The Road to Grace

by Richard Paul Evans

  Her questions took me aback. After a moment I said, “Go home, Pamela. Go back to wherever you’ve been hiding all these years. You had your chance.”

  Her eyes welled up with tears.

  I turned back to the road. I walked fifty yards or so before I glanced back. I couldn’t believe it. She was still following me. Though, this time, with a slight limp. It didn’t take me long to leave her far behind.

  The strangest thing I saw that morning—other than Pamela—was a sign for Red Ass Rhubarb Wine. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to flee my pursuer I might have stopped for a taste. I could have used some wine. Pamela’s questions bothered me.

  Just outside Hill City I came to a place called Mistletoe Ranch, which wasn’t really a ranch, but a Christmas emporium. A sign in front of the building proclaimed it The Ultimate Christmas Store.

  McKale was a die-hard fan of Christmas and, as she had in so many of her passions, converted me as well. Even in spring I couldn’t resist the allure of the season. Since I hadn’t seen Pamela for more than an hour I went inside.

  The place was indeed full of Christmas. Tinny, banjo Christmas music played from overhead speakers, and the room smelled of pine and buttercream scented candles. The walls were shelved and piled high with hundreds of unique holiday decorations, knickknacks, and collectibles, from Betty Boop Christmas ornaments to Elvis stockings to miniature porcelain Christmas villages.

  There were a few things I wanted but since purchasing anything I’d have to carry would have been absurd (although I did consider purchasing a Marilyn Monroe ornament to hang from the back of my pack) I left empty-handed. My stop wasn’t a waste of time, though. The visit had distracted me from the emotions stirred up by my encounter with Pamela. Whatever the season, a healthy dose of Christmas lifts the spirits.

  As I opened the door to leave I looked both ways to see if Pamela was there. She was. I don’t know how she knew I had gone into the store—she was nowhere in sight when I’d gone in—but she was there, standing across the road waiting for me.

  I started off again, walking even faster than usual. Within fifteen minutes Pamela was out of sight, though by now I no longer assumed that she’d given up her quest.

  A few miles past Hill City, the highway split. I continued on 16 east until it ran north again. Around noon I reached the historic Rockerville Café, where I stopped to eat a hamburger and failed to learn what made the place historic. Actually, I didn’t care what made the place historic. After traveling through Idaho, where everything was historic, the label had lost its luster.

  I didn’t stay long. I hoped I had lost Pamela where the highway split, but in case I hadn’t, I didn’t want to give her the chance to catch up. I was relieved she wasn’t standing there as I left the café.

  A couple miles from the café a Forest Service sign informed me that I was leaving the Black Hills National Forest, though you wouldn’t know it by looking; as far as I could see, the road continued to be lined with forest, as well as tourist attractions, hoping to catch the crumbs from Mount Rushmore’s table.

  I passed another Christmas shop (apparently Christmas is a moneymaker in South Dakota) and Bear Country USA—a 250-acre drive-through wildlife park, boasting the world’s largest collection of privately owned black bears. I could see some of the bears from the highway and I thought back to the grizzly I had encountered in the wild three weeks earlier in Yellowstone. These captive bears didn’t look nearly as lively or dangerous. In fact, they looked sedated and about as frisky as my father an hour after Thanksgiving dinner.

  There were more tourist attractions in this stretch than perhaps anywhere else in America. I passed a reptile zoo, a wax museum, a corn maze, and a mountain zip line, the latter of which reminded me of my eleventh birthday.

  That was a birthday to remember. Actually, it was impossible to forget. My dad, in a rare moment of introspection, decided that in the absence of a mother, a dutiful father should probably throw his only son a birthday party at least once in his life. This was something that he’d never done before, so, not surprisingly, he was clueless. I once saw my dad dismantle a five-horsepower Briggs & Stratton engine from our lawn mower, strip it down to its block, then reassemble it perfectly. But he couldn’t put a birthday party together to save his life.

  He started by inviting random children from the neighborhood, many of whom I didn’t know, including two sisters whose family had just migrated to the U.S. from Hungary. The girls didn’t speak English, or at least not that any of us had heard, and they huddled together the whole time speaking in frightened whispers to each other.

  My father borrowed a minivan and took all seven of us to a Pizza Hut (which wasn’t a bad call), then to a zip line he’d found a coupon for, located about forty-five minutes from our home.

  The Hungarian girls only became relevant to the party when the younger of the girls (none of us ever learned either of their names) somehow got her long blond hair caught in the pulley, stopping her mid-ride and leaving her dangling hundreds of feet above the ground, screaming hysterically.

  The rescue mission was well worth the price of admission. We, and a few dozen others from waiting groups, gaped as one of the zip line workers donned thick gloves and shimmied down the line until he was close enough to cut the girl’s hair with a pair of wire cutters, sending her rolling down the line. We clapped and hooted when she was free, unanimously judging the rescue operation a great success. All of us, that is, but the sisters, who apparently thought otherwise, evidenced by their red and tear-stained faces. The older girl kept examining her sister’s chopped hair and crying.

  When we got back to our neighborhood, my dad dropped the sisters off in their driveway and sped away before they got to their door. I asked if he should tell their parents what had happened, but my dad just mumbled something like, “They don’t speak English that well,” and “They’re from a communist-bloc country, they’re used to things like that.” I pondered that statement for years, and every time I heard something about a communist country, I imagined unhappy girls with erratically lopped off tufts of hair.

  By twilight I was close to Rapid City and had I been in a car I would have driven on to the city center, but I had already walked twenty miles and there was an ominously steep hill looming ahead of me, so I ended my day outside the city limits at the Happy Holiday Motel. I expected at any moment to see Pamela step out of a car behind me but she never did. I was foolishly optimistic that she had finally given up and gone home. I was wrong.

  C H A P T E R

  Five

  Last night I dreamt I was kissing McKale.

  As I pressed my lips against hers I was

  filled with the most exquisite joy. Then

  my joy turned to horror when I realized

  that I wasn’t kissing her, but giving

  her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  I woke the next morning wondering what Pamela wanted to say. If she had come to apologize, she was too late for that. The person she needed to apologize to was already gone.

  After breakfast, I stretched my legs and back, then donned my pack and started walking.

  I don’t like days that start with large hills; the same was figuratively true when I ran an advertising agency. In less than two hours, Rapid City loomed ahead of me.

  Rapid City reminded me a lot of Spokane. Since it was the first city of any real size I’d walked through since Cody, Wyoming, I decided to bypass the truck route and walk through town. No doubt inspired by Mount Rushmore’s presidential fervor, there was a bronze statue on every street corner depicting a U.S. president engaged in some activity demonstrative of their term in office.

  I didn’t recognize many of them. Actually, most of them. This wasn’t surprising. I mean, could anyone alive today pick James K. Polk from a police lineup or recognize Rutherford B. Hayes if they bumped into him in an elevator? Or what about William Henry Harrison, our shortest-lived president, who died jus
t thirty-two days into office? I wondered what his statue looked like—a man in bed?

  At the end of the strip, I turned left on East Boulevard to I-90. Walking in the city is always slower, and adding to my delay was some major road construction that forced me to dodge road maintenance workers and machinery for the next few miles. Not halfway through the city I was longing for the wilds again.

  The only restaurant I encountered, other than the usual fast-food chains, was a Vietnamese restaurant, which sounded interesting. Once inside, though, I ended up ordering things that weren’t Vietnamese—sesame chicken and Thai curry shrimp. They both were good. I ate quickly, eager to get back on my way and out of the city.

  I stopped at a grocery store to stock up on rations: canned fruit, beef jerky, Clif Bars, bread, Pop-Tarts, a jar of artichoke hearts, and water. A half hour past the grocery store I reached Interstate 90 and headed east.

  The interstate was dangerously busy, and most of the way I was forced to walk on the freeway’s uneven, cratered shoulder.

  By late afternoon the traffic eased as the landscape turned dull and barren. Acres of trailer parks and the lack of trees rendered the scenery drab. I felt like I was in eastern Wyoming again. That is until I saw my first Wall Drug sign.

  Wall Drug is a legend, a true American success story and a case study in the power of advertising. Any adman worth his salt knows about Wall Drug.

  The Wall Drug story began in 1931, when Ted Hustead, a young pharmacist working in Canova, South Dakota, made the fateful decision to strike out on his own. With a three-thousand-dollar inheritance from his father, he and his wife, Dorothy, hopped in their Model T and began scouring the state for a store to purchase.

  Their search led them to the small, desolate town of Wall, South Dakota—an area of the state Ted’s father-in-law described as “about as Godforsaken as you can get.” The town was not only in the middle of nowhere, but it was poor as well—the residents were mostly the impoverished survivors of the Great Depression. Wall was hardly the kind of place to start a successful business.

  In spite of the obvious drawbacks, Ted and Dorothy felt at home in the small town, largely due to the fact that it had a Catholic church where they could go to Mass every day. They prayed about their decision and, feeling divine guidance, decided to buy the struggling drugstore.

  As the months, then years, passed, their drugstore floundered, constantly teetering on the brink of failure. In spite of his faith, Ted began to wonder if they’d done the right thing. He finally decided to give the store five more years. “Five good years,” he told his wife, “and if it doesn’t work by then …”

  Dorothy was more optimistic. “In a few years Mount Rushmore will be finished,” she reasoned. “There will be a lot more traffic and business.”

  She was half right. Every year the traffic that passed by Wall increased, but their business didn’t. Day after day the couple sat on the porch of their store and watched the cars drive by—few of them stopping in the dusty town.

  Then, one day, Dorothy had an epiphany. Being in the middle of nowhere meant that all those people passing them by had been driving a long time across the hot, desolate prairie. “They’re thirsty,” Dorothy said. “They want water. Ice-cold water. And we’ve got plenty of ice and plenty of water.”

  The next day, Ted painted several signs offering FREE ICE WATER. Then, following the model of the famous Burma Shave highway signs, he planted his signs every mile or so leading to their store. By the time he got back to their drugstore, people had already begun stopping for free ice water and Dorothy was running around like crazy trying to keep up with their other purchases.

  Today, the world-famous drugstore draws millions of visitors a year, up to twenty thousand visitors a day. Their advertising signs, like the one I’d just seen, were smaller than conventional billboards, but what they lacked in size they made up for in frequency, with appeals designed to reach everyone.

  From the moment I saw that first sign, there was always a sign in view.

  Get a Milkshake. Wall Drug

  Get a Rootbeer. Wall Drug

  Pretty Near. Wall Drug

  Free Coffee & Donuts for Vietnam Vets. Wall Drug

  Still a slave to an old advertising habit of mine, I took out my journal and began writing down the slogans. When I started my recording, I had already passed four signs and I was still more than forty miles from Wall.

  By evening I had put in around nineteen miles through vast stretches of nothing but plains, fields, and Wall Drug signage. The last of the day’s light was beginning to fade, and I was looking for a place to camp when a car pulled up about fifty feet behind me. The door opened and Pamela got out. She thanked the driver, then shut the door.

  “Alan,” she said.

  Unbelievable, I thought. She’s the Energizer Bunny of stalkers.

  I postponed my plan to camp and continued to walk. Pamela followed. I walked perhaps another five miles until there was no sign of her—or anything else—except a lot of nothing and the Wall Drug signs. It was a warm night and I rolled out my pad and sleeping bag under a freeway overpass. I wondered how Pamela was planning to spend the night.

  The next morning I woke a little before sunrise. I looked around for Pamela but didn’t see her, though I was certain she was out there somewhere. I wondered how she was surviving. She had no provisions, no sleeping bag, no air mattress, just a simple ladies’ handbag and bad shoes. Had she really slept on the road?

  I ate two Pop-Tarts, a Clif Bar, and an apple, then set off for a new day of Wall Drug signs.

  Wall Drug. Historical Photos

  Wall Drug. 33 Miles to Go

  All Roads Lead to Wall Drug

  Western Wear. Wall Drug

  Road Trip. Wall Drug

  Sheriff on Duty. Wall Drug

  Western Home Décor. Wall Drug

  Wall Drug or Bust

  6 foot Rabbit. Wall Drug

  Buffalo Burgers. Wall Drug

  Free Ice Water. Wall Drug

  Be Yourself. Wall Drug

  Badlands Maps. Wall Drug

  Frosted Mug Beer. Wall Drug

  Dig it. Wall Drug

  After an hour of walking, I made out the figure of someone walking ahead of me in the distance. Couldn’t be, I thought. Couldn’t be her.

  It was. Pamela was walking in front of me. Even from a distance I could see that her limping had increased.

  I crossed to the opposite side of the road. When I was adjacent to her I could see how bad she looked. Her hair was matted and she looked pale.

  “Please talk to me,” she said. “I’m begging.”

  “Go home, Pamela.”

  “I’m not quitting,” she said. “I don’t care if it kills me.”

  “It might,” I said.

  “Please.”

  I kept on walking.

  Wall Drug USA exit 110

  Wall Drug Since 1931

  Coffee 5 cents. Wall Drug

  A Dakota Must See. Wall Drug

  Refreshing Free Ice Water. Wall Drug

  Around noon I stopped along the side of the road to eat a can of fruit cocktail, another Clif Bar, and my own invention, a beef jerky sandwich. The land was flat but with the exception of the signs, there was nothing as far as the eye could see, including Pamela.

  Tourist Info. Wall Drug

  Skinny Saloon. Wall Drug

  It’s cool. Wall Drug

  Experience Wall Drug Mining Co.

  American Icon. Wall Drug

  Kids Love Wall Drug

  As I walked through the unvarying scenery my mind wandered. I wondered how Kailamai and Nicole were doing. Nicole was the woman who had taken me in after I was attacked near Spokane. Kailamai was a young runaway I had met shortly after near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I had introduced them to each other, and Kailamai was now Nicole’s roommate. It felt like months since I’d seen them. I counted back the days. Thirty-six days. Just thirty-six days. It felt like six months. At least.

 
I remembered that back in Spokane I had promised to call my father every week. He had bought me a phone for that express purpose. I wasn’t sure whether I would have reception or not, but I stopped, took my cell phone from my pack, and turned it on. There were two bars. I held down on the number 1, calling my father. He answered before the second ring.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Nowhere. I’m in South Dakota on Highway 90.”

  “Did you pass Wall Drug yet?” he asked.

  “You know about Wall Drug?” I asked.

  “Everyone knows about Wall Drug,” he said. “It was in Reader’s Digest and Life magazine.” In my father’s world, everyone had read those magazines. Still did.

  “No. But I’ve passed a bunch of their signs.”

  “They’re famous for those signs. How are you?”

  “I’m doing okay. And you?”

  “You know me. Nothing changes.”

  “Have you heard from Nicole?”

  “Yes. We talk a couple times a week. She’s really a pleasant young lady. We’re taking things slowly. I got her into an IRA and some mutual funds.”

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “She’s doing great. She got that inheritance.”

  “I didn’t mean financially,” I said.

  “Oh. Well I wouldn’t know about that. She sounded well.”