“That’s a mean thing to say.”
“I didn’t hardly know him,” I said, “certainly not enough to perfume him, bag him up, and drive him home.”
“You don’t have to have known him all that well, he’s family.”
My little sister, Terri, came in then. She was twelve and had her hair cut straight across in front and short in back. She had on overalls with a work shirt and work boots. She almost looked like a boy. She said, “I was thinking I ought to go with you.”
“You was thinking that, huh,” I said.
“It might not be such a bad idea,” Mama said. “She can read the map.”
“I can read a map,” I said.
“Not while you’re driving,” Mama said.
“I can pull over.”
“This way, though,” Mama said, “you can save some serious time, having her read it and point out things.”
“He’s been dead for near two weeks or so. I don’t know how much pressure there is on me to get there.”
“Longer you wait, the more he stinks,” Terri said.
“She has a point,” Mama said.
“Ain’t they supposed to report a dead body? Them people found him, I mean? Ain’t it against the law to just leave a dead fella lying around?”
“They done us a favor, Uncle Smat being family and all,” Mama said. “They could have just left him, or buried him out there with the chickens.”
“I wish they had,” I said. “I made that suggestion, remember?”
“This way we can bury him in the cemetery where your daddy is buried,” Mama said. “That’s what your daddy would have wanted.”
She knew I wasn’t going to say anything bad that had to do with Daddy in any manner, shape, or form. I thought that was a low blow, but Mama, as they say, knew her chickens. She knew where I was the weakest.
“All right, then,” I said, “I’m going to get him. But that car of ours has been driven hard and might not be much for a long trip. The clutch hangs sometimes when you press on it.”
“That’s a chance you have to take for family,” Mama said.
I grumbled something, but I knew by then I was going.
“I’m going too,” Terri said.
“Oh hell, come on, then,” I said.
“Watch your cussing,” Mama said. “Daddy wouldn’t like that either.”
“All he did was cuss,” I said.
“Yeah, but he didn’t want you to,” she said.
“I think I’m gonna cuss,” I said. “My figuring is, Daddy would have wanted me to be good at it, and that takes practice.”
“I ain’t forgot how to whip your ass with a switch,” Mama said.
Now it was figured by Mama that it would take us two days to get to the Wentworths’ house and chicken coop if we drove fast and didn’t stop to see the sights and such, and then two days back. As we got started out early morning, we had a pretty good jump on the first day.
The clutch hung a few times but seemed mostly to be cooperating, and I ground the gears only now and again, but that was my fault, not the car’s, though in the five years we had owned it, it had been worked like a stolen mule. Daddy drove that car all over the place looking for spots of work. His last job had been for the WPA, and we seen men working those jobs as we drove along, digging out bar ditches and building walls for what I reckoned would be schools or some such. Daddy used to say it was mostly busywork, but it paid real money, and real money spent just fine.
Terri had the map in her lap, and from time to time she’d look at it, say, “You’re doing all right.”
“Of course I am,” I said. “This is the only highway to Marvel Creek. When we need the map is when we get off the main road and onto them little routes back in there.”
“It’s good to make sure you don’t get veered,” Terri said.
“I ain’t getting veered,” I said.
“Way I figure it, it’s gonna take three days to get there, or most near a full three days, not two like Mama said.”
“You figured that, did you?”
“I reckoned in the miles and how fast the car is going, if that speedometer is right, and then I put some math to it, and I come up with three days. I got an A in math.”
“Since it’s the summer, I reckon you’ve done forgot what math you learned,” I said.
“I remember. Three days at this pace is right, and this is about as fast as you ought to go. Slowing wouldn’t hurt a little. As it is, we blowed a tire, they wouldn’t find nothing but our clothes in some bushes alongside the road, and they’d be full of shit.”
End of that day we come near the Oklahoma border. It was starting to get dark, so I pulled us over and down a little path, and we parked under a tree for the night. We had some egg sandwiches Mama had made, and we ate them. They had gotten kind of soggy, but it was that or wishful thinking, so we ate them and drank some water from the canteens.
We threw a blanket on the ground and laid down on that and looked up through the tree limbs at the stars.
“Ever wonder what’s out there?” Terri said.
“I read this book once, about this fella went to Mars. And there was some green creatures there with four arms.”
“No joke?”
“No joke.”
“Must have been a good book.”
“It was,” I said. “And there was four-armed white apes, and regular-looking people too, only they were red-skinned.”
“Did they have four arms too?”
“No. They were like us, except for the red skin.”
“That’s not as good,” Terri said. “I’d like to have had me four arms, if I was one of them, and otherwise looked regular.”
“You wouldn’t look regular with four arms,” I said.
“I could stand it,” Terri said. “I could pick up a lot of things at once.”
When we woke up the next morning, my back hurt considerable. I had stretched the blanket out on an acorn, and it had stuck me all night. I come awake a few times during the night and was going to pull back the blanket and move it, but I was too darn tired to move. In the morning, though, I wished I had. I felt like I had been shot with an arrow right above my belt line.
Terri, however, was as chipper as if she had good sense. She had some boiled eggs in the package Mama had ended up giving her after it was decided she was going, and we had one apiece for breakfast and some more canteen water.
After wrapping up the blanket, we climbed back in the car and started out again, drove on across the line and into Oklahoma, going over the Red River, which wasn’t really all that much of a river. At that time of the year, at least where we crossed, it wasn’t hardly no more than a muddy trickle, though as we went over the bridge, I could see down a distance to where it was wider and deeper-looking.
We come to a little town called Hootie Hoot, which seemed to me to be a bad name for most anything, and there was one gas pump outside a little store there, and by the door going into the store was a sign that said they was looking for a tire-and-rim man. We could see the gas in the big jug on top of the pump, so we knew there was plenty, and we pulled up to it. Couple other stations we had passed were out of gas.
After we had sat there awhile, an old man with bushy white hair wearing overalls so faded they was near white as his hair came out of the station. He had a big red nose and looked like he had just got out of bed. We stood outside the car while he filled the tank.
“They say the Depression has done turned around,” he said. “But if it did, it darn sure didn’t turn in this direction.”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Ain’t you a little young to be out driving the roads?” he said.
“Not that young,” I said.
He eyed me some. “I guess not. You children on an errand?”
“We are,” I said. “We’re going to pick up my uncle Smat.”
“Family outing?”
“You could say that.”
“So we will,” he said.
“We might want something from the store too,” I said.
“All right, then,” he said.
Me and Terri went inside, and he hung up the gas nozzle and trailed after us.
I didn’t have a lot of money, a few dollars Mama had given me for gas and such, but I didn’t want another soggy egg sandwich or a boiled egg. I bought some Vienna sausages, some sardines, and a box of crackers, and splurged on Coca-Colas for the two of us. I got some shelled and salted peanuts to pour into the Coca-Colas, bought four slices of bread, two cuts of bologna, and two fat cuts of rat cheese. The smell of that cheese made me seriously hungry; it was right smart in aroma, and my nose hairs tingled.
We paid up, and I pulled the car away from the pump and on around beside the store. We sat on the bumper and made us a sandwich from the bread, bologna, and cheese. It was a lot better than those soggy egg sandwiches Mama had made us, and though we had two more of them, they had reached a point where I considered them turned, and I planned on throwing them out on the road before we left.
That’s when a ragged-looking fellow come up the road to the store and stopped when he seen us. He beat the dust off the shoulders and sides of his blue suit coat. His gray hat looked as if a goat had bitten a hunk out of the front of it. The suit he was wearing had been nice at one time, but it was worn shiny in spots and hung on him like a circus tent. His shoe toes flapped when he walked like they were trying to talk. He said, “I hate to bother you children, but I ain’t ate in a couple days, nothing solid anyway, and was wondering you got something to spare?”
“We got some egg sandwiches,” Terri said. “You can have both of them.”
“That would be right nice,” said the ragged man.
He came over smiling. Up close, he looked as if he had been boiled in dirt, his skin was so dusty from walking along the road. One of his nose holes was smaller than the other. I hadn’t never seen nobody like that before. It wouldn’t have been all that noticeable, but he had a way of tilting his head back when he talked.
Terri gave him the sandwiches. He opened up the paper they was in, laid them on the hood of our car, took hold of one, and started to wolf it down. When he had it about ate, he said, “That egg tastes a mite rubbery. You ain’t got nothing to wash it down?”
“We could run you a bath if you want, and maybe we could polish your shoes for you,” Terri said. “But we ain’t got nothing to wash down that free sandwich.”
The dusty man narrowed his eyes at Terri, then gathered himself.
“I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful,” he said.
“I don’t think you give a damn one way or the other,” Terri said.
“Look here,” I said. “I got the last of this Coca-Cola; you don’t mind drinking after me, you can have that. It’s got a few peanuts in it.”
He took the Coca-Cola and swigged some. “Listen here, could you spare a few other things, some clothes, some more food? I could give you a check.”
“A check?” Terri said. “What would it be good for?”
The man gave her a look that was considerably less pleasant than a moment ago.
“We don’t want no check,” Terri said. “If we had something to sell, and we don’t, we’d want cash money.”
“Well, I ain’t got no cash money.”
“There you are, then,” Terri said. “A check ain’t nothing but a piece of paper with your name on it.”
“It represents money in the bank,” said the man.
“It don’t represent money we can see, though,” Terri said.
“That’s all right,” I said. “Here, you take this dollar and go in there and buy you something with it. That’s my last dollar.”
It wasn’t my last dollar, but when I pulled it out of my pocket, way he stared at it made me nervous.
“I’ll take it,” he said. He started walking toward the store. After a few steps, he paused and looked back at us. “You was right not to take no check from me, baby girl. It wouldn’t have been worth the paper it was written on. And let me tell you something. You ought to save up and buy yourself a dress and some hair bows, a dab of makeup, maybe take a year or two of charm lessons.”
He went on in the store, and I hustled us up, bringing what was left of our sandwiches with us and getting into the car.
“Why you in such a hurry?” Terri said as I drove away.
“Something about that fella bothers me,” I said. “I think he’s trouble.”
“I don’t know how much trouble he is,” Terri said, “but I darn sure had him figured on that check. As for a dress and hair bows, he can kiss my ass. I wish him and all fools like him would die.”
“You can’t wish for all fools to die, Terri. That ain’t right.”
Terri pursed her lips. “I guess you’re right. All them fools died, I’d be pretty lonely.”
We went about twenty miles before the motor steamed up and I had to pull the Ford over. I picked a spot where there was a wide place in the road and stopped there and got out and put the hood up and looked under it like I knew what was going on. And I did, a little. I had developed an interest in cars, same as Daddy. He liked to work on them and said if he wasn’t a farmer he’d like to fix engines. I used to go with him when he went outside to put water in the radiator and mess with the motor. Still, I wasn’t what you’d call a mechanic.
“You done run it too long without checking the water,” Terri said.
I gave her a hard look. “If you weren’t here, I don’t know what I’d think was wrong with it.”
I got a rag out of the turtle hull, got some of our canteen water, and, using the rag, unscrewed the radiator lid. I had Terri stand back, on account of when I poured the water in, some hot, wet spray boiled up. Radiator was bone dry.
We got enough water in the car to keep going, but now we were out of water to drink. We poked along until I saw a creek running alongside the road and off into the woods. We pulled down a tight trail with trees on both sides, got out, and refilled the canteens from a clear and fast-running part of the creek. The water tasted cold and clean. I used the canteens to finish filling the radiator, and then we filled them for us to drink. I decided to take notice of this spot in case we needed it on the way back. While I was contemplating, Terri picked up a rock and zinged it sidearm into a tree and a red bird fell out of it and hit the ground.
“You see that,” she said. “Killed it with one shot.”
“Damn it, Terri. Wasn’t no cause for that.”
“I just wanted to.”
“You don’t kill things you don’t eat. Daddy taught you that.”
“I guess we could eat it.”
“No. We’re not eating any red birds. And don’t you never kill another.”
“All right,” she said. “I didn’t really know I’d hit it. But I’m pretty good with rocks. You know Gyp Martin? Well, he called me a little bitch the other day, and I hit him with a rock so hard it knocked him cold out.”
“No it didn’t.”
“Yes it did. Sharon Miller was with me and seen it.”
“Terri. You got to quit with the rocks. I mean, well, I give you this. That was a good shot. I don’t know if I can even throw that far.”
“I’d be surprised if you could,” she said. “It’s a natural talent for a rare few, but then you got to develop it.”
We got to where we were going about dark that day.
“I thought you said three days,” I said. “We made it in two, way Mama said.”
“Guess I figured in too many stops and maybe a cow crossing the road or something.”
“You did that, did you?”
“I was thinking you’d want to stop and see the sights, even though you said you didn’t.”
“What sights?”
“That turned out to be the problem. No sights.”
“Terri, you are full of it, and I don’t just mean hot wind.”
The property was off the road, up in the woods, and not quite on top of a hill. We could se
e the house as we drove up the dirt drive. It was big but looked as if it might slip off the hill at any moment and tumble down on us. It was even more weathered than our home place. The outhouse out back was in better shape than where they lived.
As we come the rest of the way up the hill, we saw there were hog pens out to the side with fat black-and-white hogs in them. Behind that we could see a sizable run of henhouses. I had expected just one little henhouse, but these houses were plentiful and had enough chicken wire around them you could have used it to fence in Rhode Island.
I parked the Ford and we went up and knocked on the door. A man came to the door and looked at us through the screen. Then he came out on the porch. He had the appearance of someone that had been thrown off a train. His clothes were dirty and his hat was mashed in front. His body seemed about forty, but his face looked about eighty. He was missing all his teeth and had his jaw packed with tobacco. I figured he took that tobacco out, his face would collapse.
“Who are you?” he said and spit tobacco juice into a dry flower bed.
“The usual greeting is hello,” Terri said.
I said, “Watch this, sir.” And I gave Terri a kick in the leg.
“She had that coming,” he said.
Terri hopped off the porch and leaped around yipping while I said, “We got a letter from your missus, and if we got the right place, our uncle Smat is in your chicken house.”
“You’re in the right place. When she quits hopping, step around to the side, start up toward the chicken houses, and you’ll smell him. He ain’t actually up in a henhouse no more. A goddang old dog got in there and got to him, dragged him through a hole in the fence, on up over the hill there, into them trees. But you can smell him strong enough, you’d think he was riding on your back. You’ll find him.”
“You didn’t have to kick me,” Terri said.
“I got a bit of a thrill out of it,” said Mr. Wentworth. “I thought maybe you was a kangaroo.”
Terri glared at him.
A woman wiping her hands with a dish towel and looking a lot neater than the man came to the door and stepped out on the porch.
The Highway Kind Page 17