watched him go.
“He’ll be back soon,” said Missy.
“What did I do?” asked Connelly.
“You? Nothing. But you can’t just up and move a boy away from his home and expect him to be all right.”
“He’s a good boy.”
“He bears it better than most,” she said. “Some of the others… Well, they ain’t as hopeful as Frankie. You know, you’re good with children.”
“I’m not that good.”
“Sure you are,” she said. “You know how boys work. You know not to treat them like boys, for instance. Do you have any of your own?”
Connelly did not move. Then he said, “No.”
“No? Never wanted to settle down or nothing?”
Connelly shook his head.
“Well, it’s not for everyone, I suppose,” she said, and smiled kindly. “Just seems like a waste, is all.” Her smile faded from her face. “Have I said something wrong?”
“No,” said Connelly, and he stood up.
“I… I didn’t mean to overstep or anything…”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m just going to get some more water from the creek.”
He turned around and walked away, down toward the bend in the land where the silver string of water ran through the pasture. The wind picked up, sending fingers of dust twirling into the air. He heard shouting and saw the boy running out in the fields, a stick in hand, crying at some unknown attacker or maybe urging on invisible comrades. Thrust and parry, feint and dodge. Then a gruff battlecry, dust rising in clouds around his feet as he fought the very air.
Connelly walked down to the creek and filled his canteen. He dipped his hands in the water, felt the eddies form around his fingers and wrists. Then he took them out and went and sat on a stone by the creek and did his best not to cry.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They spent the next day working more on the cars and preparing to leave. They shifted loads and strapped down everything they could. As night fell they ate what was left of the salted pork and huddled around the fire. The day had been warm but the night was freezing out in those dry reaches.
“How many folks have you all seen so far?” asked Clark.
“Seen?” said Pike.
“Yeah. I just… I just want to know how many are headed where we’re headed. I think a fella should know what he’s up against.”
“Clark,” said Missy, “don’t talk about such things in front of the children.”
“They should know, too,” said Clark. “I don’t want anyone walking into this with just dreams in their heads. I want to know. How many?”
“I don’t know,” Pike said. “I don’t know where you’re headed.”
“South and west. Away from all this dead land.”
“People have moved in a great wave, Mr. Hopkins. Did you not know that?”
“I did,” he said, “but… but I haven’t done as much traveling as you all. How many?”
Pike shrugged. “Like the ocean.”
Clark looked down at the fire and crossed his arms.
“Those who hold steadfast will always survive,” Pike said. “You and your family are strong. Stronger than most. I’m not exactly a holy man anymore, if I ever was, but I do see a future for you, Mr. Hopkins. For people as strong as all of you, how could it be otherwise?”
“That’s awful nice of you to say.”
“It’s not nice,” said Pike. “It’s the truth. No compliment, but fact.”
“You people are all right. I was sort of scared of you at first, that I admit, but you’re all right.”
Roosevelt took out his harmonica and began to play. They listened as they lay around the fire. Connelly was rubbing his hands slowly when someone touched his arm. He looked up into the face of Clark’s oldest daughter.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“A little.”
“There’s a little whisky, if you want it.”
“Thank you, uh…”
She smiled. “Deliah.”
“Thank you, Deliah.”
She brought him a tin cup full of bourbon and he sipped at it.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“A ways back,” he said.
“Yeah, but where?”
“Memphis.”
“I never been outside of Oklahoma. I never been anywhere but my hometown.”
“You should be thankful,” said Connelly. “Country’s a wide, mad place.”
“I guess,” she said. “I always wanted to travel. I never wanted to do it this way.”
“I believe that.”
“Deliah,” said Missy. “You leave him alone. He’s tired.”
“I’m all right,” said Connelly.
“Come over here,” Missy scolded.
Deliah scowled and went over to her mother, but smiled at Connelly over her shoulder. He frowned and drank more. Clark took the bottle out and began passing it around. It lit little fires in their stomachs and made the night bearable and soon they were chattering and talking just as though they had been at home.
“These are nice people,” said Lottie to Connelly.
“They are.”
“It’s a sad thing to see them out on the road. I’d like to see them right. It’d be nice to just stay with them and keep moving.”
“It would be,” said Connelly.
“Do you know what I think, sometimes?”
“What?”
“I think sometimes that… that every step I take I seem to lose a little bit more of myself. Every step I take chasing that man, I forget what I’m doing. No… That’s not so. Not what I’m doing, but
Connelly shrugged.
“Like, back in the jungle,” she said. “When Pike beat that man so he’d tell us where Shivers had gone, I just stood there like it was nothing. It seemed okay to me. And it had, after… after what had happened to the twins. But that night I lay sleeping and I thought it wasn’t more than a year ago that I hadn’t never seen a man get beaten in my life. Not like that. Not like that.”
Lottie bit her lip and toyed with her hair. She seemed eager to say something, but stopped, smiled, and said, “Pardon. I’ll just be a bit,” and she walked away.
She was gone a long time. Connelly drank more with the other men. It was the first time any of them had
