The Longest Road (17 page)

“Oh, it shouldn't.” The yellow-haired woman almost smiled. “Your daddy had some money saved. He had me keep it for him. Ought to be enough to get you home. We didn't touch it, hoping he'd get a letter with your address so we could send it to you. And since Bob's picking again, we've got a few dollars ahead.”

Her husband nodded. “We can pay four dollars on that Model T and still have enough to last us till we get to the next job.”

The envelope with Daddy's savings held seven dollars. Mrs. Halsell gave them four more, pressing out the bills. After cups of coffee that must have been made from grounds used over three or four times, Laurie and Bud let Mrs. Halsell hug them again. She cried but they tried not to. Then they were on their way.

They moved through the yards, jumping across rails and switches, waiting as a train passed going the other way, so close it spewed cinders into their eyes. “There's one just startin' east,” Way breathed. “Got to get on while it's movin' slow. Look, there's an open top car. I'll boost you onto the ladder. You climb on up and see if you can drop onto the load. If you can't, hang on till I get down there and can give you a hand.”

He tossed their belongings over the side and started them up the ladder. Laurie hung from her hands inside the car. Her feet touched something hard and cold as Way dropped beside her and eased Buddy down.

“Mess of cast-iron machinery!” Way said in disgust. “First time this baby stops, we're findin' something better. Right now we better hunt a place where the load's wedged tight enough not to shift around and smash us if the engineer taps his air brakes.”

The train chugged sluggishly enough that they didn't fall around while they searched for a secure nook. They found one behind the head end of the car, where the wind from the open top didn't hit full blast. At least the heavy load kept the car on the tracks and they could sit down on their bundles and huddle together with the quilts around them.

Wheels hummed, picking up speed. The train's long, lonesome whistle mingled with the rush of the wind. The only warm parts of Laurie were the side next to Buddy and her shoulder and back where Way's arm rested, but the
clickety-clack
was hypnotic and she was so exhausted that she drowsed.

“Doggone it!” Way's voice roused her. “Startin' in to drizzle. Let me root around and see if I can find some cardboard or somethin' to put over the quilts. If they get wet, Lord only knows when they'll dry out again.”

Fortunately, it was only a few minutes before he was back with a big smashed carton. Doubled, spread out between the end of the car and some machinery, it sounded like a real roof beneath the pattering rain till it began to get soaked and the playful drumming turned sullen before, blessedly, it stopped.

“One thing about going fifty miles an hour,” chuckled Way, flipping the sagging carton on top of the machinery, “you can sure outrun a lot of weather—head into it, too, naturally. Wisht we'd stop so we could get a better roost.”

Laurie drowsed again till they pulled onto a siding to let another train go by. “Okay, kids!” Way helped them roll their things into the quilts and tossed the bundles over the side. “Scoot down the ladder and watch out for bulls!'”

Keeping close to the train, Laurie and Bud waited while Way climbed up the ladder on a couple of cars. “Full of ice,” he muttered, descending.

“Why don't we just get in a boxcar?” Laurie asked. It was cold. She'd been a fool to leave their winter coats at Rosalie's.

“I'd like to find a nice empty ice car where we can get warm and cozy,” Way said as he climbed up again. There was a metallic clunk. He called down softly, “This one's empty. Hand me your stuff and get yourselves on up here.”

They clambered to the top. The tattered remains of a rising moon gave light enough to show the lid raised above a cavity in the middle of the car. Way jumped into it, helped them down, and settled the lid in place, taking care to wedge it open a little with the handle of the lock.

“Got to be mighty careful about these reefer lids so you don't get locked inside,” he said. “Two kids crawled into an ice car a year or two ago. Brakeman didn't know they were there and locked the lid. Guess the poor little devils starved. But the wind can't hit us here and it's clean. You can roll up in your quilts and go to sleep. But first, now we can hear ourselves, maybe we'd ought to talk about what you want to do.”

“I—I don't know,” said Laurie. Maybe he didn't want to bother with them. If she only knew where Morrigan was! But he certainly wouldn't want to have a pair of kids to hamper him. Biting her lip, she made herself busy, spreading out a quilt.

“Reckon the natural thing would be to go to your grandpa's but I kind of got the notion you wasn't too happy there.”

“We're not going back if there's any other single thing we can do,” Laurie said. “Rosalie's nice to us but—”

“Well, then, would you like to throw in with me?” Way sounded apologetic, maybe a little scared. “Might head for Texas, look for work around them oil boomtowns.”

“What kind of work? Buddy needs to get back in school but I'll have to earn us some money.”

“I don't want to go to school,” Buddy whimpered.

“Rather grow up ignorant like me?” demanded Way. “You're goin' to school and so's Larry, leastways through eighth grade.”

“We can't sponge off you, Way!” Laurie argued.

“Let's not hear that kind of talk! Share and share alike, that's what we'll do, just like we're sharin' your quilts. If I hire on for a roustabout, I ought to get five-six dollars a day.” When Laurie sucked in her breath at the fabulous wage, he added quickly, “'Course, everything's sky-high in a boomtown, but a fella can save if he don't blow his pay on booze, cards, or women. I don't drink 'cause when I start, I can't stop. Never had an itch for gamblin' and women—” He chuckled. “It'd take more money than I'll ever have to get a decent one to look at me and I'm too old to fool around with the others.”

“It still wouldn't be right for you to earn our whole living,” protested Laurie. “You're not our kin and you've already been real good to us, running off that jocker and helping us get to California and everything.”

“Sho'. I reckon I'm choosin' to be your kin, if you'll have me.” Way hesitated. “I had a family once. Wife and a baby girl. They both died of influenza durin' that big epidemic in nineteen-nineteen. Been on the road ever since, workin' at one thing or another.” He sighed and went on in a low, shamed voice. “Last couple of years I went from hoboin'—takin' a job of work when I could find it—to just bein' a tramp. I'm sort of a painter, I can paint kids or dogs or signs. I've still got my brushes but I got so I wouldn't paint a sign for a meal if I could scrounge it. I'm sick of that. Sick of bummin' around. You kids give me a reason to buckle down.”

Helping them might help Way but Laurie was determined not to be a burden. “Maybe I can get a job doing dishes or helping the cook in an eating house.”

“Maybe.” Way's dubious tone exploded in laughter. “Say, Larry, money's free and easy in the oil patch. I'll bet you can play that harmonica and folks'll slap down their dimes and quarters to hear you. Shucks, I bet some days you can earn more'n I do!”

“Oh, I'm not a musician! It wouldn't be right to take money.”

“You are what you do,” shrugged Way.

“But I
like
to play. If folks enjoy it, I'm glad, but I'd do it for me anyway.”

“Sho'. You don't have to
sell
your songs. Give 'em away. Pleasure whoever wants to listen. But if they want to thank you, wouldn't it be plumb rude not to let 'em?”

“Morrigan gave me the harmonica. He gave me his songs.”

“Sho'. But didn't he eat with you and ride in your flivver?” Way tousled Laurie's hair. “Don't you reckon he'd be tickled to death if he knew he'd given you a way to feed yourself?”

“Well—I still don't think anyone'll think my music's worth paying for.”

“We'll see.” This time, Way's sigh was contented, not regretful. “Know something? This is the first time I ever enjoyed ridin' the rails. We're snugged down warm and comfy, we're out of the weather—and we're together.”

They were together because Daddy was dead. Together because none of them had anyplace to go, anyplace where they belonged. The enormity, the finality, of her father's death crushed in on Laurie. She stifled her sobs against her arm but couldn't keep her shoulders from heaving.

Way reached over Buddy to pat her shoulder. “You go ahead and cry, boy. Nothin' sissy about that.”

“I'm not a boy,” Laurie wailed. She had realized, as they talked, that Way had to know that. It wouldn't be fair for him to take on a girl without consenting to it.

Way's hand jerked back as if scalded. “Then what in the Sam Hill are you?”

“I-I'm Laurie, not Larry.”

Was he angry? Would it make him not want to be their family? True, it was a patched up, makeshift, leftovers kind of family but it was worlds better than none. Besides, kids couldn't manage on their own, even if they had the means, because someone would turn them in to the sheriff or the orphanage or even the reform school. Daddy had a couple of times threatened Buddy with reform school. The very idea struck terror in Laurie's heart. They had to have a grown-up or the best thing that could happen to them would be to be sent back to Grandpa—and how he'd carry on now that Daddy wouldn't send for them ever or mail any more dollars! No matter how kind Rosalie was, Grandpa would make them feel like no-account beggars. On top of that, they'd grow up stuck in the rut of sharecropping—and in the squatters' camp Laurie had seen what happened when even that way of making a living got taken away.

She wouldn't cry and plead. Gulping down the salt taste, she explained. “I—I wasn't trying to fool you, Way. Catching a freight like we were, I just thought it was better to look like a boy. It was easier, too, wearing overalls and not having to comb my hair much.”

When Way spoke after a long pause, his voice was soft. “Bet you've got purty hair, Larry. I want to see it all grown out and curly some day. But you was right. Won't do for a girl to flip freights. I reckon you'd better go on bein' Larry till we save up enough to settle down proper.”

“Then—it's all right?”

“Larry-Laurie, it's downright wonderful!” There was no mistaking his amazed joy. “I can have my baby girl again and a mighty fine boy, too.” He considered. “You had a daddy, a real good one. Sho', I wouldn't have the brass to try to fill his shoes.” Way cleared his throat. “But maybe—maybe you'd have me for a grandpa or uncle.”

“You're a lot nicer than the only grandpa we've got alive,” said Buddy.

“What do you want us to call you?” Laurie asked.

“How about Gramp when we're around strangers? Rest of the time, just call me Way.”

Laurie raised up and leaned over to give him a hug. “Goodnight, Gramp.”

“Goodnight, Larry-Laurie. Better stick to Larry or I'll forget. Night, grandbud.”

“Aw—” Buddy squirmed happily at the tease. Though he hadn't let Mama kiss him for a year, he threw his arms around their self-ordained kinsman. “Good night! Sleep tight! Don't let the bedbugs bite!”

Giggling, he snuggled in between the others. The train's whistle blended with the wind, the clack of the iron wheels. It seemed a year ago, rather than just hours, that they'd knelt by that heap of sandy earth in the eucalyptus grove, but the father they had known and thought so strong and wise and wonderful had really been buried with Mama. Still, he had been strong and wonderful for the Halsells. Jealous and hurt as she was that he'd befriended and helped them instead of sending for his own children, Laurie was glad that he hadn't been all alone—that he, too, had found a sort of family. And surely, even if he'd been backslid at the time, God wouldn't let him go to hell when he'd given his life for a child. He was with Mama now, not having to worry about paying off the doctor and undertaker or how to feed his family.

Laurie wept softly, the anger she'd felt at him mostly washing away as she remembered how hard he'd worked, how hard he had tried. But he's all right now, she kept telling herself, ignoring what Jesus had said in red letters in the Bible that had its own small grave above Daddy—that in heaven there was no marriage or giving in marriage.
He's with Mama and it's like they were young again and just married, all happy and well, and starting out together
.

What was that song of Morrigan's? “
No more weeping, no more weeping, no more weeping over there
…” At last, holding to that comfort, lulled by the sound and sway, Laurie drowsed and then she slept, deeply and heavily with no kind of dream.

She woke to the now familiar jerk of being switched to a siding. The slit where Way had propped the lid open made a thin sliver like a gray new moon. Way stood up, listened, raised the lid a bit more, and peered out.

“Doggone, they're unhitchin' this bunch of cars—prob'ly goin' to leave 'em on the siding. Gotta tumble off, kids, and hunt another car.”

After the snug warmth of their car within a car, the early morning wind cut to the bone. Way had his old jacket but unless they found a mighty warm town, Laurie and Bud were going to have to get some kind of wraps. Shivering, staying close to the train so they wouldn't be seen by the crew, they moved along the row of cars still attached to the engine.

“Gondolas,” Way whispered disgustedly as they stooped to creep by low-sided open cars. “We'd bounce right out if we didn't freeze, fry, or get tossed off by the crew or bulls. We don't want an open top, either, if we can help it. Hmm. This one's got manure and hay all over the floor.”