The Road to Grace

by Richard Paul Evans

  “Need a hand?” I asked.

  He grimaced. “Sure. Why not?”

  I slid my pack off and began picking up his things, most of them of little value, including a dozen faded T-shirts, some VHS cassettes of porn, and some plastic dishes—most of them now broken. The man just grunted and cursed.

  “Looks like you’re moving,” I said.

  “Got that right,” he replied. “Finally got smart and dumped the old nag.” He turned and threw a dish rack into the truck’s bed. “You know how you spell relief? D-I-V-O-R-C-E. You know what I mean?”

  “No,” I said.

  He bent over. “Then you’re not married, are you?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “Then you’re smarter than me. Life is short. You gotta grab it. You know what I mean? If you don’t look after yourself, who will?”

  “You tell me,” I said.

  “No one. No one looks out for you but you. You gotta watch your own back.”

  I didn’t bother to point out that this was literally impossible. “Where are you headed?” I asked.

  “Headed back to where life was good. You know what I mean, back in high school? Chicks and beer, we knew how to live back then. Life was one big party. That’s where I’m going.”

  “Over the rainbow …” I said, picking up a couple cassettes with skanky covers.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Do you think what you’re looking for will still be there?”

  He stopped and looked at me as if he was annoyed by my stupidity. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  I didn’t answer him. We finished gathering the rest of his things, then I helped him lift the mattress onto the heap and we crisscrossed a nylon rope over the mattress and secured it to the truck bed. When the last knot was tied, I picked up my pack. “Well, good luck.”

  “Thanks for the help,” he said. “Can I give you a lift?”

  “No thanks. I’m walking.”

  “Suit yourself.” He slammed his door, fired up his truck, which backfired a couple of times, then peeled off, spitting gravel at me. I shook my head. I think of all the people I had met so far on my journey, he was the most pitiable.

  A few hours later I came to a building with a sign that read:

  Petrified Gardens

  “Family Approved Site”

  Bring your camera!

  I didn’t have a family or a camera, but I was curious about this building in the middle of nowhere so I went inside. A bell rang as I entered, and a gaunt, middle-aged man who looked a little like Christopher Walken met me at the door. “Would you like to buy a ticket?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “How many?”

  “It’s just me.”

  “One ticket,” he said. “That’ll be seven dollars.”

  I paid him. He handed me a ticket. Then (I’m not making this up) he said, “Just a second.” He walked back ten feet to the museum’s entrance and held out his hand. “Ticket, please.”

  I handed him back the ticket.

  “Right this way,” he said, motioning me forward.

  I walked into a long, dark room with displays of mounted rocks behind glass and chicken wire. The room was lit by ultraviolet light, causing the rocks to fluoresce. I stayed there a few minutes, then walked out of the room through a door that led to the backyard.

  The yard was scattered with petrified wood, fossils, quartz, and dinosaur bones. There was a “petrified wood pile,” also an old cabin, about the size of a utility van, with a sign that read, “Eleven people survived the winter of 1949 in this cabin.” At first I envisioned pioneers huddled in buffalo skin blankets, stranded in a blizzard. Then I realized the sign said 1949, the same year Russia got the atom bomb. This place really was remote.

  To leave I had to walk back inside the building, where there was a display of fossils, a collection of geodes, and drilled slabs of stone that were somehow used or discarded in the making of Mount Rushmore. The exit led into a gift shop, which had much of the same Mount Rushmore merchandise I’d seen at the monument, and a whole lot of polished rocks set in various accessories: cuff links, tie tacks, key chains, and earrings. I asked the man, who now stood ready as the gift shop attendant, how business was.

  “This place has been in the family for fifty-seven years,” he said.

  He hadn’t really answered my question, but I suspected that was probably all he wanted to share. I used the restroom, then said good-bye and headed back to the road.

  That afternoon, six miles past the town of Belvidere, I encountered a billboard that read, “1880 Town. Dances with Wolves movie props next mile.”

  I smiled as I read the sign. I thought back to the evening I watched the movie with Nicole. That was also the first night I heard her crying. I wondered how she was doing.

  Less than a mile or so later I crossed north under the freeway, to 1880 Town. There was a large, painted wood sign out front that read:

  1880 TOWN

  DAKOTA TERRITORY

  ELEVATION: 2391 FT

  POPULATION: 170 GHOSTS

  9 CATS

  3 DOGS

  3905 820 36 6 2 RABBITS

  The entrance to the town was through a fourteen-sided barn (advertised as the only one in the world). The front fence was flanked by two train cars, an authentic steam engine, and a stainless steel dining car, which, appropriately, had been converted into a diner.

  I walked inside the barn where I paid twelve dollars to a grumpy woman with blue hair.

  The building was piled to the rafters with Old West antiques and Dances with Wolves movie memorabilia—including the sod house and tent from the movie set, the Timmons Freight Wagons, and scores of pictures of Kevin Costner and Mary McDonnell, the woman who played Stands With A Fist, Costner’s love interest. I got my phone out of my pack and called Nicole. She answered on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Nicole, it’s Alan.”

  Her voice was animated. “Alan! Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “It’s so good to hear your voice. Where in the world are you?”

  “South Dakota.”

  “South Dakota? Have you passed Wall Drug?”

  “You know about Wall Drug?”

  “Everyone knows about Wall Drug.”

  “Yes, I stopped there.”

  “How was it?”

  “It was a really big drugstore.”

  “I’ve got to go there someday,” she said.

  “So, the reason I called. Do you remember that scene in Dances with Wolves, where Costner hunts the buffalo?”

  There was a long pause. “Yeah. I think so.”

  “I’m standing next to that very buffalo.”

  “It’s still alive?”

  “No, it never was. It’s an animatronic buffalo.”

  “A what?”

  “A robot buffalo,” I said.

  She laughed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m great. Really. How are things? How is Kailamai?”

  “She’s exactly what you said she’d be. She’s a remarkable young lady. She’s already enrolled in college.”

  “How’s my dad working out?”

  “He’s been a lifesaver. We’re getting things in order. I’m getting IRAs, mutual funds, and a bunch of things I know nothing about. But who cares about my boring life? Tell me about your adventure.”

  “Not much to tell you. I’m still on my feet.”

  “I think about you every day, you know.”

  I was quiet for a moment. “We had some good times together, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, we did. If you ever get tired of walking, there’s always a place for you here.”

  “For the record, I was tired of walking before we even met. But thanks for the invite. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’ve thought a lot about the time we spent together. I …” She paused. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “Promise me that I
’ll see you again.”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay,” she said. “That will do for now.”

  “May I talk to Kailamai?”

  “She’s out with some friends. She’ll be disappointed she missed you. She has a whole new batch of jokes she’s been saving for you.

  “Here’s one she told me this morning. A golf club walks into a local bar and asks for a beer, but the bartender refuses to serve him. ‘Why not?’ asks the golf club. ‘Because you’ll be driving later,’ replied the bartender.”

  “That’s really awful,” I said.

  “I know,” Nicole laughed. “But it’s so funny that she tells them.”

  “It sounds like the two of you are doing well.”

  “We are,” she said.

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Good. Because you’re responsible for it.”

  “Good to hear I’ve done something right.” I sighed. “Well, I better let you go.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Call again soon.”

  “I will. Take care.”

  “See ya.”

  It was good hearing her voice. Still, our conversation reminded me of how lonely I was. I stowed my phone back in my pack then walked out the back door of the barn into the park.

  1880 Town was an ambitious re-creation of the Old West, covering more than fifty acres. There was a post office, dentist office, bank, pharmacy, jail, a one-room schoolhouse, a livery full of authentic horse wagons, and at least two dozen other buildings, the whole being even more ambitious than Montana’s Nevada City. The most peculiar exhibit was a live, pretzel-loving camel named Otis, who was corralled in a pasture behind the town’s church.

  I didn’t plan to walk any farther that night, so I hung around the town for about an hour, long enough to wander through every building. When I’d seen all I cared to, I walked back to the diner car to get something to eat. There weren’t many other customers, just two families, and I sat at the opposite end of the train car, laying my pack on the red vinyl bench across from me. I looked over the menu, then sat back and waited until the waitress came over a few minutes later. She was young, with short red hair and a badge that read MOLLY.

  “Hi,” she said. “Sorry for the wait. May I get you something to drink?”

  “I’d like some water. A lot of it, like a carafe.”

  “A what?”

  “A pitcher,” I said. “A whole pitcher.”

  “Okay. Do you know what you’d like to eat?”

  “How’s your meat loaf?”

  “It’s good. I had it for lunch.”

  “I’ll have the meat loaf and the chef’s salad with Thousand Island dressing.”

  She scribbled down my order. “You got it. I’ll be right back with your water and some bread.” She walked back to the kitchen.

  Outside my window there was a Shell gas station. On the near side of the station was a family sitting on a grass patch next to their minivan. The father was looking at a map spread out over the hood of their car, while the mother assembled sandwiches for the three children. Watching them brought back memories of the family trips we took before my mother died.

  My father, like me, was a sucker for tourist traps and probably would have stopped at the same places I had, the Petrified Gardens, Wall Drug, 1880 Town, all of them. As different as I had always thought I was from my father, I was discovering that there was still a lot of him in me.

  Molly returned a moment later with a pitcher of water, a tall glass filled with ice, and a small plastic basket with a mini-loaf of bread and two foil-wrapped squares of butter. “There you go,” she said pleasantly. “Your meal will be right up.”

  I looked back out the window at the family. The man was still bent over the map. The woman was now at his side, her hand resting on his back.

  Something about this little drama both fascinated and conflicted me. The scene was so simple and real, maybe hopeful, yet it made me feel incomplete. Why did it make me feel so uncomfortable? As I pondered this I realized that what I was witnessing had been taken from me not just once, but twice. First, when my mother died. Second, when McKale did. I was missing my past and future simultaneously.

  Would I ever have what this family had? Would I ever remarry? Would I ever have children? I honestly couldn’t imagine it. Yet…

  My thoughts were interrupted by Molly returning with my dinner. I asked her if she knew of a place nearby where I could stay.

  “There’s a KOA about a quarter mile up the road,” she said, pointing out the window. “A lot of my customers stay there. They have cabins for rent.”

  “Are the cabins nice?”

  “I wouldn’t know. But I haven’t heard anyone complain.”

  “Would they complain if they didn’t like it?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Some people complain if the ice in their cola is too cold.”

  I grinned. “You’re right.”

  I finished eating, got a piece of apple pie to go, then headed out toward the KOA. The campground had several vacancies and the man who ran the place reminded me that there were no sheets in the rentals.

  “There’s a mattress but no sheets,” he said. “There’s a sink and toilet, but if you want to shower you come to this building right here.”

  “Perfect,” I said. Maybe not perfect, but for forty-five dollars a night, with an air conditioner, porch swing, and television, I could do a lot worse. I rolled my sleeping bag out on the bed, turned on the television to the David Letterman show, then lay down and promptly fell asleep.

  C H A P T E R

  Ten

  My hair is getting long. I’ve got to

  find a barber before someone

  mistakes me for a rock star.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  The next day I did nothing but walk. It seemed like the same scenery kept repeating itself, like the background of a Flintstones cartoon. I only passed one house the whole day, until evening when I reached the town of Murdo. I ate at the Prairie Pizza and spent the night at the American Inn.

  The next morning I woke with a headache, though it passed fairly quickly. I packed up then ate a breakfast of sausage and biscuits with white gravy at the diner at the World Famous Pioneer Auto Show.

  While I was eating, I noticed that the time on the restaurant’s clock was an hour different than my watch. I asked my waitress about the time, and she informed me that the time zone changes at their city from Mountain to Central. I had officially passed through my second time zone since leaving Seattle. I adjusted my watch, then walked back out to 90.

  I noticed one peculiar thing. I passed a lot of roadkill that day. I don’t know why there were more dead animals here than any other stretch I’d walked, but there were. I saw rabbit, deer, badgers, skunk, raccoon, and a few mammals past the point of recognition. McKale used to freak out at the sight of roadkill. She remedied this with outright denial, proclaiming that the deceased animals weren’t really that dead, they were just really tired.

  Of course I teased her about this. “Look,” I would say. “That raccoon is sleeping.”

  She would nod. “That is one tired raccoon.”

  “I’d say. He’s sleeping so soundly, his head fell off.”

  I came across the occasional cat or dog, which made me sad every time, knowing that somewhere someone was probably looking for the animal. I thought of the story The Little Prince. The only difference between the cats and dogs and the rest of the roadkill was that the wild creatures hadn’t been tamed. I suppose that if I were to die out here, I’d be no different. No one would know me. Strangers would think it tragic or horrible; they might scream or call 911, but they wouldn’t cry. They had no reason to.

  A few people would miss me, but I could count them on one hand: my father; Nicole; Kailamai; and Falene, my assistant who had stuck by me when my business failed. So few. Was this a failed life?

  I walked twenty-three miles that day, and counted thirty-six dead ani
mals. I spent the night camped on the side of the road near a pond.

  The next day was about the same. I walked twenty uneventful miles, stopping in the town of Kennebec. I ate dinner at Hot Rod’s Steakhouse and tried to stay at a place called Gerry’s Motel, but I couldn’t find anyone to help me. There was a large ice cream bucket on the motel check-in counter with a handwritten note penned in feminine script taped to it:

  Tips for Barb

  She really deserves it

  She gets up early

  I waited in the lobby for nearly ten minutes, but neither early-rising Barb, nor anyone else, came out, so I left and stayed at a hotel a block away.

  The next day of walking was equally dull. No, more so, illustrated by the fact that the day’s highlight was when the shoulders of the road turned from brown dirt to red gravel. At the end of the day, I took exit 260 to Oacoma, a real town with a car dealership and, more important, Al’s Oasis.

  Al’s Oasis was sort of a Wall Drug knockoff, a strip mall with an Old West façade and a grocery store, restaurant, and inn. I ate a roast beef dinner at Al’s Restaurant and stayed at the inn for seventy-nine dollars. My room had a view of the Missouri River.

  The next morning I crossed over the river, passing the South Dakota Hall of Fame, which I had read about in a tourist brochure in my hotel room. South Dakotan inductees to the hall included TV news personalities Mary Hart and Tom Brokaw, Bob Barker (The Price Is Right), Al Neuharth (founder of USA Today), and Crazy Horse, though not in that order.

  I walked twenty-four miles and spent the night in the town of Kimball, where I ate a basket of popcorn shrimp at the Frosty King and stayed at Dakota Winds Motel for fifty-four dollars.

  The next morning, on my way back to the freeway, I passed a sign for a tractor museum. I was tempted, but I resisted the site’s magnetic pull and got on the freeway instead.

  That evening I slept behind a grove of pine trees planted near the side of the road, which looked like a Christmas tree lot on the edge of a cornfield. I could have pushed myself to the next city, but I just didn’t feel like it. I wish I had.