The Lincoln Highway (51 page)

A
fter they had checked in
to room 14 at the White Peaks Motel on Route 28, and Billy had taken off his backpack, Emmett said he was heading out to find Woolly and Duchess.

—In the meantime, he told Billy, it’s probably for the best if you stay here.

—Besides, said Sally, when was the last time you took a bath, young man? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was back in Nebraska.

—That’s true, said Billy nodding. The last time I took a bath was back in Nebraska.

As Emmett began talking quietly to Sally, Billy put his backpack back on his back and headed toward the bathroom.

—Do you really need that thing in there with you? Sally asked.

—I need it, said Billy with his hand on the doorknob, because it’s where my clean clothes are.

—All right. But don’t forget to wash behind your ears.

—I won’t.

When Emmett and Sally went back to talking, Billy went into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the bathtub faucets. But he didn’t take off his dirty clothes. He didn’t take off his dirty clothes because he wasn’t going to take a bath. That had been a white lie. Like the one that Sally had told Sheriff Petersen.

After double-checking to make sure that the drain was open so that
the tub wouldn’t overflow, Billy tightened the straps on his backpack, climbed on top of the toilet, pushed up the sash, and slipped out the window, leaving no one the wiser.

Billy knew that his brother and Sally might only be talking for a few minutes, so he had to run as fast as he could around the motel to where the Studebaker was parked. He ran so fast, when he climbed into the trunk and lowered the lid, he could hear his heart beating in his chest.

When Duchess had told Billy how he and Woolly had hidden in the trunk of the warden’s car, Billy had asked how they had gotten out again. Duchess had explained that he had brought along a spoon in order to pop the latch. So before climbing into the Studebaker’s trunk, Billy had taken his jackknife out of his backpack. Then he had also taken out his flashlight because it was going to be dark in the trunk once the lid was closed. Billy wasn’t afraid of the dark. But Duchess had said how difficult it had been to pop the latch without being able to see it.
We came this close
, Duchess said holding his thumb and finger an inch apart,
to riding all the way back to Salina without even getting a glimpse of Nebraska
.

Switching on his flashlight, Billy took a quick look at Woolly’s watch to check the time. It was 3:30. Then he switched off the flashlight and waited. A few minutes later, he heard the car door open and close, the engine start, and they were on their way.

Back in the motel room, when Emmett had told Billy that it was probably for the best if he stayed behind, Billy hadn’t been surprised.

Emmett often thought it was for the best that Billy remain behind while he was going someplace else. Like when he went into the courthouse in Morgen in order to be sentenced by Judge Schomer.
I think it’s for the best
, he’d said to Billy,
that you wait out here with Sally
. Or when they were at the depot in Lewis and Emmett had gone to find out about the freight trains to New York. Or when they were on the West Side Elevated and he had gone looking for Duchess’s father.

In the third paragraph of the introduction to his
Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers,
Professor Abernathe says the hero often leaves his friends and family behind when setting out on an exploit. He leaves his friends and family behind because he is concerned about exposing them to peril, and because he has the courage to face the unknown by himself. That’s why Emmett often thought it best for Billy to remain behind.

But Emmett didn’t know about Xenos.

In chapter twenty-four of his
Compendium
, Professor Abernathe says:
As long as there have been great men who have accomplished great things, there have been storytellers eager to recount their exploits. But whether it was Hercules or Theseus, Caesar or Alexander, what feats these men accomplished, what victories they achieved, what adversities they overcame would never have been possible without the contributions of Xenos.

Although Xenos sounds like it might be the name of a figure from history—like Xerxes or Xenophon—Xenos is not the name of a person at all.
Xenos
is a word from ancient Greek that means foreigner and stranger, guest and friend. Or more simply, the Other. As Professor Abernathe says:
Xenos is the one on the periphery in the unassuming garb whom you hardly notice. Throughout history, he has appeared in many guises: as a watchman or attendant, a messenger or page, a shopkeeper, waiter, or vagabond. Though usually unnamed, for the most part unknown, and too often forgotten, Xenos always shows up at just the right time in just the right place in order to play his essential role in the course of events.

That’s why when Emmett had suggested it was for the best that Billy stay behind while he went in search of Woolly and Duchess, Billy had no choice but to sneak out the window and hide in the trunk.

Thirteen minutes after they had left the motel, the Studebaker came to a stop and the driver’s door opened and closed.

Billy was about to pop the latch of the trunk when he smelled the
fumes of gasoline. They must be at a filling station, he thought, and Emmett is asking for directions. Though Woolly had put a big red star on Billy’s map to show the location of his family’s house, the map was drawn at too big a scale to include the local roads. So while Emmett knew he had reached the vicinity of Woolly’s house, he didn’t know exactly where it was.

Listening carefully, Billy heard his brother call out thanks to someone. Then the door opened and closed and they were driving again. Twelve minutes later, the Studebaker took a turn and began moving slower and slower until it rolled to a stop. Then the engine went off, and the driver’s door opened and closed again.

This time Billy decided he would wait at least five minutes before trying to pop the latch. Training his flashlight beam on Woolly’s watch, he saw that it was now 4:02. At 4:07 he heard his brother calling out for Woolly and Duchess, followed by a screen door’s slam. Emmett had probably gone inside the house, thought Billy, but he waited another two minutes. When it was 4:09, he popped the latch and climbed out. He put his jackknife and flashlight back in his backpack, his backpack back on his back, and quietly closed the trunk.

The house was bigger than just about any house that Billy had ever seen. At its near end was the screen door that Emmett must have gone through. Quietly, Billy climbed the steps of the stoop, peeked through the screen, and let himself inside, being sure not to let the door slam behind him.

The first room he entered was a storage area with all sorts of things that you would use outside, like boots and raincoats, skates and rifles. On the wall were the ten rules for
Closing the House
. Billy could tell the list was written in the order in which you were supposed to do things, but he wondered about the last item, the one that said
Go home
. After a moment, Billy decided it must have been put there in jest.

Poking his head out of the storage room, Billy could see his brother at the end of the hallway, staring at the ceiling of a large room. Emmett would do that sometimes—stop and stare at a room in order to understand how it had been built. After a moment, Emmett climbed a set of stairs. When Billy could hear his brother’s footsteps overhead, he snuck down the hallway and into the large room.

As soon as he saw the fireplace big enough for everyone to gather around, Billy knew exactly where he was. Through the windows he could see the porch with the overhanging roof, under which you could sit on rainy afternoons and on top of which you could lie on warm summer nights. Upstairs there would be enough rooms for friends and family to visit for the holidays. And there in the corner was the special spot for the Christmas tree.

Behind the staircase was a room with a long table and chairs. That must be the dining room, thought Billy, where Woolly gave the Gettysburg Address.

Crossing the large room and entering the opposite hallway, Billy poked his head into the first room that he passed. It was the study, right where Woolly had drawn it. While the large room had been neat and tidy, the study was not. It was a mess, with books and papers scattered about and a bust of Abraham Lincoln lying on the floor under a painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. On a chair near the bust were a hammer and some screwdrivers, and there were scratches all across the front of the safe.

Woolly and Duchess must have been trying to get into the safe with the hammer and screwdrivers, thought Billy, but it wasn’t going to work. A safe was made of steel and designed to be impenetrable. If you could open a safe with a hammer and screwdrivers, then it wouldn’t be a safe.

The door of the safe had four dials, each of which showed the numbers zero through nine. That meant there were ten thousand
different possible combinations. Duchess and Woolly would have been better off trying all ten thousand by starting with 0000 and working their way up to 9999, thought Billy. That would have taken less time than trying to break in with the hammer and screwdrivers. Even better, though, would be to guess the combination that Woolly’s great-grandfather had chosen.

It took Billy six tries.

Once the door of the safe was open, it reminded Billy of the box at the bottom of his father’s bureau, in that there were important papers inside—just a lot more of them. But under the shelf with all of the important papers, Billy counted fifteen stacks of fifty-dollar bills. Billy remembered that Woolly’s great-grandfather had put a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in his safe. That meant that each stack was made up of ten thousand dollars. Stacks of ten thousand dollars, thought Billy, in a safe with ten thousand possible combinations. Closing the door of the safe, Billy turned away, but then turned back again in order to spin the dials.

Leaving the study, Billy continued down the hallway and went into the kitchen. It was neat and tidy except for an empty soda pop bottle and a can of beans that had a spoon sticking straight up out of it like the stick on a candy apple. The only other sign that someone had been in the kitchen was the envelope tucked between the salt and pepper shakers on the table. The envelope, which said
To Be Opened in the Event of My Absence
, had been left there by Woolly. Billy could tell it had been left by Woolly because the handwriting on the envelope matched the handwriting on Woolly’s drawing of the house.

As Billy was putting the envelope back between the salt and pepper shakers, he heard the sound of metal hitting metal. Tiptoeing down the hallway and peeking through the door of the study, he saw Duchess swinging an ax at the safe.

He was about to explain to Duchess about the ten thousand
combinations when he heard his brother’s footsteps thumping down the stairs. Running back down the hallway, Billy slipped back into the kitchen and out of sight.

Once Emmett was inside the study, Billy couldn’t hear what his brother was saying, but he could tell that he was angry from the tone of his voice. After a moment, Billy heard what sounded like a scuffle, then Emmett emerged from the study holding Duchess by the elbow. As Emmett marched him down the hallway, Duchess was speaking quickly about something that Woolly had chosen for himself for his own reasons. Then Emmett marched Duchess into the storage room.

Following quickly but quietly down the hallway, Billy peeked around the doorframe of the storage room in time to hear Duchess tell Emmett why they shouldn’t go to the cops. Then Emmett pushed Duchess out the door.

In chapter one of the
Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers
—after the part when Professor Abernathe explains how many of the greatest adventure stories start
in medias res
—he goes on to explain the tragic flaws of classical heroes.
All classical heroes
, he says,
however strong or wise or courageous they may be, have some flaw in their character which leads to their undoing
. For Achilles the fatal flaw had been anger. When he was angry, Achilles could not contain himself. Even though it had been foretold that he might die during the Trojan War, once his friend Patroclus was killed, Achilles returned to the battlefield blinded by a black and murderous rage. And that’s when he was struck by the poisonous arrow.