“Sure.”
I got Paul sitting and watched Henry knock over three chairs on his way over.
Paul laid a dollar on the table. “I’ll take a beer.”
“Me too! Barkeep! Three more for the bestest fellers a feller could—” Henry’s train of thought ran off the track.
Over Henry’s head, I held up two fingers to the man filling mugs.
He nodded.
“What? What?” Henry looked genuinely astonished when only two beers arrived. “Am I invisible? Isn’t anybody in the forest and can’t hear me when I fall?”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Paul said.
Henry was flabbergasted. “Enough? Enough? Why, I’ve spent two and a half weeks swallowin’ the biggest part of Kansas! I damn near died, and I’ve got well, and I’m goddamned thirsty is what I am. No, sir, I do not think I have had enough.” He stood up, balanced for a second, then jumped up onto his chair and waved his arms over his head. “Barkeep! I say to you—” He included the rest of the room in a sweeping gesture. “To all of you: I! Have! Not! Had! Enough!” And he lost his balance and went crashing through the table next to ours, where two men were playing cards.
I jumped to my feet to pull him up out of the splintered wood. I sputtered apologies as fast as I could to the men who were now on their feet too.
Henry had a little cut in the middle of his right eyebrow but looked unscratched otherwise.
I said, “Paul?”
He drained his beer in one swallow, stood up, and tripped over a table leg that hadn’t been there when he sat down.
I heard, “I’ll take him,” and wheeled around to see Sheriff George. He had his hands on his hips and did not appear nearly as amused as the audience behind him.
“Geor— Sheriff Windom!” I said. “Look, I’m sorry. We’ll pay for it. He can pay, I mean. It’s just . . .”
The big man picked Henry up and threw him across one shoulder like a sack of corn. I remembered Henry puking down Jack Williamson’s back and hoped he would not repeat that performance.
“Aw, well. He was going to sleep in the jail tonight anyway.”
I picked up my mug and drained it.
When he saw me start to follow, the sheriff said, “You two haven’t done anything. Stay here awhile, if you want. Enjoy Colorado. Come see me when you’re ready to bed down.”
I told Paul I’d be right back and went up to the man behind the bar. “Whatever those two were drinking.” I nodded to the card players, who’d sat down at a table that was still in one piece. “And how much does . . . he owe you for the table?”
He set two mugs on the bar and waved me away. “Your friend who cannot hold his liquor worth a damn left more than enough to cover that and two more tables besides. He needs somebody sober to go around with him and carry his money.”
I nodded and thanked him.
I didn’t particularly want more to drink after seeing the spectacle of Henry, and I guess Paul didn’t either. But nobody told us to leave, so we sat the rest of the afternoon and talked like we would around a campfire. Nothing much to remember, just friendly talk, keeping company. When the subject turned to family, though, it did remind me I’d intended to send my sister a postcard.
“Well, let’s get to the drugstore before they close,” Paul said.
We waved our thanks to the barman and headed out.
I blinked against the sun while my eyes adjusted. Paul walked on ahead.
I found a postcard with a photograph of the Rocky Mountains on it and gave the man two pennies for it and a stamp. I licked the back of Benjamin Franklin’s head and stuck it in the corner. Paul asked the man if he sold gasoline and bought two gallons in cans he could return for a deposit.
We found the benches out front empty—a sure sign suppertime was close.
I sat down with a pencil I’d borrowed and thought hard. “What would you say if it was your sister, Paul?”
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
I waited for the joke.
“Sorry. Long story. What do you want your sister to know?”
“Hmm.” I thought some more, then wrote:
Catherine,
We haven’t seen mountains yet, but we’re close. I’m safe and I miss you.
Love,
John
I read it to Paul, and after he nodded approval, I put the address on and went to return the pencil.
“I’ll take that for you,” the man told me. “Postmaster too.” My load lightened a little when I handed over the card.
We stopped by the Model T outside the jail and strained gasoline into the tank. We walked the empty cans back to the drugstore and went to the hotel for our fill of ham steaks and potatoes and gravy. They must have made too much beet salad at noon, because we had that again too. My pants felt tight when we left, and I was glad. We might not see home cooking again before Denver, at least two days away.
We knocked at the sheriff’s quarters, and I hoped it would be him who answered. No such luck. Wild-Eyed Alma threw open the door, looked from me to Paul, shrieked, and slammed the door.
Paul jumped a little. “What was that?”
“Sheriff’s wife.” How to explain? He’d never seen Selma Clark back home either. “She’s . . . got some problems, I calculate.”
“Mmm.” He tilted his head. “She get a load of me?”
“Well, yes, but she doesn’t—”
“Don’t worry. I’m used to it.” What a thing to be obliged to say.
The door opened again to the smiling face of Sheriff George. We heard squawking from another room as he stepped outside. “Don’t mind the little woman. There’s a devil in her tries to scream its way out.” Such another thing to be obliged to say.
He unlocked the front door of the jail, and Henry’s snoring sliced the evening air. “Well, at least he stopped singing,” George said. He led us to the cell farthest from Henry’s. “Doors are open. Pick whichever. I’d stay in this one. Or the hotel.”
“It’s okay,” Paul said.
I added, “Somebody probably ought to keep an eye on him anyway.”
“Uh-huh, well, there’s a job I wouldn’t want full-time.” George nodded to me. “Just like last night, I’m locking the front door. Try to fight off the urge to shoot him when he wakes you up puking in the morning.”
Of course that’s just what he did. No food but the sheriff’s bread out by the creek had made an empty cask for all that alcohol, and it wouldn’t stay put past dawn. Paul and I gave up just as it was getting light. We put on our shoes and went to wait up front. I opened the one window there, and we put our noses up to the bars like bloodhounds.
George showed up a few minutes later. “Need some fresh air?” He stepped through the doorway and lost his smile. “Good Lord.” He strode back to Henry’s cell and unlocked the door. “Get that slop bucket out back. Now.”
Paul and I made a break for the outdoors.
Henry looked three-quarters dead and praying for the rest when we poured him into the shotgun seat of the car and loaded everything up again. We thanked George over and again for coming to our rescue and giving us a bunk. I didn’t know what to say about Henry.
When we were in the car and ready to go, the sheriff stepped to the driver’s side and leaned on the frame. “Remember what I told you about keeping your eyes open.”
We all nodded.
I said, “That’s a lesson we’ll not soon forget, Geor— sir.”
He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and came out with a wad of bills. “Mr. Barleywine here already did. I took this off him last night after I dumped him on the cot. There’s over three hundred and fifty dollars there. Fellas get knocked in the head for a whole lot less than that.”
I took the money and turned to Henry. “You hear that?”
He moaned in answer.
I stuck the money in my own shirt pocket and told George, “Thank you,” with as much heft as I could put into two words.
We headed west parallel
to Ed’s railroad line on a path that was more ruts than road. Henry bawled like a sick calf every time he was jostled, about every five seconds or so. No more than a mile out, an ungodly stink made my eyes water, and Henry lurched his head over the auto’s side and heaved. I glanced back at Paul and met an ornery little grin I’d never seen.
“Paul?” I asked.
“Beet salad. With eggs.”
I waited until Henry was sitting, head back, announcing his upcoming demise. Then I let fly. We took turns punishing him until the dry heaves were too painful to hear.
I stopped in the middle of the road—we weren’t exactly blocking traffic—and said, “Henry? You really got our backs up yesterday.”
He nodded without opening his eyes.
“I mean it. You almost started a fight, you tore up a table—”
“You lost all your money,” Paul said.
Henry shot straight up and started patting his pockets. “Oh no, what the—?”
“You didn’t even hear the sheriff this morning, did you? He took it off you last night to teach you a lesson.”
“Where is it?” a feeble Henry asked.
I patted my pocket.
He held out his hand.
“I don’t think so. Not yet.” I put the car in gear and drove on.
More than a week earlier, I had found myself comparing each town we passed through with either Wakenda, Lexington, or Kansas City—small, medium, or large. Eight or ten miles down the road, we came to a little Wakenda kind of town called Bethune.
I said, “Who wants breakfast?”
Paul said, “I do!”
Henry moaned.
I found a general store and looked inside to see that it had a counter with stools. I went back to the Ford and told the others.
Henry just moaned.
Paul and I went inside and sat down.
A fat granny with a bad leg hobbled plates back and forth between the counter and a cookstove in back.
Without asking, she poured us each a cup of coffee. A minute later, she came back, wiping her hands on her apron. “Uh-huh?”
I looked at the two men shoveling in lumberjack helpings of eggs, fried potatoes, and what appeared to be a whole pig dismantled and cooked. “That,” I said, nodding.
Paul looked confused. “Same for me.”
“Pig’s eye sausage and bullfrog pie?”
He blanched.
She laughed. “Just funnin’ you, just funnin’ you.”
Paul smiled as she walked away.
When she was out of earshot, I asked, “Doesn’t that bother you?”
“What?” He sipped coffee and felt for the saucer.
“Teasing like that?”
“Good-natured teasing or a woman screaming when I come to the door. Which would you rather have?”
Neither. I scalded my throat with coffee instead of saying it.
We had just dug into platters of homemade bliss when I remembered Henry outside. “Um, ma’am?” I got her attention. “Could you make a hamburger sandwich with cheese that we could take with us?”
Her eyes swept our plates, still mostly full.
“We’ve got a friend out in our car feelin’ poorly. We ought to feed him something.”
She came from behind the counter and pulled back a curtain at the front window. Then she hobbled back and made the motion of tipping back a bottle and raised her eyebrows.
I nodded.
She sighed. “Come across Kansas, didn’t you?”
I was astonished. “How did you know?”
She laughed her head off and went to put a hamburger patty in a skillet on the stove.
When it was ready, we took it out to Henry and I told him to take it slow.
He seemed grateful for the food and nodded.
We were well out of town and the sandwich was gone before he found his grouse. “It’s your fault.” He threw a look my way.
“How’s that?”
He jammed himself down farther in the seat. “If you hadn’t gone off and left us the night before and had your own hullabaloo, I wouldn’t’a been so god-awful anxious to—”
Paul let fly with a rip so foul I nearly lost my own breakfast. He must have been saving up. Henry was back over the side, offering his sandwich to the hangover gods of Colorado, and we never did hear any more about whose fault it was.
Henry humbled, and Paul sickening him with farts: a most curious round of musical chairs.
My pants were even tighter after dinner in a little town called Flagler, and I started thinking maybe I didn’t need to be storing up. If this kept up, I was going to have to buy new britches.
Henry paid for dinner out of my pocket and over his protests. He was feeling better and hadn’t started in on us again, but I still wasn’t ready to hand over the stash of bills. It wasn’t his any more than mine anyway, was what I told myself.
There didn’t seem to be a lot to do in Flagler unless you were hungry, so we pushed on. The countryside was starting to rise a little, but not so much you’d notice until you turned around and looked at where you’d been. Other than that was desert. Sandy dirt, scrub brush that wouldn’t look any different if it caught fire and was doused later.
I’d read about tumbleweeds in dime novels back home, and I’d seen fake ones in cowboy picture shows at the nickelodeon in Carrollton, but here they were real. We saw some cactuses. Great big green things standing with their arms up in surrender and others that looked like spiny green Ping-Pong paddles tied together in clumps.
There was nothing else that would pass for food in a pinch. And no water at all. I had almost suggested buying an extra canteen when we filled ours back in Flagler but had held Nelly’s tongue. It’d be a hell of a note to win that contest by dying of thirst.
If not for the rail line, it would have been downright spooky. Even so, the whole afternoon of June 23 passed without a single train, and I started to pray we wouldn’t break down. Not here, God, please. Sometimes the ruts we followed were so faint I thought I might be imagining them, but those train tracks spoke of civilization. People had been here. We weren’t the first and wouldn’t be the last.
Along about four o’clock, we had a flat tire.
“What the hell did you hit out here?” Henry said.
He had me there.
It was the right rear, the only one that hadn’t been changed since we started out. That proved to be the problem—the rubber was worn all the way through to the tube.
Paul got out too, and Henry helped me get the jack under the back end.
I was busy with the valve stem and the tire tool when Henry went to the toolbox and announced, “Shit.”
“What?” I was in a crouch and didn’t look up.
“It’s going to be our last outer casing,” Paul answered.
Henry bolted upright. “How’d you know that was what I was gonna say?”
Paul just smiled.
“What are we gonna do?” Henry said.
I wrestled the casing off the inner tube and gave that a spin. It seemed to be okay. “Well, lucky for us, one casing is all we need.”
“But we’re nowhere near Denver! What if we have another flat? Why didn’t you buy more in Topeka?”
I stood up. “Why didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t my job!” He couldn’t have looked more astonished if he’d just found out he was pregnant. With twins.
“It’s not mine either. You told me so yourself.”
“Well, it still was when we was in Topeka!”
I couldn’t hold off laughing.
Henry’s face got redder. “What?” he demanded.
“If you don’t know, I can’t explain.”
“Huh?”
Paul said, “He’s about to die trying not to say, ‘I told you so.’”
“But—” Henry’s face went through contortions until he finally walked off some distance and sat down with his back to us.
After I wrestled the tire cover on and took the Ford off the
jack, I went and sat beside him. “We’ll be okay,” I told him. “Something’s always come along when we needed it so far, hasn’t it?”
He was looking straight ahead at the edge of the world. “We’re a long way from home, John.”
“Well, yeah, but that was kinda the point, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but—” His face held the light of a bottomless well. “It made me mad when you was bossin’ us around, but I never was scared of nothin’ then.”
I figured that was his way of saying he was scared now. Henry. Scared. Go figure. “We’ll be okay,” I told him. “We can all be in charge of lookin’ out for one another, without anybody bossin’ anybody.”
“I guess so,” he said, but his voice held all the optimism of a man headed for the gallows.
The sun was low enough in the sky to make driving west an unhappy job when I hit the brakes and said, “Mother of God.”
“What?” Henry said, then he followed my line of sight. “Holy shit.”
From the backseat came, “Hey! Mother of God holy shit what?”
I was too much in awe to laugh.
“Mountains, Paul. Honest-to-God mountains.”
“With snow on top,” Henry added.
“No kidding. How far?”
“No idea,” I told him. “No idea. But it’s— My God, it’s the likes of which I’ve never seen before—that’s for sure. You’ve seen postcards—”
“No. No, I haven’t. But I know what a goddamned mountain is.”
I’d heard Paul say shit a few times but that was just about it for swearing.
I turned to see his face knotted as tight as a fist. “What’s the matter, Paul?”
His fingers were rubbing that nervous way I hadn’t seen since Topeka.
I waited.
“Sometimes it’s hard, okay?” More finger rubbing. Then the floodgates busted, and words poured out. “Sometimes it’s just hard. I can hear it in your voices. This is special. Goddamn it to hell, this is something I want to be able to see.”
I looked over at Henry. He stared straight ahead. My eyes wandered forward too, and we got lost in the view again, just like that. The hills back home were nothing like this. We were looking at something right out of a picture book.
Seeing America Page 17
