The Longest Road (31 page)

Blindly, she reached for the guitar, touched the strings.
Oh, Morrigan, all these roads, all these miles!

Way left early next morning for Lubbock. Before she went to school, Laurie took the decorations off the tumbleweed till it stood as naked and forlorn as she felt. A weed dressed up like a tree! But oh, Christmas had been lovely! And there was the marvelous guitar just waiting to yield its music.

She carried the tumbleweed to the verge of the buildings.
Good-bye, tumbleweed. Thank you for being beautiful, for stopping a while
. She closed her eyes, thought again of Morrigan, and released the bush into the wind, which would sweep it out to the open plain.

16

The first evening Way was gone, Clem drove Laurie and Buddy home from the Redwine House. “Reckon I could have a cup of coffee?” he drawled as Buddy escaped with a whoop to join Billy and the other boys. “This sharp weather's nibblin' at my bones.”

“I'll have a cup, too,” said Laurie, though she didn't much like coffee. Clem never came in like this; he was doing it so the house wouldn't feel so lonesome.

“No lock on the door?” asked Clem as Laurie opened it and led the way in.

“When the walls are thin enough to kick in, locks aren't much use.” She'd left the guitar on her cot that morning. When she saw it, her heart leaped. She wanted to hold it, listen to the strings. Suddenly she wasn't fearful or anxious and almost wished Clem hadn't come in so she could right away practice the way Marilys had suggested that day. Marilys said not to bring the guitar to the hotel—Mr. Redwine was upset about it—but she, Marilys, would come over when she could and teach Laurie. Turning to laugh up at Clem, Laurie added, “Anyhow, folks in Sludge Town may live in shacks and tents but they don't steal or break into each other's homes.”

“Guess not,” chuckled Clem. “Takes a higher type of society to do that.”

He got the heater going while she lit a burner on the cook-stove, set on the coffeepot, and got out sugar and evaporated milk. They had a companionable cup of coffee, hers mostly milk.

“The Harrises know your Grandpa's away?” Clem asked as he rose to leave.

Laurie nodded. “Mrs. Harris promised to keep an eye out for us and she said we could come stay with them anytime we want.”

“Then I guess we'll see you tomorrow.” Clem grinned. “You can quit fidgetin' now, Larry, and get at that guitar.”

He left, chuckling. Laurie blushed at being so transparent but the second the door closed, she had the guitar in her arms.

It was strange that night to eat supper without Way, and worse to get ready for bed. Laurie debated about leaving a lamp burning but since there were no curtains, that would let any passerby see in, and it was foolish to increase the risk of fire in the flimsy building. No, the best thing was to turn off the heater, blow out the lamp, and go to bed as usual.

Only it wasn't usual. She had got out of the habit of saying her prayers at night. The God she had grown up fearing while trying to love didn't seem very real since she'd left Prairieville. In the dark, kneeling beside her cot, she prayed that night, but her asking that Way be all right and that she and Buddy would be safe till morning seemed to reach no higher than the Sheetrock ceiling and mockingly return.

The guitar leaned against the cot. She had the harmonica beneath her pillow. Holding it, she fixed her thoughts on Morrigan. If they met again, wouldn't he be pleased that she had a guitar? Maybe they could play together and he'd teach her some new songs.… She jumped at a groping touch on her ankle and gave a smothered gasp.

“Laurie?”

“Oh.” She went limp with relief, then fired up. “Good grief, Buddy, you almost scared me to death!”

“I
am
scared, Laurie! It—it's creepy without Way.”

She sat up and he let her put her arm around him. That proved he really was upset. “Gracious, Buddy,” she cajoled. “At home you slept by yourself in that little den on the back porch.”

He sniffed. “Yeah, but that was at home, and Mama and Daddy were there.”

She didn't have any answer to that, except to hug him. They sat on the cot a few minutes. She was the oldest. It was up to her to comfort him. And herself. “Buddy, I'll come tell you poems till you go to sleep.”

He sighed, snuffled, and trotted to the other room. Gathering her blankets around her, gripping the harmonica, Laurie followed. Propping Way's pillow upright against the wall, she delved into her memory. Kipling's “The Ballad of East and West,” Alfred Noyes's “The Highwayman,” Longfellow's “The Skeleton in Armor,” Stephen Vincent Benet's “The Ballad of William Sycamore,” and Vachel Lindsay's “The Chinese Nightingale.” How wonderful that these men, most of them dead, had made up poems that she could invoke now against fear in the night! And songs like Woody Guthrie's would be played and sung long after he and all of them now alive were gone. The songs and poems would always matter, not that a girl and boy were scared one night in a boomtown shack.

Calmed by the rhythmic words, by the time she was sure Buddy was asleep, she could scarcely hold her eyelids open. She padded to her cot, hugged the harmonica, and was asleep before she could start worrying about the sounds and creakings of the floor and walls.

It wasn't so bad after that. For a while before bedtime, she played the harmonica or chorded and crooned to the guitar. Then she sat on his bed and told Buddy stories or poems till he was drowsing. When Way came home Friday night, it was like Christmas all over again.

“We own a quarter of that truck over to Cross Trails,” he boasted, hugging them both and producing Tootsie Rolls for Buddy and a Butterfinger for Laurie. “Soon as we own the whole thing we can take off in style anytime we need to. Hope you kiddos can finish out the school term, though.”

Laurie did, too, and felt a pang at the prospect of leaving Catharine, Clem, Edna, and Marilys. Still, Sludge Town couldn't be a real home and she'd breathe easier when they were a long way from W. S. Redwine. Blessedly, he'd been away since Christmas, but that couldn't last.

Buddy, thrilled at owning part of a truck, had agreed to contribute half of the savings part of his half of the Redwine House money and Laurie's share that weekend came to twenty-eight dollars. Between them, they gave Way thirty dollars to apply on the truck when he left on Monday morning.

“Boy howdy!” he laughed exultantly. “We keep this up and we'll own that baby inside of six weeks! You kiddos take care of each other and I'll see you Friday night.”

This time it wasn't quite so hard to smile and wave as he left. They
had
gotten through last week. He
had
come safely home. It just took a little getting used to, that was all. But after school that day while Laurie was having her lesson with Marilys, Redwine came silently into the restaurant, sat down, and listened.

Uneasily conscious of his gaze, Laurie fumbled and made a lot of mistakes. Redwine came over to lean on the piano. “You must not be much of a teacher, Marilys. I better find someone else for Larry.”

“No!” Laurie took a deep breath and sent a message to her fingers.
Do what you know! Do it right!
She played an easy little exercise without a bobble, the harder one she'd been succeeding with until Redwine paralyzed her, and then dared the first real song Marilys had let her try, a simplified “Mexicali Rose.”

Redwine's yellow eyes moved from the woman to the girl he thought a boy, back again, with a faint smile. “Reckon you are a pretty good teacher after all, Marilys.” He brushed her shoulder with his furred hand as one might negligently pet a dog. “Come along with me for a minute, Larry. I want to show you something.”

Laurie tensed. Was he going to be like that jocker on the train? Buddy jumped up from his books. “Can I see, too?”

Redwine shrugged. “Sure, might as well.”

Exchanging relieved glances with Marilys, Laurie followed Redwine into the foyer and up the stairs with the ornate fluted, knobbed banister. They went down the carpeted hall, past heavy mahogany doors with brass numerals, to the very end. Redwine unlocked the last door and held it open.

It wasn't just a room—this must be what was called an apartment. A fire crackled cheerfully in the stone fireplace along one wall with big windows on either side. The dark green plush divan and easy chairs matched and the round low table in front of the divan held shiny new magazines and a box of chocolates. The rich jewel-toned rug was patterned in flowers and leafy tendrils. A piano gleamed in the corner, facing into the room so the light from a third window burnished the wood and streamed like glory on the keyboard and music rack. Through an arched door, Laurie saw twin beds with striped bedspreads and matching curtains at the window. Beyond a chest of drawers was a bathroom.

It was by far the most elegant abode Laurie had ever seen, though she would have expected Redwine to have a big bed and the landscapes on the walls weren't what she'd have thought suited his taste.

“Gee whiz!” Buddy gasped. He shouldn't say that. Mama said that
Gee
was short for Jesus and almost as bad as swearing. “This your place, Mr. Redwine?”

“No. My apartment's across the hall. This is for you boys during the week while your granddad's out of town.”

“Gee whiz!” Buddy's awed delight faded as he looked around more carefully. He caught Laurie's sleeve. “There's nowhere to sit down 'thout being scared of getting it dirty. And the rug's too nice to walk on.”

Laved in gold, the piano seemed to float in a magic cloud. The bedroom looked like a picture out of
Ladies' Home Journal
. They couldn't stay here, of course. It would make them beholden to Mr. Redwine. But this was a glimpse of a gracious way of living that made Laurie think with a kind of shame, and with shame at being ashamed, of the shack in Sludge Town. She didn't aspire to anything this luxurious but neither did she intend to spend her life in shacks, stopovers along the road, the long road of her life that vanished into unfathomable distance.

“Edna'll feed you in the kitchen,” Redwine said, turning. His heavy body exuded triumph. “I'll take you over to your house now so you can get your things.”

“No.”

“
What?
”

Laurie's blood chilled as he slowly looked around. “I mean, no, thank you,” she amended, her voice scratchy and tight in her throat.

They stared at each other. He seemed to swell, blocking the hall, but he was solid mass. He frightened her so that her knees actually knocked together. She had to constrict her muscles against a spurt of urine.

He sucked in air and thrust his hands behind him. “You crazy?”

“We've got a place.” She swallowed but her tongue still felt like a boll of cotton with seeds still in it.

“That shanty! It could burn down so fast you'd never get out.”

Laurie had her knees under control, though the urge to urinate made her fight the need to wriggle. “Well then,” she said hardily, meeting the yellow eyes, “since you own it maybe you ought to fix it up.”

“Your granddad would rest easier if he knew you weren't alone down there in Sludge Town.”

“Mrs. Harris keeps an eye on us. We can go over there anytime we want. Gramp wouldn't want us taking up a fancy place you can charge a lot of money for.”

“Leave your granddad to me.”

“Thanks, Mr. Redwine, but we've got to get home now. Mrs. Harris will be worried if we're late.”

Redwine's hand fell on her shoulder. The blunt fingers dug in but it was the sensation of being grasped, crushed, that panicked Laurie. Struggle was useless, would only challenge him. She stayed quiet, still as death, even her heartbeat slowing.

“Damned hardheaded kid! I bring you all the way from California, give your granddad work, fix it for you to have piano lessons, let you play in my restaurant, offer you the suite the governor stays in when he's out this direction, and you don't have the brains to appreciate it or act the least bit grateful!”

In spite of her marrow-deep distrust of him, Laurie felt guilty. “We—we do appreciate it, Mr. Redwine! But Gramp's painted real good signs for you and thought up slogans you'd have to pay a bunch for if you'd hired someone like whoever does the Burma-Shave jingles. And it was you who wanted “Buddy and me at Redwine House.” Laurie's chin came up. “I can pay Marilys for lessons. If you'd rather we went to playing at the Black Gold—”

“You'll play here! And Marilys already gets more than she's worth.” Redwine stepped over to the door across the hall. In the shadows, his eyes glowed like sulphurous fire. “All right, go to Sludge Town! Maybe that's where you belong.”

He went in his apartment and slammed the door. Laurie and Buddy looked at each other. Then they raced down the hall, down the steps, and into the kitchen where Clem looked up in surprise from a faucet he was fixing.

“You boys want a ride home?”

Laurie nodded. Edna hugged her. “Good for you, dear. I'd love to have you close, goodness knows, but you're a sight better off to be as independent of Dub as you can be.” Behind the steel-rimmed round spectacles, her gray eyes showed worry. “It must be that Dub kind of sees as you as the son he'd like to have.”

Clem spat into the waste can. “He had a son.”

“Had?” asked Laurie.

“Will was a nice kid—when he was sober. Dub picked at him all the time, cut him down every time he tried to do anything on his own. So Will drank and drove fast and reckless—guess it was the only way he had of getting away from Dub.”

Edna shuddered. “He lived through three wrecks. Fourth one, he was pinned under his new Lincoln.”

“It blew up,” finished Clem. “What was left of him was burned so bad they had the funeral with a closed coffin.”

“Just turned seventeen,” Edna mourned. “He had wavy yellow hair and the prettiest blue eyes. Good-hearted he was, too.”