket. They had a tacit agreement that whenever they had to wash publicly – that is, in a shared public shower, a lake, or in this case, a stream – one of them would stand guard while the other washed. This time was no different.
Pamela stripped as quickly as possible, stepped into the stream, and wasted no time in dumping the water over her head. She shivered, gasped, and repeated the process. Uncomfortable situations like this were best dealt with head-on, as far as Pamela was concerned. No beating about the bush.
After coating her hands in soap, she scrubbed her hair and underarms and tried not to think about how exposed she was, how anybody could be looking at her behind some tree. It was much more pleasant to focus on the coconut-scented soap and the way her hair felt increasingly less matted underneath her fingers. The water's coldness hardly mattered – hell, it was even refreshing once you got used to it – not when she could picture days worth of sweat and grime washing off her skin.
She proceeded to fill and empty the bucket of water until she was satisfied that the soap had been fully washed out of her hair, and made quick work of patting herself dry with her towel before dressing. They'd forgotten to bring combs, so she settled for draping the towel over her hair before ducking around the picnic blanket with her dirty clothes in hand.
"Your turn," she told Lana. "Hand me your clothes once you're out of them. I can wash them in the stream while you bathe."
"W-wash them?" Lana repeated, alarm flickering across her face. "Can't you wait until after I'm done? We can wash them together."
"I promise I'll be on guard one hundred percent," Pamela soothed. "In fact, if you give me a bucket I'll be able to soak the clothes while facing the path."
Lana bit her lip, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ears. "…Okay."
She was pretty prompt when it came to handing Pamela a bucket, but not so much when it came to her clothes.
Pamela sat down on a rock by a tree and dunked clothes into the bucket. "Lana," she called. "We don't have all day."
"I-I know! You don't have to tell me!"
"Then where are your clothes?"
"I-I'm getting there. Don't…don't rush me."
Pamela pushed her rolled-up sleeve further up her arm, pushing her shirt further far enough into the bucket that a little water sloshed over its side. It was hard to rush Lana when it came to situations like this, and not just because she was the sort of person who took ages to ease themselves into water that was anything other than lukewarm. If Pamela had felt a little exposed, than Lana felt ten times as vulnerable – that was just the way she was.
"It's like those men are going to pounce any moment," Lana had told her once, when they'd been out of options and ended up swimming in a lake for the sake of cleanliness. "I hate being out in the open."
Those men. There was only ever one particular group of men that Lana meant – the men who'd Pamela had found surrounding her in an alley with unpleasant leers on their faces and brass knuckles on their fingers.
So Pamela couldn't really fault her for her reluctance. And she certainly couldn't fault her for her caution.
"Pamela! Shawl!"
Pamela turned and caught Pamela's shawl with her hand, and then her dress and undergarments a minute later. Wishing she'd asked for another bucket, she laid Lana's clothes down and returned to scrubbing her own clothes – albeit with the pace increased. Another minute passed. She lifted her head. "I don't hear any water!"
"I'm working up to it! It's cold!"
"Just dump it over your head and get it over with."
"Huh? I can't do that, Pamela, if I did that I'd probably go into shock!"
Pamela sighed. When she did eventually hear water splashing, it was accompanied by shrieks of varying decibels. By the time Lana pulled down the picnic blanket, fully dressed, Pamela had thoroughly soaked both sets of clothes and laid them and her towel out on a rock to start the drying process.
"You done?" she asked.
Lana nodded, flinging water droplets this way and that. "I take it back. We should have gone to a hotel after all."
Pamela honest-to-goodness laughed and gathered up her clothes and towel along with the bucket, which she returned to the stack by the stream. She picked up the forgotten cake of soap on her way back, and once Lana had retrieved her own clothes the two of them set off the way they came.
"What's next, Pamela?" Lana asked, after a moment. "Hey, what are we doing?"
"I don't know about you, but I'm combing my hair first things first," Pamela replied. "It's been a while since I've felt like being a human being so I'm going all out. …Seriously though, Sonja still needs to bathe so one of us will need to accompany her, and we have those dirty dishes to wash – plus I think we might have a couple shirts or something in the back that need washing too. After that… Well, we'll see. I want you and me to sit down and talk money at some point, but we should – we shouldn't make today all about work. This is a good opportunity to relax."
Lana mulled it over. "Then let's talk money now," she said, much to Pamela's shock. "Instead of putting it off."
"…Sometimes your ideas are actually good ones," Pamela said, earning herself a light punch in the arm. "Right. Well…all the money from my last casino stint is gone. How much was in those wallets you stole?"
She half-expected Lana to admit she hadn't checked yet, but Lana had a ready answer. "Fifteen dollars and forty-three cents total."
"Wow, that much?" Pamela was the pessimist of the two, but she allowed herself just a little bit of hope at that. "You're not pulling my leg, are you?"
"Huh? I'm not pulling your l...oh. No, I double-checked."
Pamela turned the wrapped cake of soap over and over in her hand. "…Nice work," she said. "That's…between that and the jewelry – assuming we can hock them in town – that should tide us over before we hit the next big city. I don't know much about the town this road leads to, but I'm not optimistic that they'll have a casino."
"What about underground betting rings? They might have those."
"Maybe," Pamela muttered. "I'm not too gung-ho on that idea, though. Let's see how much your jewelry pawns for first. At any rate, we'll just have to be careful about how much we eat tonight and tomorrow morning and work out a budget for what we need to buy in town no matter what. …And figure out where the nearest city is."
Lana didn't respond immediately, only reacting when Pamela looked over at her in concern. "So…that's it, huh?" she asked, hushed. "We're really leaving tomorrow? Just like that?"
"It depends, I guess. Maybe we will, maybe we won't." Pamela thought of police sirens and wanted posters – they weren't in Illinois any more but she could picture the Russos' wanted poster of her clear as day – and sighed. "We probably will."
It was nearing noon by the time Pamela managed to rein in Sonja and take her to the stream, and she stood guard while Sonja bathed just as she had done for Lana — only this time she occupied herself by rinsing the dirty bowls, spoons, and two blouses that reeked of underarm odor. Lana stayed behind to come up with a preliminary list of items worth buying once they hit town – Pamela had insisted one of them stay near the truck at all times.
On their way back to the clearing, Sonja again asked Pamela if she could do a little shooting. "Please?" she pleaded, peering up at Pamela with those big blue eyes of hers, "I need to pray to mom and dad – they said they'd be able to hear my guns all the way up in heaven."
"I'm sorry, Sonja," Pamela replied, and after a moment's hesitation she reached around Sonja's shoulders and gave her a one-armed hug. "I'm sure you'll be able to soon."
Sonja's helmet slipped over her head, and she reached up to adjust it. "I'm sorry too," she said. "For bothering you about it."
"You're – you're not bothering me," Pamela said, one part horrified and another part guilty. "You'll get to shoot your guns, okay? That's a promise."
"…Okay, Pamela." Sonja stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Pamela's torso in one of her patented tight embraces. "I believe you."
Pamela's guilt threatened to overwhelm her. She returned the hug awkwardly. "Come on," she said. "Let's go. Lana will start to worry – you know how she is."
Pamela and the others spent the next several hours on a mixture of work and recreation – Pamela tinkered around for a while with the lost cause that was the truck's engine and refueled its tank with one of her gasoline casks, chatted with Walter about what major cities could be reached from the town, and spent a whole hour napping on the picnic blanket at Lana's insistence. She kept close tabs on Sonja while she was awake, but Sonja seemed content to do little more than play with Walter's daughter June and some of the other kids. Lana, meanwhile, spent the time mending clothes and daydreaming, as was her wont.
Pamela woke from her nap just as the sun had started to set, flooding the clearing with an ineffable orange hue. The outstretched leaves above her burned reds and golds so impossibly warm they took her breath away and left her convinced that she had never actually seen a sunset before. Not a real one – not one like this. This was a sunset, she concluded. Everything else up until now had been its poor imitation, as would everything after. Already, she mourned her loss, found herself raging against the moon and Father Time and Mother Nature and dreading the morning to come. The sun would rise, spiteful and haunting all at once, mockingly heralding her return to her wearisome reality as a lowlife. She would mourn in the morn for this sunset, this ephemeral moment that she would never, ever, experience again.
How could she possibly return to the way she'd lived after something so beautiful?
"Time to wake up, Pamela…!" sang Sonja, faraway and close all at once. "June says that the other campers have invited us to eat dinner with them."
Pamela trembled. She ached. She wanted to take Sonja up in her arms and shake her to her senses. She wanted to ask her why she could look at such a sunset and not realize what she was missing, what a miserable life Pamela and Lana had led her into. She wanted to hand Sonja over to Walter McGraw who would undoubtedly raise her properly, and she wanted to hug her close and never let go.
She wanted to be rich. She wanted to never move again.
She stood, and let Sonja lead the way.
"Not often you see three young ladies travelling the road alone," remarked Mr. Farwell, as he handed Pamela a tin mug of lentil soup and a bacon-and-corn-laden plate simultaneously. Mr. Farwell was the proud picnic basket owner and arranger of the camp-wide get-together. Mr. Farwell had also insisted that three of the boys give up their chairs for Pamela, Lana, and Sonja when they'd arrived at the Farwells' tent. "Mighty dangerous without a man to protect you."
Mrs. Farwell nodded in emphatic agreement, casting a meaningfully worried look over at Sonja. "I don't like the thought of you girls all by yourselves," she said. "It isn't safe." It isn't proper. She hadn't said it, but Pamela had no doubt she was thinking it.
Pamela offered her a polite smile, and sipped at her soup before responding, "It's not like we have much in the way of other options." Liar, liar, liar. "We don't intend to do this forever." Truth.
"May I ask what brought you girls to this camp?" asked Mr. Farwell, his voice layered with genuine curiosity. "Are you tourists like we are? Sightseers?"
"We…" Pamela lowered her gaze, busied herself with another gulp of lentil soup. "Not…not really, no. I guess you could say we're job-seekers." Half-truth.
"Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out," said Mrs. Farwell, and Pamela resisted an unkind roll of the eyes at the social platitude. "You three seem very close – you'll manage it together somehow."
Lana jerked upright on Pamela's left, the light from the Farwells' candle lantern reflecting off her glasses. "We're a team, all right! I'm the brains of the operation, of course," she said, loftily, "and Sonja is the brawn. As for Pamela…Pamela…" She waved a dismissive hand. "She's the driver."
Oh, Pamela could not let that slide. "Lana is the brain," she agreed, and added, "The hare-brain, that is."
"You—! You—!"
Mr. and Mrs. Farwells' smiles were identically uncomfortable in the face of decidedly unladylike, impolitic behavior, and Pamela remembered too late that she'd been the one to suggest a truce in the first place. She laughed a laugh that was blatantly false and changed the subject to lighter topics – the weather, the food, the weather again. Drained her mug and polished off her plate and thanked the Farwells profusely for their generosity.
"Not at all, not at all," said Mr. Farwell. "It's the culture."
"The culture," Mrs. Farwell agreed. "The best part of camping is the culture."
"Cultural generosity," Mr. Farwell echoed, with a vague wave of his hand. "You understand."
Pamela didn't understand – no, she had understood it and dismissed it – but nodded anyway. She and Lana helped clear away the dishes, and were shooed away by Mrs. Farwell when they offered to rinse the dishes in the stream – though Mrs. Farwell caught Pamela's wrist before she could follow Lana back to the truck.
Surprised by the breach in etiquette, Pamela turned to give Mrs. Farwell a quizzical stare. The forty-something women looked her up and down, and said in a low voice, "Your friend called herself the brains of the operation, but it seems to me that title more aptly belongs to you. Would I be correct in my assumption?"
Pamela shifted her weight from foot to foot. Maybe she was. She teased Lana often about her scatterbrained ideas and frequently shot them down, but she'd rather deny Mrs. Farwell's suspicion with the refutation that she and Lana both made important decisions about their group's future. To credit herself as the sole leader would not only be unfair to Lana, it would mean taking sole responsibility for everything the group did and would do.
It meant taking sole responsibility for Sonja.
Mrs. Farwell pursed her lips at Pamela's silence. "I thought as much," she said. "You take good care of that young girl, now. She adores you. More importantly, she needs you."
Pamela shrunk back as if she'd been electrocuted. "What – how did you–?"
"I'm a mother," Mrs. Farwell said, as if it were the obvious explanation. "And for the sake of your own mothers, you be careful out there, understand?"
Pamela swallowed. "We will. Thank you."
Mrs. Farwell released Pamela's wrist. Pamela turned and hurried over to her truck. She didn't look back.
Lana was buzzing with anger when Pamela found her outside their borrowed tent.
"Why, you…!" Lana huffed, practically apoplectic. "You, you, you—!" Her cheeks had never been so brilliant a red as they were now. "Hare-brained! You called me hare-brained! In front of all those people! What happened to that truce of yours, huh? What happened? Really, what happened to you and your truce, Pamela? Sometimes I think I'd be better off without you, you know? When you go and do something like that, I…!"
Pamela's ribs must have crumpled inward, judging from the way her heart erupted with agony and self-loathing. She could picture it clearly: Lana on her own, free to do what she wanted, when she wanted, without the baggage of two other people holding her back. Without Pamela poking fun at her ideas day and night. "Yeah," she agreed, dully. "Maybe you wou—"
"—I take it back," Lana cried, the words rushing out of her with desperate fervor. "I take it back, I didn't mean it, Pamela, I didn't mean one bit of it."
"But—"
"No! No! I was wrong! You know I was wrong!" Lana clutched at Pamela's jacket, her eyes growing wider and wider and her voice increasingly high-pitched. "I'm sorry!"
"But —" Pamela cut herself off. Something in Lana had changed – she couldn't place it, but she knew that she'd never seen Lana so serious before. There was a dead certainty in her expression, in the strength of her grip.
When did Lana's grip become so strong?
"No." With just one syllable, Lana denied every objection Pamela hadn't even thought to voice, and Pamela found herself holding her breath. "Pamela, without you I would be dead."
Silence hung between them, heavy with memories. Over the course of mere seconds, Pamela relived every detail of their fateful encounter, every emotion she'd felt. The spike of adrenaline when she'd stumbled across those men looming over a single woman, the anger that had propelled her forward, the panic and outrage – and above it all, Lana's fear. To this day, she remembered Lana's fear more than she remembered her own, felt it more than her own.
She remembered how Lana had wept.
"I…" Pamela was at a complete loss. What should she say? What could she say? Should she argue weakly that Lana might have lived anyway, that someone else might have saved her? Should she remain silent? What, what, what…? "I'm sorry," she croaked. "For – for breaking the truce. I-I'm sorry."
"Without you…!" Lana wailed, her grip on Pamela's jacket weakening, "Without…you…!"
Pamela embraced her. It was the only thing she could think of doing. "I'm sorry," she repeated, helplessly. "I…I don't…"
Lana's sobs faded away along with the strength in her hands, and she pulled away from Pamela to furiously wipe at her glasses with her shawl before donning them once more. With a wet hiccup, she said, "…Truce?"
Pamela clutched at the damp spot Lana's tears had left on her jacket with her right hand, utterly stunned. Finally, she cracked a small, weary smile. "Truce," she echoed.
Lana's answering smile was a little wobbly, but undeniably relieved. "I, um. Sonja and I laid out the blankets in the tent already," she said. "So you don't have to worry about that. Sonja's already inside, asleep."
Sonja… Pamela hoped against hope that she and Lana hadn't woken Sonja up with their hysterics. "Right. You go ahead and join her – I want to make sure the truck's canopy is secured first."
Lana frowned. "Do you have to?"
"…I don't want to take any chances with someone stealing our stuff." Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite, her conscience screamed at her, as did the look in Lana's eyes. It was beyond ridiculous for Pamela and Lana to take measures against thieves when they were thieves themselves – Pamela knew this, but what choice did they have? They had to survive, even if surviving meant hypocrisy. Pamela could live with herself through a moralistic compromise: she and Lana would take measures against thieves, but in the event that they did get robbed – well, there'd be no help for it. Karma was karma, after all. They wouldn't hunt down those responsible.
Not to mention, fastening down the canopy sort of implied implicit distrust of the other campers as much as it assumed that there could be random roving thieves in the area. The thought sent another burr of pain burrowing its way into Pamela's heart as she checked and double-checked the canopy, and she couldn't bring herself to acknowledge Walter McGraw's wave goodnight as she skulked back to the tent.
She found Lana and Sonja laid out side by side on their picnic blanket once she entered the tent, sharing the warmth of two blankets layered on top of one another. Pamela claimed the spot on Sonja's other side, crawling under the blanket as quietly as possible so as not to wake the girl.
"Night, Pamela," whispered Lana, sounding utterly spent. "Sleep tight."
"You too," Pamela replied, just as softly. Lana did not reply, and Pamela was content to lie back and listen to Lana's breathing even out over the next few minutes. Already she yearned for the sunset, the only sunset, that gorgeous splash of manifold reds and oranges, that transient, enveloping warmth. The chasm it had left behind seemed irreparable, a bottomless wound that would never, ever heal.
But it could be filled, Pamela thought, tucking her hands behind her head. Not by the moonlight drippling through the folds of their tent, nor by the sunrise yet to come, but by each breath her sleeping friends took. The comforting steady rise and fall of their chests. The warmth of their skin. The way Lana laughed. The love in Sonja's eyes. All that would be enough – all that would be more than enough.
It was not the thought of the sunset that finally lulled Pamela to sleep, but the presence of those beside her. She breathed in time with Lana – slow, slower, slower still – and for the first time in months, slept well.
Well...I started writing this fic with the vague intention of writing something that conveyed what a rough life Pamela, Lana, and Sonja must lead - all the grime, the fatigue, the hunger that would entail a life on the road in-between the robberies and all the fleeing from police and mafia - and with the well-meaning intention to maybe give the Vanishing Bunny trio the attention I hadn't given them before. A little attention, that is. This was only meant to be a short fic - not 10,000 words. Not by a long shot. It kept going and going despite my efforts to stop it.
Well, I went into this thinking I had no idea how to write all three women, and I've come out of it thinking much the same. Maybe I have an idea of how to write them, but I don't think I've got their characters fully down yet. Certainly I took a few liberties with Pamela and her mother - a mother whom is never mentioned in canon.
Now, Pamela and Lana do talk hotels in Time of the Oasis, but I'm convinced that they would have spent more time in auto camps/boarding houses/sleeping in their car than they would at hotels. Both as a way of saving money and keeping a low profile. Not motels, though. Not those, not yet. They were still conceptually budding, so to speak. Part of my research for this fic included referencing the very relevant book "The Motel in America" which speaks extensively on road culture, and the evolution from auto camps to tourist cabins/rented cottages, to motels, etc. I'd recommend checking it out.
Speaking of auto camps, they were an increasingly popular alternative to hotels during the 1910s for both tourists and in-transit workers like my fictional McGraws. The term "tin can" tourists, of course, refers to the former - tourists in search of adventure, nature activities, etc. "Tin can" is derived from the debris such tourists left in their wake (they had a reputation for such casual littering...) and from the "tin lizzies" some of them drove. There's actually a "Tin Can Tourist" club that exists to this day.
The auto camp I imagine here is a fairly undeveloped one - as autocamping became more popular, nearby towns/farmers were more eager to invest money in them, in turn attracting more tourists. Working plumbing, showers/baths/toilets, gas pumps, cabins that you could rent for a dollar and pay extra for a mattress/blanket...some even set up nearby shops selling groceries and other amenities.
Well, all in all I'm not sure if there's actually any substance to this fic in any way shape or form, but that could just be the lack of sleep talking...
Thanks to adorkablefae for catching those typos.