Al said, “Jesus, what a place. How’d you like to walk acrost her?”
“People done it,” said Tom. “Lots a people done it; an’ if they could, we could.”
“Lots must a died,” said Al.
“Well, we ain’t come out exac’ly clean.”
Al was silent for a while, and the reddening desert swept past. “Think we’ll ever see them Wilsons again?” Al asked.
Tom flicked his eyes down to the oil gauge. “I got a hunch nobody ain’t gonna see Mis’ Wilson for long. Jus’ a hunch I got.”
Winfield said, “Pa, I wanta get out.”
Tom looked over at him. “Might’s well let ever’body out ‘fore we settle down to drivin’ tonight.” He slowed the car and brought it to a stop. Winfield scrambled out and urinated at the side of the road. Tom leaned out. “Anybody else?”
“We’re holdin’ our water up here,” Uncle John called.
Pa said, “Winfiel’, you crawl up on top. You put my legs to sleep a-settin’ on ’em.” The little boy buttoned his overalls and obediently crawled up the back board and on his hands and knees crawled over Granma’s mattress and forward to Ruthie.
The truck moved on into the evening, and the edge of the sun struck the rough horizon and turned the desert red.
Ruthie said, “Wouldn’ leave you set up there, huh?”
“I didn’ want to. It wasn’t so nice as here. Couldn’ lie down.”
“Well, don’ you bother me, a-squawkin’ an’ a-talkin’,” Ruthie said, “’cause I’m goin’ to sleep, an’ when I wake up, we gonna be there! ‘Cause Tom said so! Gonna seem funny to see pretty country.”
The sun went down and left a great halo in the sky. And it grew very dark under the tarpaulin, a long cave with light at each end- a flat triangle of light.
Connie and Rose of Sharon leaned back against the cab, and the hot wind tumbling through the tent struck the backs of their heads, and the tarpaulin whipped and drummed above them. They spoke together in low tones, pitched to the drumming canvas, so that no one could hear them. When Connie spoke he turned his head and spoke into her ear, and she did the same to him. She said, “Seems like we wasn’t never gonna do nothin’ but move. I’m so tar’d.”
He turned his head to her ear. “Maybe in the mornin’. How’d you like to be alone now?” In the dusk his hand moved out and stroked her hip.
She said, “Don’t. You’ll make me crazy as a loon. Don’t do that.” And she turned her head to hear his response.
“Maybe- when ever’body’s asleep.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But wait till they get to sleep. You’ll make me crazy, an’ maybe they won’t get to sleep.”
“I can’t hardly stop,” he said.
“I know. Me neither. Le’s talk about when we get there; an’ you move away ‘fore I get crazy.”
He shifted away a little. “Well, I’ll get to studyin’ nights right off,” he said. She sighed deeply. “Gonna get one a them books that tells about it an’ cut the coupon, right off.”
“How long, you think?” she asked.
“How long what?”
“How long ‘fore you’ll be makin’ big money an’ we got ice?”
“Can’t tell,” he said importantly. “Can’t really rightly tell. Fella oughta be studied up pretty good ‘fore Christmus.”
“Soon’s you get studied up we could get ice an’ stuff, I guess.”
He chuckled. “It’s this here heat,” he said. “What you gonna need ice roun’ Christmus for?”
She giggled. “Tha’s right. But I’d like ice any time. Now don’t. You’ll get me crazy!”
The dusk passed into dark and the desert stars came out in the soft sky, stars stabbing and sharp, with few points and rays to them, and the sky was velvet. And the heat changed. While the sun was up, it was a beating, flailing heat, but now the heat came from below, from the earth itself, and the heat was thick and muffling. The lights of the truck came on, and they illuminated a little blur of highway ahead, and a strip of desert on either side of the road. And sometimes eyes gleamed in the lights far ahead, but no animal showed in the lights. It was pitch dark under the canvas now. Uncle John and the preacher were curled in the middle of the truck, resting on their elbows, and staring out the back triangle. They could see the two bumps that were Ma and Granma against the outside. They could see Ma move occasionally, and her dark arm moving against the outside.
Uncle John talked to the preacher. “Casy,” he said, “you’re a fella oughta know what to do.”
“What to do about what?”
“I dunno,” said Uncle John.
Casy said, “Well, that’s gonna make it easy for me!”
“Well, you been a preacher.”
“Look, John, ever’body takes a crack at me ’cause I been a preacher. A preacher ain’t nothin’ but a man.”
“Yeah, but- he’s- a kind of a man, else he wouldn’t be a preacher. I wanna ast you- well, you think a fella could bring bad luck to folks?”
“I dunno,” said Casy. “I dunno.”
“Well- see- I was married- fine, good girl. An’ one night she got a pain in her stomach. An’ she says, ‘You better get a doctor.’ An’ I says, ‘Hell, you jus’ et too much.'” Uncle John put his hand on Casy’s knee and he peered through the darkness at him. “She gave me a look. An’ she groaned all night, an’ she died the next afternoon.” The preacher mumbled something. “You see,” John went on, “I kil’t her. An’ sence then I tried to make it up- mos’ly to kids. An’ I tried to be good, an’ I can’t. I get drunk, an’ I go wild.”
“Ever’body goes wild,” said Casy. “I do too.”
“Yeah, but you ain’t got a sin on your soul like me.”
Casy said gently, “Sure I got sins. Ever’body got sins. A sin is somepin you ain’t sure about. Them people that’s sure about ever’thing an’ ain’t got no sin- well, with that kind of a son-of-a-bitch, if I was God I’d kick their ass right outa heaven! I couldn’ stand ’em!”
Uncle John said, “I got a feelin’ I’m bringin’ bad luck to my own folks. I got a feelin’ I oughta go away an’ let ’em be. I ain’t comf’table bein’ like this.”
Casy said quickly, “I know this- a man got to do what he got to do. I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you. I don’t think they’s luck or bad luck. On’y one thing in this worl’ I’m sure of, an’ that’s I’m sure nobody got a right to mess with a fella’s life. He got to do it all hisself. Help him, maybe, but not tell him what to do.”
Uncle John said disappointedly, “Then you don’ know’?”
“I don’ know.”
“You think it was a sin to let my wife die like that?”
“Well,” said Casy, “for anybody else it was a mistake, but if you think it was a sin- then it’s a sin. A fella builds his own sins right up from the groun’.”
“I got to give that goin’-over,” said Uncle John, and he rolled on his back and lay with his knees pulled up.
The truck moved on over the hot earth, and the hours passed. Ruthie and Winfield went to sleep. Connie loosened a blanket from the load and covered himself and Rose of Sharon with it, and in the heat they struggled together, and held their breaths. And after a time Connie threw off the blanket and the hot tunneling wind felt cool on their wet bodies.
On the back of the truck Ma lay on the mattress beside Granma, and she could not see with her eyes, but she could feel the struggling body and the struggling heart; and the sobbing breath was in her ear. And Ma said over and over, “All right. It’s gonna be all right.” And she said hoarsely, “You know the family got to get acrost. You know that.”
Uncle John called, “You all right?”
It was a moment before she answered. “All right. Guess I dropped off to sleep.” And after a time Granma was still, and Ma lay rigid beside her.
The night hours passed, and the dark was in against the truck. Sometimes cars passed them, going west and away; and sometimes great trucks came up out of the west and rumbled eastward. And the stars flowed down in a slow cascade over the western horizon. It was near midnight when they neared Daggett, where the inspection station is. The road was flood-lighted there, and a sign illuminated, “KEEP RIGHT AND STOP.” The officers loafed in the office, but they came out and stood under the long covered shed when Tom pulled in. One officer put down the license number and raised the hood.