The Longest Road (5 page)

3

Even if the storm, and others before it, hadn't left all western Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle drifted in dust, this would have seemed like the longest road in the world, through what used to be called No Man's Land and looked like it was close to being that again. It was mostly ranches where skeleton cattle hunted for mouthfuls of grass among the sagebrush and soapweed thrusting from the rippled dust.

Lots of rabbits were smashed on the road, smears of fur and blood. The dust had blinded many of them, and caused boils, too. The animals would have less chance than usual in the drives, when people made a huge circle and moved inward, chasing the rabbits toward the center, where they were clubbed with baseball bats. The meat that wasn't eaten was shipped east in big barrels.

The Model T rattled along for miles without passing other vehicles or even a farmhouse. Towns were few. At Buffalo, they stopped for gas, Laurie and Bud piling out so Daddy could lift up the front-seat cushion to get to the gas tank beneath. The next wide spot in the road was Supply. It had been Fort Supply during the wars with the Plains Indians, Daddy said, but now made its living off an institution for the feeble-minded. There was a shorter route that ran closer to Texas's eastern border, but it was gravel and dirt, could be badly drifted, would surely be dusty, and Daddy thought the highway, mostly paved with either concrete or asphalt, would be a lot better.

The Model T made about thirty miles an hour. Daddy had hoped to drive the three hundred miles to Grandpa's before night, but they had two flats before noon. The second happened close to a dry wash, where there were some cottonwoods that must have leafed out fresh green and hopeful after the storm.

“Sister, you take the food and water over to the shade,” Daddy said as he got the jack. “We'll eat and rest a little bit.”

Laurie's skin was gritty and she'd licked her dry lips till they were raw and chapped. There wasn't enough water to really wash, but after she and Buddy had gone behind some willows, she poured a little water on a washrag and wiped Buddy's face. He was flushed and his eyes looked sunken and dull. To keep from suffocating, they had to ride with the windows down but the wind had heated fast after early morning. When Buddy didn't protest at being washed, Laurie scrubbed his hands, which had somehow gotten grubby, and demanded, “Buddy, are you all right?”

“I'm hot.”

“Drink some water and lie down on the sheet under that big tree. You'll feel better after you eat.”

He almost whined, which was not like Buddy. “I—I'm sick at my stomach.”

“You can't get sick,” she snapped. Her own insides twisted with fear. He looked the way he had when he'd caught scarlet fever, except that he was pale around the eyes. She held the jar for him to drink and spread the sheet where it was shadiest. “Stretch out, Buddy. Maybe you just hurt from being all cramped up. Or you maybe got carsick.”

She washed as best she could with the clean part of the rag and then folded it across Buddy's forehead. Sand got in her shoes and hurt her feet so she untied them and left them in the car, hurrying across the hot dust with lard pails of rabbit and slaw, returning for the pie. She didn't feel good herself. Her head ached, her eyes and nose smarted from dust, and the greasy smell of the rabbit made her stomach lurch.

After urging more water down Buddy, she sipped from the mason jar. The tepid water had a flat, dead taste but you could get sunstroke from heat or if you didn't get enough water so she drank slowly. When she could trust her legs, she took the jar to Daddy, who was pumping up the inner tube after adding one more patch to a surface that was more patches than tube. The shirt she'd washed yesterday was smudged now and wet under the arms. He wasn't as feverish-looking as Buddy but his cheeks were red.

“That's Daddy's girl,” he said, trying to grin as he handed back the jar.

She didn't know yet how she felt about him, not after the way he'd slapped her, and most of all because he was leaving them. It was as if he wasn't her same Daddy anymore but someone she didn't know and couldn't depend on, someone she was afraid of, like Floyd when he was drinking.

Getting a tea towel to spread on the dust for a tablecloth, she decided it was pretty simple after all. If Daddy sent for them, she'd love him again. If he didn't—well then, she'd never forgive him, either. But she wet another washrag and handed it to him so he could clean up.

“Think I'll catch a couple of winks,” he said. “No use tryin' to drive when I might go to sleep and run off the road.”

He lay down by Buddy. Somehow, flies had found them. You'd think the pesky things would die for good and all in a storm like the one that had buried houses and barns and crops and grass over this whole country. There weren't any flowers under the trees, or any grass save some of last year's dead clumps jutting up from the sand, but here came the flies though the lids were still on the pails. Laurie tied a washrag to a fallen branch and waved it over Daddy and Buddy when the flies settled on them.

Already, Daddy was gently snoring. He must not have slept much last night. She heard the crunch of a twig and whirled as a soft voice behind her said, “Howdy, sis. Could I share your tree a while?”

He wasn't as tall as Daddy, but leaner and somehow solider, as if his muscles and bones were knit together snug and smooth. He was a whole lot younger, though he was a grown man. He had a long nose, long mouth, and long jaw that rounded to a broad chin with a cleft so deep that it almost looked like a scar. A scruffy felt hat, so greasy and stained that there was no guessing its original color, tilted back from a high, wide forehead and unruly black hair. All his skin that showed was burned brown as an Indian's. What Laurie noticed most was the merry curve of his lips, and the dancing light in eyes she thought were gray till he moved into the sun and they sparkled green.

He carried a sack over his shoulder and some kind of big, funny-shaped case patched with black insulation tape. His faded khaki work pants and shirt were almost as stained as his hat and a blue bandanna hung partway out of one pocket.

“The tree's for everyone.” Laurie whispered so as not to wake her father and brother. “Sit down and you can eat with us.”

“Mightily obliged.” He kept his voice down, too, but it had a deep male ring to it that pleased Laurie's ears. “I sure could use a drink if you can spare it.”

Laurie nodded at the jar. “Drink all you want. There's more in the flivver. I'm sorry it's not cold.”

“It's wet.”

Tilting back his head, he took a couple of swallows. She admired the way the muscles of his throat stood out firm and strong as he drank. He grinned at her. “When you're thirsty, water beats the best corn likker ever made.”

Liquor?
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging
. Laurie thought that anyone who took a drink of beer or whiskey turned into a wife-beating, reeling, scary drunkard who didn't know what they were doing and didn't care. Like Floyd who beat up Margie and who'd once pulled a butcher knife on Daddy when he intervened. This man certainly didn't act like Floyd but Laurie's alarm must have shown because the stranger looked kind of embarrassed.

“Don't worry, sis. I don't have any booze in my stuff and haven't had a drink in a month. Right now this suits me better'n any Kentucky bourbon.” He drank what was left in the half-gallon jar, sitting cross-legged in the dust. “You folks moving?”

Laurie nodded, ducking her head. She was ashamed to say Daddy was leaving them at Grandpa's. “Well,” said the brown-skinned, gray-green-eyed man, “I'm glad to see you're not headed for California.”

The name roused Daddy. His eyes opened. He kind of jumped when he saw the stranger and sat up in a hurry. The younger man thrust out his hand. “I'm John Morrigan, sir. Hope you don't mind my restin' off with you.”

Daddy evidently liked what he felt in the other's handshake. “You're sure welcome to what we have. If we're travelin' your direction, you can squeeze in and ride with us.”

“Wouldn't want to crowd you.”

Daddy grinned. It was the first time Laurie had seen him really grin big since Mama died. “You can help me fix flats.”

“I'm good at that.” John Morrigan had a deep, soft chuckle, kind of surprised, like he'd just learned something nice.

“I'm Ed Field,” Daddy said. “This is my daughter, Laurie, and Buddy's havin' a nap.”

Daddy's eyes filled and a tear oozed through the dust on his cheek.
Don't tell him about us!
Laurie begged silently, making as much noise as she could in taking lids off the lard cans, sticking a spoon in the slaw, and setting forks in the pie pans they were using on the road, pushing hers toward Morrigan.
Don't tell him Mama's dead and you're dumping us like kittens you don't have the heart to drown
.

Daddy had loved Mama an awful lot but he enjoyed sympathy. Laurie hated it, at least the kind you bought by showing your sores and deformities like the beggars she'd heard about in big cities. She felt poor and ashamed because Mama was dead. Daddy's leaving made it worse. So she shrank and suffered while Daddy told Morrigan about Mama and his plans.

“Did I hear you mention California?” Daddy asked.

Morrigan nodded. “I just got to Amarillo in time for that storm. Goin' out to see my mother for the first time in a couple of years. She lives north of McAlester.”

“And then you'll go back to California?” Daddy asked.

Morrigan's chuckle wasn't pleasant this time. “If I'm goin' to starve, I'd rather do it closer to home.”

“But there's all that fruit to pick—all that cotton.”

“Yeah, and there's a hundred men for every job of work, Mr. Field. I've worked in the oil patch since I was fourteen, got to be a tool dresser.” At Laurie's puzzled look, he grinned. “That means I dressed the tools, honey—heated the bits when they got dull from drillin' and hammered 'em out. A toolie's second to the driller, and I drilled a little, too. But oil prices went way down a few years back and the way Alfalfa Bill Murray—he was governor of Oklahoma in thirty-one—the bright idea he had to fix that was to close down the wells complete.”

“Doesn't seem to make much sense.” Daddy's tone was sympathetic, though he'd always said he'd never work in the oil fields. On top of a rig was a good place to get killed, and oil-field people drank, gambled, and cussed a lot worse than the cowboys who came to Prairieville once a month after payday.

“When I couldn't get work in Texas,” Morrigan went on, “I'd heard about jobs in Arizona and headed that way. The ads and promises those big Arizona growers had spread all over this part of the world sucked in so many folks the farmers took their choice just like a slave market—and let me tell you, people are slaves to their bellies, they got to eat. Arizona's got real tough laws about drawin' relief—can't get a dime unless you've lived there a couple of years.” He laughed grimly. “In the last few years, I've walked the tracks and rode the rails and slept under most of the important bridges in this land of the free and I can tell you in lots of places it's a jailhouse crime not to have a job unless your daddy had a pile of money and left it to you. Well, when the cotton was picked and the main work done, Arizona shoved us over into California, and it was the same thing all over again. I'd heard they was payin' five dollars a day but instead I wound up glad to get a dollar.”

“Maybe you weren't in the right place.” Daddy looked pale and kind of sick. In spite of herself, Laurie felt sorry for him, though she was glad that now he'd surely change his mind.

“Mr. Field,” said John Morrigan, “I'm afraid there isn't any right place in California. After I visit my mother, I'm tryin' the oil patch again, maybe go down to Texas. And this time, I'm not blowin' what I make as fast as I get it like I always done before. Goin' to save up and buy a spudder, talk some of them old Panhandle farmers whose topsoil's roostin' over in New Mexico into lettin' me drill to see what's under the hardpan.”

“That's likely the best idea for you seein' as how you've been in the oil fields all your life,” Daddy said. “No offense to you, John, but I've heard so much about California that I guess I've just got to try it. There's no work here of the kind I'm used to.”

He gave Buddy a little shake. “Wake up, son. Time to eat before we hit the road.”

Buddy was still flushed. His eyes were glassy when he opened them. “I'm thirsty.”

Laurie took a water jar around to him, propped him against her, and helped him drink. He didn't push her away. That proved he didn't feel good. His eyes closed again.

“Buddy—” He liked the fried, crusty part of rabbit, and she broke off a little and tried to get him to taste it. “You better eat.”

“Don't want to.”

“He looks kind of feverish,” Morrigan said. “You got any aspirin?”

They didn't have anything in the way of medical supplies except a bottle of Mercurochrome and a thermometer. “Don't matter,” Morrigan said cheerfully. His voice calmed the fear-induced nausea churning in Laurie's stomach. “There's some willow along the wash. It's mighty good for lots of ailments. Get a pot of water boilin', honey, and I'll fetch some bark.”

Daddy broke up some dead limbs and had a fire going by the time Laurie unearthed a cup and the teakettle and tipped water into it. “We sure don't need Buddy gettin' sick on us,” Daddy said heavily.

“Maybe he's just hot and tired,” Laurie consoled. “It's lucky we're close to some willows and Mr. Morrigan can make fever medicine.”

“That's how your mother would talk.” Daddy's voice was gratified and sad at the same time. “Wouldn't surprise me if Morrigan's part Indian. They know a lot about plants and curing.”