The Longest Road (18 page)

Wishing he wouldn't be so particular, afraid of being caught and left out here in the desert, Laurie stumbled along with her bundle. The sky was getting lighter every second. Way peered into one car. “Loaded to the gills.”

He hurried to glance in the next car and fairly sprinted to the one ahead, returning with a grin they could see even in the faint light. “Just the ticket! Empty car between two loaded ones that'll hold her on the rails. All abo-o-ard!”

Buddy and Way could relieve themselves out the door. Laurie couldn't. She scooted between a couple of cars and squatted on the tracks. Feeling much better, though her stomach cramped with hunger, Laurie grasped Way's hand and scrambled up. The Halsells had offered them some biscuits but it had been out of the question to take their food.

“Way,” said Laurie as they stowed their belongings in a corner and wrapped up in the quilts. “The next town we stop at, let's—”

She broke off, shocked at her daring, but they were famished and they had eleven dollars. She decided then and there that she'd pay her debts the way Mama and Daddy tried to do, and would never squander money, but there were times when you needed something good, something special and extravagant, and these treats were worth some pinching on either side.

Taking a deep breath, she finished. “Let's find a café and eat anything we want—lots of it, good and hot. Then we'll go to a grocery store and get some traveling food.”

Way scratched his head. “Don't seem right to spend your money thataway. 'Specially not to feed me when I'm supposed to be takin' care of you. You and Buddy eat at a café. I'll go knock at some back doors.”

“No.” She wouldn't have said so, but now they were family, she didn't want Way to ask for handouts. She had persuaded herself—almost—that it wasn't stealing to ride a freight since the cars were running anyway, and besides, railroads had been given fortunes in public land so they'd build across the West and provide public transportation. You couldn't get more public than forty, fifty, sixty men sharing a boxcar. She touched Way's hand. “You're our Gramp. You eat with us.”

Way's crinkly eyebrows puckered, “By grannies, I got my brushes, the best Russian sable. Bet I can rustle up a job or two paintin' signs on windows—that don't take long. Then
you
can eat with
me
.”

“Can't we eat first?” asked Buddy wistfully.

After another eyebrow pucker, Way grinned. “Sure we can. My backbone's knockin' on my front ribs and I'll bet yours is. That mulligan Miz Halsell gave us was thin enough to read a newspaper through. We'll have a bang-up feed and then I'll get some work. Better try to earn enough to get you kids some sweaters or coats. We're slidin' into November. It sure won't get any warmer.”

“We'll look for wraps while you're painting,” Laurie said, and an idea struck her. “Maybe if I played my harmonica—”

They got off at the next town and slipped through the railroad yards till they came on a tarpaper shed full of junk. “We'll leave our stuff here,” Way said.

He got out his carefully wrapped brushes and a comparatively clean shirt. Laurie dug out shirts she and Buddy had just worn once. They all washed off at a faucet and dried themselves with their dirty shirts before putting on the cleaner ones. Way slicked water over his hair and combed it back, rubbed at his whiskered chin. “Got to buy a razor. Man with a family can't look like a bum.”

Laurie, parting and combing Buddy's hair in spite of his wriggles, frowned at Way's brogans. They were held on more with broken and reknotted laces than with leather. “You need some shoes, too.”

Way stared at his peeping toes as if he'd never seen them before. “Why, I reckon I do. Well, kiddos, if I can find enough jobs, we'll leave here stuffed like Thanksgiving turkeys and duded up like real people!”

Real people with homes, people who belonged someplace, Laurie thought with a pang before she lifted her chin. She had the harmonica, Way had his brushes. They might have to move around a while but someday they'd have a home.

And for now, for the first time in her and Buddy's life, they were going into a café and order exactly what they wanted and as much as they could hold!

9

Tarry was a discouraged-looking town in the California desert. One paved Main Street, Highway 66, was fronted for a couple of blocks by a bank and two gas stations, and more stores were boarded shut than were open. Main Street was angled by dirt roads that trailed out into thirsty sand. Small adobe houses and wood shacks scabbed one side of the railroad track that paralleled the highway. Three churches, two school buildings, and the better houses were on the other side of the tracks. Most of these buildings were stuccoed and pretended to get some shade from straggly palm trees with dead lower fronds drooping down like a witch doctor's skirt Laurie had seen in her geography book.

CAFE—CABINS—HOME COOKING—ALL YOU CAN EAT FOR TWO BITS
!! read a crudely lettered sign pointing to a blistered white frame building with half a dozen little oblong buildings behind it. The spicy aroma floating from the door was a lot more enticing than the establishment's looks. A Chevrolet pickup and five cars were parked in front, all of them old except for one beautiful blue Packard.

“Let's go, kiddos,” said Way.

The four tables were full so they climbed on stools at the counter that ran the length of the room. The gray-haired waitress looked tired, though the wall clock showed it was only seven o'clock. Her white apron was fresh and starched, though, and she had kind gray eyes. When she looked at the children, the lines around her mouth disappeared in a smile.

“Got big appetites this morning? There's cinnamon rolls and biscuits right out of the oven and we serve real maple syrup with our pancakes.” At a nod from Way, she filled his cup with steaming coffee, scooted the cream and sugar closer, and said to Laurie and Bud, “You'll have milk.”

Laurie's mouth watered. Everything smelled or sounded good. Rosalie had bought them hamburgers but this was the first time in Laurie's life to really eat in a café, decide what she'd like. Buddy asked at once for pancakes and bacon. Way ordered sausage, biscuits, gravy, and two eggs over easy. The cinnamon roll Laurie got was as big as a saucer, lavished with raisins and nuts and oozing from every coil with caramelly cinnamon and sugar. In between waiting on other customers, the lady kept their milk glasses full till at last they had to tell her they couldn't drink any more.

Way finished his third cup of creamed coffee and got out the dollar Laurie had slipped him back in the railroad yard. “Now, ma'am,” he said to the woman, “We can pay cash or maybe you'd like a new sign painted. The one out front sure don't do justice to your food.”

The lady looked in surprise at the dollar and then laughed merrily. “Goes to show! I figgered you were the ones I was feedin' today for the Lord. I've been after my husband to do that sign—even bought the paint—but by the time he cooks from dawn to dark, he's wore out. Sure, mister, hop to it. But the only brush we've got is gaumed with old paint.”

“Don't fret your head about that.” Way pulled his wrapped brushes out of his coat pocket. “I got the best there is right here. If you have a can and some turpentine, I'll get to work. While the background coat's drying maybe I could mosey around and pick up a few more jobs.”

“You can if you're any good, mister. My brother has the garage at the end of town. I know he'd like a nice sign and I bet there's others.”

A square-bodied man by the window looked up from his cigarette and newspaper. He had a thick, straight thatch of lusterless hay-colored hair and yellow-brown eyes. Laurie judged men's ages by whether they looked younger or older than Daddy. This one looked older, maybe as old as Way, though Way at forty looked fifty. The stranger's face was as square as his powerful body, his jaw was actually wider than the middle of his face, and his nose looked like someone had squashed it into his face.

“You folks on foot?” he asked in a lazy voice. He sure wasn't from Kansas. More like southwestern Oklahoma.

Way nodded. “Headin' for Texas.”

“I'll take you as far as Holbrook, Arizona, if you'll paint some catchy signs for three truck centers I own along the way on sixty-six. I got business to attend to here.” The man glanced at a wristwatch. “Plan to leave town after dinner, say one o'clock. My truck centers have cabins. You can bunk in one tonight if they're not full up with payin' customers, and if they are, we can rig you some cots in the gas station.”

To ride in a car instead of scrambling onto a freight—be welcome instead of fearful of being caught? Laurie sighed with relief as Way said, “Suits me right down to the ground. Want we should meet you here?”

“One o'clock.” The yellow-eyed man resumed his cigarette and paper.

While Way sandpapered off the old paint, Laurie got out the harmonica. She was embarrassed to stand on the sidewalk and play but this was like keeping Way company. The chunky man strolled out, listened to “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” and said, “Know something snappier, kid? How about ‘Begin the Beguine'?”

“Can you hum it, mister?”

“No, but I can whistle it” He did, melodiously, and they wound up doing the tune together. “We'll make some great music on the road,” he said, and dropped some change into the bib pocket of her overalls. It sounded like a lot but she glimpsed dimes, nickels, and pennies. He got into the shiny Packard and drove off.

Way gave a whistle of his own. “Boy howdy, that buggy cost two thousand bucks if it cost a nickel! We're leavin' California in style, kiddos!”

He dipped his Russian sable brush in the white paint and began to cream it across the board, gaily in rhythm with Laurie's playing while Buddy held the bucket within easy reach. Most of the people coming out of the café stopped to listen. Dimes and nickels joined the coins in Laurie's bib, but it was the skinny little man in the battered pickup who listened till Way finished the background and then tucked a spindled dollar bill in her pocket.

“Just keep a-workin' and a-singin' and you'll be all right,” he said, ruffling Buddy's hair.

While the board dried, they went down Main to the garage. The café lady's brother, Seth Hanna, who had her nice gray eyes, grinned at Laurie. “If I can get music and a good big sign that'll stop the highway traffic, it's sure worth a dollar. I'll go over to Lem's Hardware and pick out the paint. Why don't you come along and see if he'd like a sign?”

Lem, a pot-bellied, hairless man, wanted to work a trade, so Way agreed to decorate the show window in return for pints of turpentine and red, blue, and black paint. “I can get more jobs and finish 'em faster if the customer doesn't have to rustle up the paint,” he explained to Laurie and Bud. “Sho', I'm beginnin' to feel like a capitalist with this here ‘means of production.'”

“What's a cap-capitalist?” Buddy asked the question Laurie was about to ask.

“A capitalist owns a factory or a mine or a big farm or a railroad, somethin' like that. That's the ‘means of production,' see? And then he hires, cheap as he can, folks to work for him. They got nothin' to sell or invest
but
their labor. 'Course the capitalist has to have 'em, or his ‘means of production' don't produce. What he likes to have is ten or a hundred people wantin' a single job. He can pick the best workers and still pay next to nothin'. But without workers, all the means of production in the world would just be junk.”

“What kind of Red talk is that?” demanded Lem with an infantile hairless wrinkling of his brow. “You sound like a damn Wobbly.”

Way drew himself up. “I held a card from the Industrial Workers of the World for a couple of years. Mister, you tell me what's wrong with workers gettin' decent wages, decent hours, and a decent place to work?”

“Yellow-bellowed Wobblies wouldn't fight for their country!” growled Lem. “Get outa my store and go paint winders in Roosia!” He spun on Seth. “You ain't goin' to hire this goddam communist, are you?”

The garage owner shrugged. “I don't give a hoot about this guy's politics just so he makes me a good sign. You want to sell me the paint, Lem, or shall I mosey across the street to Armstrong's?”

“Hell, I'm in business!” As Way started out of the store, Lem rung up the prices of the yellow and red paint Seth had selected. “About as soon lose the sale as have to look at these here colors every time I look out the window.”

“Reckon Armstrong's has 'em, too,” Seth drawled as the screen door's bang dulled on strips of innertube nailed to it. He said to Way as he caught up, “Can't you mix yellow and red to make orange?”

“Sho'. Onliest way I know of to do it.”

Seth's lean, long, rather sorrowful face split open in a grin. “Okey-dokey, let's just give ole Lem an eyeful!” The owner of the corrugated tin building pointed to the side facing the road. “I'd like you to paint a big yellow circle there, outline it with orange and red, and then do the letters the same way.”

“What do you want it to say?”

Seth scratched his ear. “Seth's Garage, I reckon.”

“How's about a little more pizazz? ‘Best break for your brakes?' Or I could paint you a kitten with ‘Your motor can purr like this!'”

“All of 'em can't. I'm not Jesus. But I am pretty good with motors
and
brakes.” After a moment's quandary, Seth's face split again. “Paint it all on. I'll pay you another dollar for the idea and the extra work.”

“I better get after it then so the circle'll dry,” said Way. “Got some rags to clean the wall? And the cat'll show up better if it's black.”

It was a marvel how he made that circle using the swing of his long arm like a compass. Laurie played, and flivver after flivver passed with suitcases wired onto the fenders, mattresses tied on top, piled full of kids and whatever could be crammed inside. The licenses read
OKLAHOMA, TEXAS, KANSAS, ARKANSAS, GEORGIA, TENNESSEE, NEBRASKA
, the litany of states that couldn't feed their people.