The Car

by Gary Paulsen

  “Samuel?” Terry asked, getting out of the Cat and stretching.

  Waylon nodded. “The very man.”

  Terry studied the old man. There was no hair left, and the face was a mass of interlocking small wrinkles, impossibly close together and so thick they almost made a texture.

  Samuel gave no indication that he had seen them arrive but sat, looking out across the prairie, while Wayne went up to him.

  “Hello, old friend. How are you?”

  Samuel’s head turned slightly and very, very slowly, and his eyes—small and dark brown but bright—peered up at Wayne.

  “Who is that?” Samuel asked. The voice was as old as the body, cracked and strained and seemed to be on the edge of a hiss.

  “Wayne—and Waylon. And a friend.”

  “It’s good to have friends.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Did you bring sugar?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “It’s good to have friends, but it’s better to have friends with sugar.”

  Wayne stepped into the trailer as if he’d been there all his life, and Terry heard pots rattling and followed him in. He was still starved—couldn’t seem to get enough food—and thought Wayne might be cooking.

  The inside of the trailer looked like the outside. There were bits of junk everywhere, an old bunk at the end, and dozens and dozens of pictures of girls from magazines. They were taped on the walls, the ceiling, lying on the crusted table—everywhere.

  Terry stopped inside the door, looking. “What . . .”

  Wayne was at the stove, knocking some residue from a pan, then moved to the dish-filled sink to get water to heat in the pan. “Yeah—cool, isn’t it? I could use this place for research to paint tanks. Man, some of these pictures go back a ways. Look, here’s Miss August 1963—dig the hair. She’d be fifty years old or better now.” He laughed. “Like me.”

  A million questions seemed to come at Terry but he held them, not knowing exactly where to start. Wayne put the water on the stove and then rummaged through a cupboard until he found instant coffee and a cup. He blew the cup clean, or cleaner than it was, and poured hot water and then a small spoon of coffee crystals in it. “Samuel, he likes his sugar.” He turned to the screen door and yelled, “Waylon—bring the sugar.”

  Waylon brought a five-pound sack of sugar in, and Wayne put six heaping spoonfuls in the coffee, stirred it once, and took it out to Samuel.

  Terry followed and watched the old man take the cup and drink the thick syrup down in one long draught.

  Terry almost threw up, watching, but the old man smacked his lips and held the cup up to Wayne. “More.”

  Wayne disappeared back into the trailer. This time Terry stayed outside. Waylon kneeled on the ground in front of Samuel and waited, resting on his haunches, and Terry did the same. The sun baked the back of his neck and he felt the heat go throughout his body.

  Samuel said nothing but sat breathing loudly, eyes half closed, staring out at the prairie once more.

  Terry caught Waylon’s eyes with his own and raised them in question, but Waylon gave an abrupt shake of his head and ended it.

  Wayne came back outside with another cup and Samuel drained it as he had the first, in one long swallow, some of the fluid dribbling down his chin onto his flannel shirt. This time he did not hand the cup back but set it on the ground next to the recliner and leaned back with his eyes closed.

  Terry thought he had gone to sleep, but in a moment he heard a keening sound, almost a song, very soft, almost delicate, and realized it was coming from Samuel.

  Terry held his breath, listening. They were words but so faint they were nearly not there, a tiny sound.

  A song?

  He saw that Waylon and Wayne were smiling. So this was what they wanted? This song sound? This was what the big mystery was all about?

  “. . . came a row of pale riders . . .”

  Terry caught some words, part of a phrase, almost music.

  “. . . borne in the light . . .

  . . . a row of pale riders . . .

  . . . passing through the night . . .”

  It made no sense to Terry and he wondered if it was supposed to, was thinking he would try to get Waylon’s attention again and take him aside and ask him if he was missing everything, when Samuel’s voice changed.

  Low, husky, it seemed to grow younger. Samuel was still old, still bent in the chair, his eyes still closed and his head thrown back, but the voice, the voice grew in strength, intensity, depth, volume.

  It startled Terry and he nearly jumped back.

  “. . . they came right here, past here, all of them, one upon the other upon the other through here out there where the sun goes, horses dead and dying. . . .”

  His voice trailed off, ended.

  Terry couldn’t stand it. “Who? Who came through here?”

  Waylon snapped him a look—Terry couldn’t tell if it was in anger or surprise—but it didn’t matter.

  “All the Sioux,” Samuel said. “The People—they came through here and passed on horses dead and dying one step ahead of the soldiers, running, running from the blue men on gray horses, through here while the farmers shot at them. . . .”

  Again he trailed off, seemed to doze.

  “When did this happen?” Terry asked again.

  “During the big war.”

  “He means the Civil War,” Waylon said. “The Sioux rose up in 1861 and the army went after them.”

  “. . . caught them, caught them and put them in chains and boxes and took them back to hang; three hundred of them to hang. . . .” Samuel took several breaths. “Three hundred to jerk on ropes, swing in the Minnesota sun. . . .”

  This time he stopped, or seemed to, and Waylon finished it. “They wanted to hang three hundred. Lincoln stepped in and commuted sentences to let them off. But they still hung thirty-seven. All at once.”

  “Here?”

  Waylon shook his head. “No, back in Minnesota. But they came through here. This is where the army came for them, caught them, took them back.”

  “And he saw them? A hundred and thirty years ago?”

  Waylon shook his head. “No. But he remembers.”

  Terry stared at Samuel, then back at Waylon. “But that was before he was born—how can he remember?”

  Wayne stood. He’d been squatting near the trailer, listening. “He just does. . . .”

  “. . . things don’t die,” Samuel said, his voice soft again, singsongy. “They just change. The earth that was here then is still here, the rocks are still here, the dirt, the sky, the sun—it is still here, all here. So, then, are they—the ones on dead and dying ponies. Their cries are still here, it is just a matter of listening for them, hearing them. . . .”

  And he grew silent.

  This time Terry did not question him but sat, looking as Samuel had looked, out across the prairie, trying to see it, hear it, but he could not.

  Samuel’s breathing grew even and Waylon stood and whispered, “He’s sleeping.” He moved away from Samuel and up to the trailer, motioning for Terry and Wayne to follow him.

  “Let’s clean the place up,” Waylon said. “And cook some food for him. It doesn’t look like he’s eaten in a long time.”

  So while Samuel slept they cleaned the trailer—Terry thought it should have been hosed out—washed dishes, mopped the floors, and wiped everything down, working around the pictures.

  When they finished, Terry thought it still looked pretty rough but was glad to stop. Waylon had found cans of spaghetti and was heating up a big pot of it, mixing in some stewed tomatoes he’d brought from the store, and he left it simmering while they went outside to take a break.

  Samuel was still sleeping soundly; the afternoon sun coming back over the trailer put him in the cool shade of the wall, and the three of them went out away from the trailer and sat in the grass, relaxing.

  Waylon had also made coffee—he seemed to live on coffee—and he and Wayne sipped
it while they sat. Terry poked at the dirt with a stick.

  “I don’t get it,” he finally said.

  “Which part don’t you get?” Waylon asked.

  “Well, any of it. I don’t know why we’re here, why we’re talking to this crazy old man. . . .”

  “He’s not crazy,” Waylon said, his voice sharpening. “Not even a little bit.”

  “But he talks about things like they just happened, and he couldn’t know all that, all that he talks about.”

  “He does know it though.” Wayne shrugged. “I was like you when I came—didn’t believe. But he’s right. He sees things, knows things, hears things. And if you listen to him you can learn.”

  “Is that why we’re here—to listen to him?”

  “Exactly.” Waylon nodded. “That’s it exactly. He’s like . . . like a living book. He’ll tell you stuff that hasn’t been written, will never be written, but you can learn from it. We came here back in seventy-three—twenty years ago. Came from the ’Nam. Came from all that. Mean and hard and looking for something, some way to live. They told us about him then, and we came.”

  “Who told you?” Terry looked across to Samuel, who was not moving, seemed impossibly small in the recliner.

  “People. People who trucked and came here and learned from him. That’s why we brought you—brought ourselves back.”

  “How did you know he was still alive?”

  “We didn’t. But if he’d died we would have heard. Somebody would have said.”

  “Here we are.” Terry sighed. “I haven’t the slightest idea where we are, but here we are. . . .”

  “It’s like this,” Wayne said. “Be honest. Do you know more now than when we came—know more about America?”

  Terry thought about what he’d learned, what Samuel had said. “Well, yes. I do. About the Sioux thing.”

  “And do you want to know more?”

  He thought again and realized that he did—that he was immensely curious. “Yes.”

  “There it is, man.” Wayne turned to Waylon. “I mean there it is—just like before. It still works. Samuel still works.”

  Waylon smiled and nodded. “It’s a start.”

  16

  “HOW OLD IS HE?”

  It was evening and Samuel was still sleeping in the chair. Waylon had found a blanket in the trailer and covered the old man, tucking him in carefully. Then the three of them had made a fire pit and located their bedrolls near it, made a fire, helped Wayne put up the tent—although it didn’t look at all like rain; the sky was clear and the stars seemed so close they could be touched.

  They had eaten spaghetti and were lying around the fire, propped on elbows, and Terry was looking to the recliner where Samuel hadn’t moved.

  “Nobody knows. He was old when we came here before—twenty years ago. A hundred, a hundred and ten, twenty. He’s past counting.” Waylon took a long pull of his coffee. “Past aging. He’ll just be that way now until . . . well, until he’s gone.”

  Terry stared at Samuel. It was dark, but in the light from the fire the recliner and the man looked yellow. “He looks . . . gone . . . now.”

  Wayne nodded. “Right. But he’s not. He’ll come up and start talking again. You want to be listening when it comes.”

  “Has he been here all the time?”

  “Yeah. Some say he’s an Indian, but I heard he punched cows for a while back when. Nobody is sure how he started, just how he is now. Back in the sixties, seventies, must have been hundreds, maybe thousands of people came past, talking to him, listening to him.”

  Samuel coughed and the three became silent, listening, but he didn’t say anything further. Waylon used the silence to lay back and Terry did the same.

  He pulled his bag up around his shoulders to keep the cool air out, positioned his windbreaker under his head, and lay looking up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Cat and Baby sitting near each other, the starlight gleaming on the chrome, and he tried to remember his other life, how much time had passed. It simply didn’t come. He remembered his parents, that he had parents, but how they looked was fuzzy—he could remember his house, his room better—and he realized with a start that it had only been six, seven days since he’d gone. Since he’d met Waylon in the rain.

  And here he was. On the prairie, listening to an old man, camped with a couple of holdovers from the sixties, learning about a world he didn’t know existed.

  Life . . . , he thought. Life rolls funny if you don’t watch it.

  He closed his eyes and was asleep before he thought another word.

  “. . . voted for the son of a bitch and he let us down. . . .”

  Terry wasn’t sure how long he had slept but it was still dark when the voice brought him up. He opened his eyes and rolled over. The fire was well out, the ashes cold, and the sound was coming from Samuel.

  Terry unzipped the bag and wrapped it around his shoulders and stood—saw that Waylon was up and doing the same, though Wayne was still asleep—and moved to Samuel’s side, where they sat against the trailer, bundled in their bags.

  “Who?” Terry asked, but Waylon held a hand on his shoulder and pressed him into quiet.

  “You don’t have to ask,” Waylon whispered. “Just let him talk.”

  “. . . there were dreams everywhere, so many dreams you couldn’t count them, and Hoover got in and they all went to hell. . . .”

  He took a breath. Terry thought it must be three or four in the morning. He didn’t have a watch. He had one flash of thought: I’m sitting in the middle of the night listening to this. . . . But it trailed off and Samuel started again.

  “. . . people died. Jumped from buildings and died because of money. Farms died. People went for food, wanted for food, and starved. And then the droughts came, droughts and dust, dust in your lungs, dust in the cracks of your eyes, dust for air, dust for food, dust for death . . .”

  He stopped again and Waylon leaned over to whisper, “The depression. He’s talking about the depression.”

  “What?”

  “A bad time. Back in the thirties. When corrupt politicians bled the country dry and a big drought came. Same as the eighties and Reagan . . .”

  “. . . women marrying in dust, living in dust, loving in dust, burying their babies in dust . . . the sky gone in dust . . . the sun gone in dust . . .”

  And Samuel stopped again, breathing deeply.

  Waylon sat silently, thinking, and Terry looked out at the dark sky, trying to see the horizon, and tried to envision what it must have been like sixty years earlier. Once a teacher had talked of the depression but he had just said there were long lines at soup kitchens and something called the dust bowl. Somehow it didn’t seem like it happened to people.

  Until now.

  Now it seemed real. Something in the way Samuel talked, the way his voice worked, made it seem real—the dust, the people, the babies crying. All real.

  “He’s asleep again,” Waylon said. “I’m not sure for how long. We’ll just stay next to him and wait until he wakes up.”

  They sat the rest of the night, leaning against the trailer next to the recliner, sleeping, and that’s the way Wayne found them in the morning, still dozing with Samuel sound asleep between them and, indeed, Samuel did not awaken until nearly noon.

  17

  THEY STAYED all that day and night and left the following morning. They cooked for him and made more coffee, thick with sugar, and sat by the fire when he slept and next to him when he spoke.

  Samuel talked four more times at length: about draft riots in New York during the Civil War, about an influenza epidemic in St. Louis at the turn of the century that killed forty percent of the people there, a short bit about one of his wives—he’d had several but nobody was sure how many—and how good she cooked, and a story about two women who took a wagon across during the Oregon Trail days.

  Then he stopped and stared at Waylon and said, “It’s good you came. Next time bring sugar again. It’s good to ha
ve friends with sugar.”

  Waylon nodded. “It was good to see you again.”

  And they packed their bedrolls on the bike and the car and drove away, Terry watching in the rearview mirror until Samuel, the trailer, the junk were all out of sight.

  They were well off the gravel, back on the main road before Terry spoke.

  “Will he be, you know, all right?”

  Waylon smiled. “He’s tougher than he looks. When people take care of him he soaks it up, but when he’s alone he gets along all right. And I think somebody from the county comes out and checks on him now and then.”

  “And all that stuff that he says, that’s all true?”

  “I don’t know about all of it. But the things I checked on, or know myself, are dead right. There were draft riots and a Sioux uprising and a dust bowl and a flu epidemic in St. Louis—all those things happened. I don’t know about his wives or the two women who took a wagon to Oregon, but I’d bet it’s right.”

  They came out to the highway then and Wayne, who had been riding Baby ahead of them, dropped back alongside and signaled them to stop.

  “Whose turn?”

  “What?” Terry thought Wayne was talking to him, but when he looked he saw that Wayne was looking across, smiling at Waylon.

  “I guess mine,” Waylon said. “Then Terry’s.”

  “What are you guys talking about?”

  Wayne laughed. “Trucking—you take turns deciding where to go, when. All of it. So I was the one who decided to visit Samuel. It’s somebody else’s turn now.”

  “Mine,” Waylon said. “Unless you want it.”

  Terry shook his head. “No. I don’t know for sure what I’m doing yet.”

  Wayne laughed, cracking the throttle on Baby, letting the pipes burble. “That’s it, man. None of us know what we’re doing. Never have, never will. It don’t mean nothing.”

  Terry looked to Waylon. “So—what do we do?”

  Waylon thought a minute, then smiled up at Wayne. “We’re in South Dakota, right?”

  Wayne nodded.

  “Then it has to be Deadwood.” Waylon shrugged. “If it’s South Dakota, it has to be Deadwood. That’s where the action is.”