Seeing America

by Nancy Crocker

  My tongue came unstuck. “Twenty miles, give or take.”

  “Oh, shit,” Paul said.

  We all agreed on that.

  “Let’s sit down and think about this.” I lowered myself onto the hog feeder lid and thought better of that in no time. I stood up and rubbed my burned butt.

  “What’s there to think about? We start walkin’, don’t we?” Henry looked like he wanted to work up an anger at somebody. Anybody. Just like the old days.

  “Which way, though?” Paul asked.

  “Hell’s bells, toward the bridge!” Henry said.

  “Or toward the handcar,” I said.

  Paul nodded.

  “Oh.” Henry cooled down just that fast.

  “What do you think, John?” Paul asked.

  There it was—my answer to How long till you come to me for advice?—and I was too miserable to enjoy it.

  “I don’t know. Let’s think this out. Stationmaster Ed said the next train goes through here at noon.” I looked at the sun and guessed it was about nine o’clock. “We might make it to town before then and we might not. But Ed wasn’t exactly happy to see me roll in on railroad property when there was one of me and I had pants on.”

  Paul looked grim. “So that way, we either get hit by a train or ride into town . . .”

  I knew it was too horrible to put into words. “We go the other way, at least we know there’s a bridge. And water.”

  “Dirt’s the only britches we got. You wanna wash it off now?” Henry asked.

  He had a point.

  “But that’s also where the road is,” I said. “Who knows? Maybe somebody with a good heart and a sense of humor will come along and give us a ride.”

  “George might be there,” Paul said in a quiet voice. “He may not have left us.”

  “I want to believe you,” I told him. “Hell, the man gave me a place to stay last night, rode all the way out here today—”

  “And he knew there was a brand-new Model T at the end of that rainbow,” Henry tossed out.

  I whipped around.

  But he wasn’t blaming me. He just looked sad.

  “But what good does it do him?” Paul said. “I mean, one way or the other, we get to town—”

  “Where he’s the law and nobody within six hundred miles knows us from Adam, Cain, and Abel,” I reminded him.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  Amen to that.

  Henry bent and picked up one side of the hog feeder lid. “Well, if our chances of help are slim and none, I’ll take slim. I vote we walk north.”

  I picked up the other side of the disk. “Good enough.”

  “Which way’s north?” Paul asked.

  I turned him by the shoulder, and away we trudged, off to the guillotine with a plate to hold our heads.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It takes about fifteen minutes to walk a mile in good weather and a good mood. It probably takes twenty when it’s hot and you’re tired.

  I’d say it takes thirty when you’re down on your luck, down in the mouth, and you’ve got no choice but to wave your dirty wiener in the wind. We were some sorry souls walking that mile.

  Nobody said a word until we saw a speck on the horizon. Henry and I squinted, looked at each other, and squinted again.

  “Can you tell what it is?” I said.

  “What what is? What do you see?” Paul came to like a puppy waking up to a new bone.

  “Calm down there, Geronimo,” Henry told him. “It’s just somethin’ right now. Maybe it’s a tree. Can’t tell.”

  Even a tree sounded good just then. I hadn’t seen shade anywhere between Goodland and Burlington.

  We all walked a little faster.

  Another thirty feet and Henry called out, “It’s the bridge!”

  “Anything else?” Paul said.

  I made a scope with my hand and looked through that. “I . . . can’t tell. Can you, Henry?” I was afraid to say it.

  He dropped his end of the feeder lid and ran a ways ahead. When he whooped, I knew my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks.

  I turned and saw Paul’s eyes were wet.

  “Is it there?”

  I barely heard him. “It is.”

  He sobbed one time and then shook his head hard as if to dislodge something. His smile broke out, and it was like seeing it for the first time. With his eyes nearly shut, he looked like anybody, except more like a moving-picture star than most.

  “Henry, get back here,” I yelled.

  But he was already off at a lope.

  I picked up his side of the feeder lid. “Paul, can you run with this damn thing?”

  He was still smiling. “Nope, I’m feeble.” He moved his hand to get a better grip. “Ow! Hot!”

  “Feeble, yes, but sharp as a tack.”

  He laughed out loud.

  “Let’s go.”

  George was leaned back in the driver’s seat with his hat over his face when we got there.

  This time, I had no doubt about waking him. “Get up, you lazy sinner,” I hollered.

  He jumped and fumbled his hat onto his head and looked all around. “Time for dinner?” He yawned.

  “Very funny.” I was the one who knew him best, so I led the charge. “You got any idea how scared we were that you up and left us out here?”

  “Damn straight I do.” He opened the door, got out, and stretched his arms above his head. That made him only fourteen feet tall. “That’s why I did it.”

  I was struck dumb.

  Paul said, “You wanted to scare us?”

  “Yup. John told me yesterday you all are driving clear from Kansas City or better to Yellowstone and back. Is that right?”

  We all nodded.

  “Well, you got to be more careful. There’s a whole lot of elements out there, and you’re bound to run into most of them. You could get robbed, even killed, for less than a Model T Ford.”

  Henry piped up, almost cheerful. “We already been robbed.”

  George fixed him with a long look. “And yet you let me, somebody you barely met, get in the auto that held all your belongings—even your britches—and drive off.”

  “But, well, you’re, you know,” I sputtered. “You’re a man of the badge.”

  He nodded. “That I am. But I’ve met men wearing a badge I wouldn’t trust to watch my dog. I’m not saying you can’t trust anybody. I’m saying keep your eyes open. You there . . . Paul. You had a moment of doubt, right?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Listen to your gut. Trust in God and everybody else—just keep your hand on your wallet.”

  Even Paul was staring down at his feet by then.

  George nodded toward the bridge. “Great big bathtub over there I’d be in if I was you.”

  It was like the bell ringing for recess. Henry and I took off, and I’m ashamed it was him that remembered to come back and take Paul by the elbow. We stripped off our shirts and shoes and washed away more than just the dirt that was on us.

  We put our clothes on and drove toward town with Paul and me in the backseat holding the hog feeder lid above our heads. George directed Henry to Farmer Pete’s place so we could return his Handy Model T Unsticker, and he didn’t seem the least bit curious that our handcar had turned into a Ford and there were twice as many of us as before.

  Once Burlington came into sight, I started getting a little excited without knowing why. Then we motored past the drugstore with the town council meeting out front. They all cheered and whistled when they saw George.

  This was my town. That was what had me going. I knew the place, and Paul and Henry didn’t. Childish, but true.

  We stopped in front of the jail, and George got out. We thanked him for helping out, using just about all the words we knew.

  He pshawed.

  I asked if I should go tell Ed where his handcar was, and he grinned. “Ed will be along asking after it sometime in the next minute or two. I’ll tell him.” Then he asked if we were staying ove
r or moving on.

  We hadn’t planned anything past getting the car out of the creek.

  Paul said, “I imagine a home-cooked meal or two and a night in a bed might do us some good.”

  I was glad. I’d have a chance to show them around.

  George said, “Well, I can’t make you all an offer less than the one I made Handcar Hank here. Spend your money on food and such, and come on back tonight and sleep in the jail for free.” He looked up and down the street. “I’m not expecting an uprising before morning.” He took his grin inside.

  Henry said, “I’m starved.”

  Paul said, “I want a newspaper.”

  We left the car in front of the jail and walked back to Main Street. I introduced the other two to the old men on the benches as best I could and made a little extra over Old Man Number Four for his idea of using the hog feeder lid.

  We were coming out of the drugstore with Paul’s newspaper when Henry spied the saloon across the street. “Beeeer,” he yelled.

  I grabbed his collar before he could run out into the street in front of a team and wagon.

  He turned to me. “You got drunk yesterday, and that’s why you didn’t come out to get us, isn’t it? You left us out there for bobcat bait—”

  “I did nothing of the sort. I didn’t even go near the place.” I don’t know why I lied. A little kernel of guilt, I guess.

  “Well, hell, men, let’s go!” Henry started to step out in front of a rider on a roan quarter horse.

  I grabbed him again.

  “I want food,” Paul said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Well, you two go on, then. You know where I’ll be.” He managed to cross the street without getting run over and then disappeared between the swinging doors.

  “Miz Henderson sets a fine table at the hotel,” I told Paul.

  He nodded but frowned. I had a pretty good idea what his gut instinct was telling him about Henry just then.

  If the little colored girl serving in the hotel dining room remembered me from the night before, she kept it to herself. She darted between tables like a dragonfly. Paul and I were barely seated before she set water glasses in front of us and was gone again. I explained to Paul how things worked.

  We had pork potpie, no doubt made from leftovers of roast, and pickled beet salad with hard-boiled egg. I unfurled the paper after I’d got my stomach to stop growling. It was a Burlington rag filled mostly with who visited who and what was to be done about electrifying the lights along the main street. I wished I’d hung on to the weekly I’d read the day before.

  “We’re not far from Denver,” I told Paul. “They’ll have a decent newspaper.”

  It’s hard not to act like you know it all when you do.

  The local paper did carry baseball scores. Both St. Louis teams had reversed their fortunes of the day prior—the Cardinals beat the Pirates and the Browns were trounced by Detroit. Paul was happy—he liked the Cards.

  I remembered to tell him I’d read about the two towns in Nevada competing for the championship fight on the Fourth of July.

  He thought for a minute. “Reno, if they’re smart. It’s got better railroad connections. Bring more folks in from all over.”

  He’d never seen a map, and he still knew the country better than I did. My pride lost a lot of its shine.

  “You think people are gonna travel any distance just to see a fight?”

  He looked surprised. “Don’t you remember reading about that man in Wichita? The white man beaten to death, just because he said he thought Jack Johnson would win? This is hardly just a fight. There’ll be some who go just to see what happens after.”

  “Oh, now, I know Henry said some idiotic things and there’s some others too, but most don’t take it serious about provin’ anything, do they?”

  Paul shook his head like he was disappointed in me. “Ever hear of the Civil War?”

  I guessed he had a point. There were still some back home unhappy about how that turned out.

  After we’d finished eating, I said, “Want to go join Henry for a beer?”

  “Not yet,” he answered. “If we’re staying over, I’d like to walk around, see the town a little.”

  We passed by and nodded again to the Old Men of the Benches. I told Paul about the finery in the window of the dressmaker’s shop and the tooling on the saddles in the cobbler’s window. We came to a confectionery, went in for ice cream cones, and walked down the sidewalk trying to stay ahead of the drips. Paul told me that putting ice cream into cones instead of dishes had started at the St. Louis World’s Fair. That the ice cream man ran out of cups and started using waffles from another stand. I was pretty sure I already knew that.

  At the west end of the main drag was a huge elm tree with a horse trough, hitching post, and iron bench underneath. We took advantage of the shade. I picked up little sticks and broke them into lengths I tossed into the water.

  “So how’s it going?” I asked Paul.

  “Well, last night was a little rough. I know Henry’s turned over a new leaf and all, but I don’t quite trust that leaf not to fall. I half expected him to sneak off and leave, just to scare me.”

  “Yeah, I know. I wouldn’t have left you, if I’d known it would be overnight. But, hell, what else was there? Send Henry off and depend on him to come back with help?”

  Paul gave a chuckle so dark I felt better about my mistrustful ways.

  “But that’s not what I meant. I mean the trip so far. Is it turning out how you expected?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t expect to be robbed our first night out—that’s for sure.”

  “Of course not. But you know what I mean, don’t you?”

  He sat a long while. “I don’t know, John. I guess. Part of me hoped we’d drive into some town along the way that had a big banner at the city limits reading Welcome, Paul Bricken! Make your home here! He chuckled. “You’d have told me if one did, wouldn’t you?”

  I bumped elbows with him.

  He went on. “So far, people seem to be about the same everywhere we go. I can’t say I expected that.”

  We had, without a doubt, come across a wide range of personalities, but I thought I understood what he meant. The people who helped us, held a gun on us, slammed the door in our faces, gave us a place to sleep, or couldn’t meet our eye—we’d been just as likely to run into any one of them no matter where we were.

  “So what do you think?” I asked. “Are we just fooling ourselves? Is every place in the country no different than Wakenda?”

  “Most are bigger.”

  We both laughed. We sat for a moment, lost in our own thoughts.

  “Better parents,” he finally said.

  “Hmm?”

  “I don’t know about you, but the parents on the road have been a lot better to me than the ones with my last name at home.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He ticked them off. “The Heversons. The Williamsons. Sheriff George.”

  “Those were just nice folks we came across!”

  “You think so?” He tilted his head back and smiled into the sunshine. “You think if we’d been three forty-year-old men from the next town over, all those people would’ve done what they did?”

  He had me there. I tried to picture how we came across to the people we met. Wet behind the ears, likely. My face started getting warm, and I changed the subject. “So you didn’t have any trouble with Henry last night?”

  “Trouble? No . . .”

  “But what?”

  Paul frowned, like he was weighing something in his mind. “We talked a lot.”

  “We always talk a lot.”

  “Yes.” Paul went on frowning. “Henry is trying really hard, but he’s struggling.”

  “What do you mean? Struggling how?”

  “Trying . . . trying to sort out what he knows from what he thinks he knows.” He didn’t explain, and it became obvious that Paul was struggling with something too. Either
he didn’t understand or didn’t want to make Henry sound foolish, or they’d made some kind of agreement not to talk about it to me. His expression didn’t say.

  “Well, hell’s bells, aren’t we all?” I finally offered.

  We both gave out nervous chuckles.

  I said, “Wanna go find him?”

  “No. But we’d better.”

  We could hear him half a block away. Paul’s mouth pulled into a tight line.

  “Here we are,” I said and held the door for Paul.

  “Here they are,” Henry yelped. “Two of the best fellers west of the Mississippi and maybe east too.” His face was red underneath the brown of his sunburn. He was standing at the bar. When he took a step toward us, his heel hooked in the brass rail and he fell into my catch.

  The men standing around chuckled, but not like they were amused.

  One of them looked at me. “You the blind one?”

  I propped Henry against the bar while Paul said, “Yes, sir.”

  The man still kept me in his sights. “Ah, then, you must be the smarty pants.” It reminded me of the barman in Lexington our first day out—just before we were robbed. This was probably a good time to remember folks really were the same everywhere.

  “I said he was smart, not a smart aleck,” Henry complained. He reached for his mug and missed. “Gimme cigarette,” he said to me.

  “I don’t smoke. And you don’t either.” I wanted to enjoy the idea that he had described me as smart, but it didn’t seem like much to celebrate just then. “Come on. Maybe we should leave.”

  The men around Henry exchanged looks. “Oh. Smart and too good for the likes of us?”

  “He ain’t too good for nothin’,” Henry bellowed.

  “Thank you. I think.”

  “Are there tables?” Paul asked.

  One of the men mouthed the words in a sarcastic way. That got a laugh from his buddies.

  Paul asked, “What?”

  The man repeated his hysterical performance.

  I had an uneasy feeling about why they wanted us to stay.

  “Yes, there are.” I took his elbow to guide him to the farthest corner. Over my shoulder, I said to Henry, “You joining us?”