CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They awoke in the morning cold and hungry. They walked north and west, roughly in the direction they thought the train was headed. Roosevelt said the track curved west after a ways, but he did not know when. They trekked across dry brown fields and far, far to the west they saw the hint of mountains, mere bumps underneath the wide sky. Clouds seemed farther away than normal and sunlight fell in streaks and shafts, like rain.
“Big country,” said Monk, and they agreed.
They came to a fence and realized they were on someone’s land but saw no sign of livestock or owner. They climbed it and headed north and came to a road headed west and took up upon it. They saw no other travelers, no cars nor trucks. This path appeared to be one unused by the flood of migrants searching for better lives. It was an empty place and they passed through it silently, as its greatness seemed to eat words before they were even spoken.
Toward midday they saw cars pulled off the side of the road, big heaps of jalopies parked in a circle in a field. Pike slowed to a stop and Connelly and the others followed suit. Pike looked the cars over slowly, his bright, cold eyes watching each flicker of movement. Then he made a motion and they continued forward.
As they neared the vehicles they were spotted by a small dirty child sitting by the road. He got to his feet and stared at them. Then he ran back to the trucks. Four men came out and behind them five women. They watched Connelly and the others approach, their faces blank, their eyes thin.
Hammond came forward, smiling. “Good day!” he said.
One of the men nodded. “ ’Day,” he said.
“Sorry to be so forward, but you folks wouldn’t have any food you’d be willing to trade, would you?”
The man examined them. “You boys ’bos?”
“I suppose you could say that, sir.”
“Looks like you folks been on the losing side of a few beatings.”
“That’s so. We were trying to get up into Colorado. Headed west, like everyone else. We got tossed and robbed something fierce. Beat the hell out of a few of us.”
“What line was it?” said another man.
Hammond told him.
“All the lines have gotten tougher,” said the man. “My nephew tried to ride down to the city. He got tossed and they whupped the tar out of him.”
“Sounds familiar,” said Hammond with a smile.
The first man sighed, pushed his hat back, and scratched his rangy red hair. “You folks wouldn’t happen to know much about cars, would you?”
They looked at one another. Connelly said, “I know a little.”
“Do you?”
He nodded.
“Well… We got one of these cars broke down,” said the man. “Damn bastard sold us a lemon—”
“
“Sorry. My apologies,” said the man, “but I just knew he was doing it by how he smiled at us. I knew this thing would break down soon enough on the road. But we did it anyways. If you could get us back on the road, sir, well, we’d help you folks in any way we can.”
“I could take a look, I suppose,” said Connelly. “Which one is it?”
“That one yonder,” said the man. He and Connelly started walking over to it. The man stuck his hand out. “Clark. Clark Hopkins. My wife back there is Missy.”
They shook.
“Connelly.”
The truck was hardly a truck anymore. Its bedding was made of slats of wood, with everything hanging from it that could hang—mattresses, lanterns, bags of produce, bits of string and wire, rope, and jugs of water. As Connelly walked to it the rest of the family emerged from the back of the cars. Three boys and a girl, all barely past toddlers, a young man almost a teen, and a girl younger than Hammond, he supposed, about twenty. He felt nervy with them watching him.
“Damn, I hate cars,” said Clark, and glanced around to make sure his profanity had gone unnoticed. “Never used one before. I didn’t know what I was doing. The others, my brother and my brothers-in-law, they know how to drive, but how its guts work, that’s beyond us. I prefer mules, I got to say. You know how a mule works, what goes in, what comes out. Cars, well. That’s a different story.”
“Mighty young family to be traveling with,” said Connelly.
“Don’t I know it.”
Connelly took off his coat and hat and rolled up his sleeves. His arm still twinged but at least it worked. “What happened?” he asked.
“Thing was going fine before. We cut off the main road, thought we’d take a direct road into New Mexico. We pulled off for the night and in the morning we couldn’t get her started again.”
Connelly wiped at his forehead and squatted to look below. Clark joined him, then the children did, then Pike and the rest joined him as well.
Connelly glanced at them, uncomfortable. “I’m going to need a little light,” he said.
“Oh,” said Clark. “Oh, sure.”
The family shuffled backwards. Pike motioned and led his followers away to the side of the road. Connelly looked at the car and thought.
“Can you start her up?” he asked.
Clark’s brother climbed in the cab and tried. Connelly listened to it turn over but never catch, nodded to himself, and popped the hood and lifted it up. He looked in, then made a circle in the air with his finger, signaling to try again. The engine wheezed and clicked and clanked but never caught. He reached in and began sorting through it, not pulling but touching carefully, remembering which parts of the engine did what, like greeting old friends at a party. He was examining the carburetor when he noticed a small mop of brown hair peeking over the side, and below it two brown eyes looking into the hood with him. The eyes moved down and darted about the workings of the car like their owner was trying to sort out enemies. The looker noticed Connelly watching him, blinked, and stood up. It was a boy, small and gap-toothed, but he had been fed better than most boys Connelly had seen. They stared at each other and the boy said, “Is it sick?”
“It’s a car. Cars don’t get sick.”
“What do they get?”
“They get broke.”
“You going to fix it, then?”
“Going to try,” said Connelly.
The boy nodded gravely, then pointed at part of the car. “What’s that?”
“That’s the rotor,” said Connelly calmly, not dismissive, not irritated. Just treating the question like it had come from anyone.
The boy nodded again. Connelly returned to the car.
“And that?” said the boy, pointing at another part.
“That’s the spark plug,” said Connelly.
“Is that the problem?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“What is the problem?”
“I’m not sure yet.” He glanced at the boy, then made another circle with his finger. The engine groaned and grunted as it tried to move and the boy jumped back, startled by the noise. Connelly’s hand shot out and grabbed on to the boy’s arm to stop him from falling. He was still breathing fast as Connelly eased him back onto the bumper of
