The Longest Road (35 page)

Laurie woke to Marilys's, “Dammit, must have parked on a mesquite thorn!” As Laurie clambered out, Marilys shrugged and started collecting dead branches from trees that weren't any taller than she was. All the branches looked dead, of course, but you could tell they were alive if they didn't snap right off. “Might as well have breakfast before we change tires,” Marilys said. “I knew we were being too lucky.”

They had a patch kit, but since they had two spares and hoped to get rid of the truck that day, they jacked up the front of the truck. Marilys pried off the flat while Laurie got the spare that had the most tread. Buddy was up by then. While he slathered biscuits with peanut butter and jam, Marilys had more coffee and Laurie scanned the sparsely grassed earth for more thorny fallen limbs, clearing several out of the way.

Wichita Falls proudly announced its population to be 45,000, which made it almost as big as Amarillo. It seemed bigger with its oil refineries, huge flour mill, and scores of manufacturing plants. After checking the jail, the Tumbleweeds were the first customers at a used-car lot. In its rattling body, the Chevy held their savings, so Marilys insisted they go to every dealer in town.

“We'll get cheated,” she said philosophically. “But we want it to be the best cheat we can get. Keep an eye out as we're driving around for any trucks that have a ‘For Sale' sign.”

Only three dealers offered an even trade. “Our Chevy's a long shot better than any of them,” Marilys grumbled. It was noon and they were heading back for the first place, Jerry's Nu-to-Yu, where they'd been offered the best trade, a dilapidated Chevy four years older than the one they had with no spare tire. “We might do better in Lubbock but I'm afraid to wait.”

“Myrt won't tell on us,” Laurie said.

“She won't, but there were plenty of people in the café. If Dub offers a reward—”

Laurie's stomach tightened. “You think he will?”

“I know it.”

“It's not fair! Just because he the same as bought us from Grandpa Field, he shouldn't have the right to hunt us like criminals!”

“I'm the criminal,” Marilys reminded her wryly. “All we have to do is drive fifteen miles north, cross the Red River into Oklahoma, and I'll be a kidnapper who could be sentenced to death under federal law.”

Buddy yelped and Laurie chilled to the bone. “We wouldn't let them do that! We'd say how it was—that we were going to run away from Dub ourselves.” She swallowed hard, fighting down the picture of Marilys strapped into the electric chair. “Anyhow, we can stay in Texas.”

Marilys's delicate jaw tightened. “We'll go wherever we have to in order to find Way. At least I will.”

“So will we.”

Buddy nodded and then cried, “Look! Marilys, there's a ‘Trade for Truck' sign on that Pontiac in the driveway!”

Marilys hit the brake and herded the Chevy in behind the maroon Pontiac. “We need a truck so we can sleep in it,” she said. “But it aggravates me to let old Jerry steal us blind. The Pontiac
looks
good. If it drives that way, we'll try for a swap and trade it for a truck first decent chance we get.”

“You can sleep in the back,” Laurie said. “Buddy and I can manage in front.”

“No, I'll sleep on the floor in back,” Buddy differed.

The burly owner had just gotten a job at an oil field halfway to Electra on a dirt road and figured a truck would get him there better than an auto. The Pontiac had a good spare, and ran smoothly when Marilys tried it. She and the roughneck made out the titles to each other. She'd bought the Chevy under the name of Lila Meredith and now she explained to the man that she wanted her sister's name on the Pontiac's papers, Gloria Meredith.

After their things were loaded in the auto, Laurie gave the Chevy a farewell pat on the fender. It had carried them away from Dub, sheltered them by night, and she was sorry that Way would never get to drive it.

“How come we don't pick up hitchhikers?” Buddy asked after they passed several men with their thumbs raised.

“I hate not giving them a ride, honey,” said Marilys, “but it's just not safe for a woman with two kids to take chances.” At least, thank goodness, these roads weren't full of jalopies stuffed with homeless families and the little they could carry.

Leaving the valleys of the Wichita and Brazos rivers, driving through vast ranchlands and regions where cotton gins testified to the main crop, which hadn't been very “main” during the drought, they followed a crest that divided the cedar-studded ravines of the watersheds of the Brazos and Wichita rivers, spent the night on a ranch road, and pulled into Lubbock on Sunday, passing the tile-roofed brick buildings of Texas Technological College where shrubs and young trees, many of them evergreens, contrasted luxuriantly with the surrounding prairie.

“Way worked here and around here for a week,” Laurie said, her heart speeding. “For sure we'll find his signs. Maybe one of us could ask about him at the Truck-Inns and hardwares.”

Marilys nodded. “With luck, Dub won't be after us earlier than Friday but we'd better be well out of here by Thursday night. We'll scout after Way, earn some money, and trade off this flivver for another truck.” Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were like midnight with stars shining through. “Let's see who spots Way's first sign!”

Lubbock, a neat town of broad streets, was full of churches, and all of them seemed full of people in their best clothes who were just coming out, shaking hands with their pastors and pausing to visit. With a stab of guilt, Laurie winced at what Mama would say about her children not setting foot in a church since they left Prairieville. Laurie had thought about it several times in Black Spring but there wasn't any Tabernacle of Holiness. Even if there had been, she wouldn't have wanted to go. It was wicked and worldly and she was ashamed of herself, but it was a relief not to have to sit through Sunday school and two sermons on Sunday, prayer meeting on Wednesday night and every night of every revival meeting even when there was school next day. And that was besides family worship—a chapter of the Bible and prayers all around—every morning and every night.

Before she let Buddy go play, she mostly did remember Sunday mornings to read out of Mama's little white New Testament, grimy now that it was no longer nested in the small cedar chest among embroidered handkerchiefs, but now they just prayed under their breath and she suspected that Buddy only ducked his head and closed his eyes.

Well, thought Laurie, rebelling, if God expected them to be good like Mama, he should have left her alive. With the possible exception of Edna, who regularly attended the Methodist church, none of the people who'd been kind to them since the world of Prairieville ended were Christians. Not Rosalie or Way or Marilys. But they were good. According to Brother Arlo, that didn't matter. In fact, it was presumptuous to be good if you weren't a Christian and you'd go to hell as fast as a drunkard who'd murdered his wife, kids, and neighbors, too.

That had never seemed right to Laurie. It seemed at odds with what Jesus said about whatever you did for the sick or hungry or imprisoned, you did it to him. Jesus, when you came right down to it, didn't sound much like God. Maybe the only thing God noticed was if you were Christian. Mama said it was sinful to question his ways, but whether you were kind or mean made a mighty lot of difference to the people you knew.

Laurie swallowed a gasp of joy as she saw the scrolled letters painted on the store window and repeated on a sign above, but left it to Buddy to call out, “Look! ‘Dub's Hardware for Hard Wear!'”

“You win,” laughed Marilys. “Let's see what else we can find.”

They discovered Way's unmistakable flourish on a restaurant, a hotel, a farm-machinery store, and a sign by the edge of the city park that featured a man with a paintbrush and a pretty woman kneeling by a tulip bed.

Cleanest town in Texas!

Winner of the National Clean-up and Paint-up Bureau's

First Prize

Every year since 1931!

Let's win

AGAIN

in 1936!

The same distinctive lettering ornamented another sign.

SITE OF SINGER'S STORE, 1879–1886

FOR MANY YEARS, ONE OF ONLY TWO STORES ON THE SOUTH PLAINS***FIRST POST OFFICE IN LUBBOCK COUNTY***CROSSROAD OF MILITARY TRAILS***

Though this was a frontier town, we are proud that in its whole history, Lubbock has had only one saloon which the owner voluntarily closed after receiving a petition from fellow citizens
.

“Must be some bootleggers around,” mused Marilys. “Or Way couldn't have gone on a toot. Why don't we have a picnic here and then find the Truck-Inn and a place for the Tumbleweeds to earn some money?”

The Truck-Inn was on the San Angelo highway at the edge of town. It would be the first place Dub would check so it was decided that Laurie would go in alone and say Way had left his hat at her house and did the Inn people know where he was? She didn't want to lie, but no one needed to hear that the house had been in Black Spring.

“No use worryin' about Kirkendall's hat, sonny,” advised a heavy woman whose blond hair was pulled back in such a tight knot that it gave her a tilt-eyed look. “If it's any good, he'd just trade it for a pint of booze.” Her snub nostrils belled with outrage. “I've never been so taken in as I was by that old hobo! Stayed here a week, worked hard, kept himself clean and polite, never had so much as a sarsaparilla bottle in his room. The next week he locks his door, stays drunk for three days, and then he's gone like smoke.” Seeing Laurie's distress, the woman pitched her voice softer. “Friend of the family?”

Laurie could only nod. “Well, son,” the woman said more kindly, “I'd guess there's not much use looking for Wayburn Kirkendall in La Mesa or Plainview, Tule Creek or Tahoka. He's already painted signs there. He's got grandkids in Black Spring, poor little devils. If you leave the hat here, next time Dub gets through here, I'll ask him to get it to the youngsters. Kirkendall bragged on them a lot, especially on the oldest one called Larry who could play the harmonica real good.”

Laurie heart began to thump so loudly she thought the woman must surely hear. “Thanks, ma'am,” she said. “Guess we'll wait and see if Way—Mr. Kirkendall comes by. My folks think a lot of him.” They would, had they known him.

Back in the Pontiac, Laurie told what the woman had said, and added reluctantly, “Way talked about the Field Brothers here. We'd better not look for a place to sing.”

Marilys flinched and suddenly looked exhausted. Hard on her to do all the driving and of course how she felt responsible for them. After a moment, she shrugged and gave a careless laugh. “Being it's Sunday, there won't be any car lots open and we don't have time to hunt for some reprobate who'll do a trade. Might as well get a start to San Angelo.”

Wintry fields—thank goodness there was still some land in the Southwest that could be plowed and yield crops—ranch-lands with cattle gathered at earthen tanks filled with water pumped by windmills; crumbling rock corrals; dry, white-bedded alkali lakes; a few towns crouched behind the upside-down funnels of cotton gins. They camped that night on the edge of the Cap Rock.

Big Spring had cotton gins, gas-storage tanks, stockyards, and the stink of oil refineries. The only trees were saplings that hadn't yet decided whether to live or die. There was no clue of Way. They did trade the Pontiac and most of the cash they'd raised in Electra for a Ford truck. The dealer surveyed them, scratched at a nimbus of graying hair that surrounded his pink scalp, and finally spat tobacco into the weeds.

“No way I could sleep nights if I turned you loose with these tires, lady,” he said to Marilys. “I'll switch 'em with those on that truck over there.”

“They'll still be bad tires,” Laurie pointed out.

He grinned, showing stumps of brown teeth. “Shucks, sonny, I'll sell that truck to some young sprout who needs to learn how to patch tires. Be good for him.”

Gas and groceries left them only a few dollars but sleeping in the car hadn't been too comfortable. “We should be able to keep this one for a while,” said Marilys as they drove along the valley of the North Concho, where derricks reared everywhere. “Phew-ey! Smell that sulphur? This field has to be producing what they call sour oil.”

Sheep began to outnumber scrawny cattle in pastures with tight fencing that Marilys said was supposed to keep wolves out. As they entered a rough region where cedar and oak showed the bare, white limestone bones of hills, cattle dwindled and goats and sheep browsed the hills and along the river bottoms beneath giant oaks and pecan trees.

San Angelo held no trace of Way. Abilene had several of his signs but none of the business owners knew where he'd gone. In Stamford, he'd done a sign for the headquarters building of the SMS Ranch, using the brand with two
S
's backwards. Haskell had no trace of him but on the other side of Wild Horse Prairie in Seymour, on the Salt Fork of the Brazos, a café and farm-machinery store had brand-new signs.

“Yeah, miss, your brother did my sign last week,” said the café owner, a middle-aged, gray-haired man whose belly protruded under his grease-spotted apron. “No, he didn't seem to be headed anyplace in particular. Said he was seein' the country, paintin' his way along.” He sounded disapproving. As if to console Way's relations, the man added, “I guess a sign painter cain't rightly settle down, not unless it was in a big city where there'd always be work.”

Instead of going north to Wichita Falls, they took 283 east through rolling small-hilled ranch country and spent one night near the crumbling adobe ruins of Fort Griffin, the post from which countless sorties were made against raiding Comanches and Kiowas who had wandered this region time out of mind. An old man who turned up at the smell of their breakfast coffee, curious about them, shared their doughnuts and held forth in a quavering voice about how down in the flats, gamblers, wild women, and saloons emptied the garrison's pockets at payday and relieved hidehunters of their earnings from the slaughter of thousands of buffalo.