The Longest Road (33 page)

“He wasn't!” Laurie whirled, spitting outrage, trying not to cry. “You hired him yourself!”

“Yes, and what did he do?” Redwine's words clubbed her. “Went back to the bottle. Even he knew he had no business keeping you kids with him. I'm your guardian now. That's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to you. So settle down and we'll get along just dandy.”

“Like you did with your son?” Laurie burst out.

Redwine's arm drew back. She cowered instinctively before she straightened and glared at him. He moved to the door. “I'm going out of town but when I get back, I'll talk to your teacher and the principal about how you're really a girl,” he said. “Marilys will take you shopping tomorrow for some dresses. Maybe she can figure out something to do with your hair till it grows out.”

“I can't be a girl here,” Laurie cried. The kids would tease her so unmercifully that maybe even Catharine would avoid her.

“The sooner you start, the better. Go on to bed.”

The door closed. The key turned in the lock. “Laurie!” Buddy whimpered. “What are we going to do?”

Things had happened so fast and Redwine had taken charge so firmly that Laurie hadn't thought beyond not breaking down in front of him. Now, gripping Buddy by the arms, she didn't have to think, the words rose out of her without a twinge of doubt.

“We're going to find Way.”

Buddy's eyes widened. “How?”

Laurie had no idea but now that she knew what to do, her mind started working. “We'll watch for signs that look like he made them. We'll ask after him in hobo jungles along the railroad. We'll just plain hunt for him till we find him—or he finds us.”

“He's not looking for us,” Buddy objected, pulling away. “He went off and left us, didn't he?”

That stabbed, but Laurie stoutly denied her own qualms. “He didn't want to go, Buddy. He left because he got drunk and thought he shouldn't be around us if he was liable to do that. He knew Mr. Redwine wanted us to stay with him and that Marilys and Edna and Clem would take care of us. But if Way knew we were out on the road by ourselves, you bet he'd come after us.”

“Yeah, maybe he would.”

“You know he would.”

“But how're we going to hunt for him if Mr. Redwine locks us up?”

“He can't lock us up all the time. We can take off on the way to school or afterwards.” She sighed. “I wish we could drive that truck over at Cross Trails or at least get some of our money back but no owner's going to deal with kids. Maybe like Way said, Clem or Marilys can get some kind of refund. It's too bad he didn't have enough money to pay the Chevy off and travel in it.”

“That would've been taking our money!”

“Not if you figure our share of rent and groceries. Anyhow, Buddy, it just makes me sick that he paid in that much and lost it.”

“Well, he shouldn't have got drunk!” Buddy rubbed angrily at his eyes. “Why'd he go and do that?”

“I don't know,” Laurie admitted. “It must have been something awful because you know he never drank all the time we knew him.”

She stared at their bundles. More than they could carry, and she wouldn't leave her guitar—or Way's hat, either. She was going to find him and put it on his head. They only had five dollars and a little change. Maybe they should wait till after they'd gotten more money that Friday and Saturday nights or until Clem or Marilys could get some of the truck money back. But every day would carry Way farther, make it harder to pick up his tracks.

“Are we going to run off tomorrow?” Buddy asked. He didn't sound eager. Laurie remembered the train, the jocker, the railroad police, the awful, filthy camp outside Eden, and shrank from striking out again, especially without Way. Whatever would have happened to them if he hadn't made them his business? Should they hitch rides or stow aboard trains or what?

She'd have to decide for them both. What if she made the wrong decisions? What if Buddy got killed or hurt because she hauled him away from this nice apartment where Clem and Edna and Marilys would look out for them?

“Buddy.” She wet her lips and gulped. “Maybe you ought to stay here. You could probably live at Harrises and I'd send money for your keep.”

“No!” He dived for her and held on as if she might disappear and began to sob. “Mama died. Daddy went away and then he died. Way's gone. If—if you go anyplace, Laurie, I'm going, too!”

She kissed his wet cheek and hugged him. “All right, honey. All right, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die, I won't leave without you. Let's say a prayer that Way's safe and then we'd better get to bed.”

Buddy regarded her skeptically. “Does it do any good to pray?”

“I don't know.” Laurie's feelings about God had always been more fear than anything till Mama's dying. Since then, anger usually smothered the fear except when guilt for the anger roiled her emotions into an unidentifiable mixture. “I don't know if God can hear, or if he cares if he does. But when I pray, I feel closer to Mama, like
she
hears, and that makes me feel better.”

Buddy snuffled. “I don't feel like anybody hears me.”

“Well, let's pray together.”

“Out loud?”

“Sure. Then
I'll
hear you anyway.” She grinned, hoping to make him laugh, but he watched her so solemnly that, stricken, she took his hand and squeezed it as she knelt by their heaped belongings. He came down beside her.

“Dear Lord,” she pleaded, “Take care of Way. Help him not to get drunk. Don't let him get run over or fall under a train or get beaten up by railroad bulls. Please, help him get work and shave and change his clothes so he'll keep his self-respect and won't be a tramp. Let him know we love him, and help us find him. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.” She prayed more to Jesus than to God because he was human once and surely understood better, so it seemed peculiar to make her request in his name, but if he could hear her, she was sure he could figure it out. “Now, Buddy, you say your prayer.”

“Uh—Our Father who art in heaven—”

Laurie poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “Buddy, the Lord's Prayer is fine but it doesn't say anything about Way.”

“Mmmhm.” Buddy was silent a long moment. Then he blurted, “I want the same things as Laurie. Amen.”

He jumped up. So did Laurie. “Buddy Field, that's lazy! It's—it's like putting ditto marks instead of spelling out a word. What if—”

A metallic click came from the bedroom door. They spun toward it. “Larry? Buddy?” came a voice, barely audible, from the other side. Barely audible, but it was Marilys!

Laurie ran to open the door and Marilys stepped in from the next room. Bending, she scooped them both into her arms. “Edna told me about—about Way.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “You can bet Dub's behind that!”

Laurie dug the crumpled note from her pocket. “Way says he got drunk.”

“Men do it every night. It's not the end of the world.”

“Way says he can't just take one drink and stop. All the time we knew him, he never had a drop.”

“There's some reason why he did.” Marilys's mouth twisted. “Somehow, Dub set up the whole thing. He's mighty good at setting traps.”

“Way didn't write to you?”

She shook her head and then, even in the yellowish electric light, she went pale and flinched. Straightening, she turned away. “That's what Dub did!” she whispered. “That lowlife bas—I'm sorry, kids—Dub told Way about me.”

“About you?” Laurie puzzled.

Marilys colored. “I've done some things I'm not proud of. I—I've tried to tell Way but he always stopped me—said it didn't matter.” Her head drooped like a flower on a broken stalk. “I guess it did. And Dub could have made it worse than it was—which was bad enough.”

That sounded like one of the grown-ups' mysteries about which Laurie wondered but didn't really want to know.

“I expect Way thinks he's not good enough for you since he got drunk,” Laurie comforted, tentatively laying her hand on Marilys's arm. “Anyhow, we're going to find him.”

“How? Do you have an idea of where he's gone?”

“No. But we'll watch for his signs and hunt in the hobo camps. If we don't find him, he'll find us.”

“I'll go with you.”

“Marilys, you can't!”

“I can if you can.”

“But you're a lady, a pretty one! You can't flip freights and hitch rides!”

“You've passed for a boy, Larry—I guess it's Laurie now. Maybe I can.”

Laurie glanced from Marilys's delicate features to her bosom. “I don't think so.” A sudden hope filled her. “Say, can you drive a truck?”

“Papa got me a Chrysler sedan for my sixteenth birthday,” Marilys said. “I like to drive, in fact I used to wrestle those old trucks of Dub's around the dirt roads when he got tired of driving.” Her thoughts jumped to connect with Laurie's. “Way said in his note that maybe Clem or I could get your money back on that truck at Cross Trails. How much do you still owe?”

“Ninety-one dollars.” That was an awful lot, though looking at it another way, the ninety-nine dollars they'd paid on it was even more.

“I can pay it out and have a little money left for gas,” Marilys said after a moment's silent calculations. “We ought to be able to play and sing enough to pay our way. But we'll have to be careful and keep moving, probably keep trading vehicles. Dub'll have the law and highway patrol watching out for us.”

“We haven't done anything wrong!”

Marilys shrugged. “You're runaways and he'd accuse me of kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping!”

The word sent a shiver through Laurie. Three years ago, Colonel Lindbergh's baby had been kidnapped, held for ransom, and found buried a few months later only five miles away, probably killed the night he was stolen from his bed. Bruno Richard Hauptmann had passed some of the ransom bills in 1934. He swore he was innocent but if he was convicted, he'd probably die in the electric chair. After the Lindberghs' agony, kidnappers were hated and feared worse than murderers and Congress passed a law that gave the death penalty to kidnappers who took their victims across a state line.

Laurie caught Marilys's hands. “That's too dangerous for you, Marilys!”

“Dub has to catch me first,” Marilys said with a wry chuckle. “If he does, I expect we could do some fancy bargaining. I know things that could get him into big trouble.” Her blue eyes darkened. “We'll find Way. That's the main thing. And then if he doesn't want me around, I'll just keep going.”

“But—”

Marilys raised her hand. “Don't worry, honey. However that works out, I'll be glad something gave me the guts to leave Dub.”

Laurie stood on tiptoe to kiss Marilys and give her a warm hug. “I know—I just plain know—that if we can talk to Way, he'll see we all belong together no matter what anybody's done! Are—are we going tonight?”

Brow puckering, Marilys thought a moment, then shook her head. “Dub has to go to Oklahoma City tomorrow on business. He's buying an oil company if he can do it cheap enough. If he can't, he'll go on like he is, staking independent drillers as cheap as he can and claiming a hog's share of any oil they hit. Dub won't risk big money, that's why he'll never be a millionaire. It's also why he's not broke. Anyhow, with luck, he'll be gone all week.” Marilys grinned. “Clem and Edna just won't be able to track him down when they call to tell him you've disappeared.”

“Won't he be mad at them?”

“He'll be mad at everybody, but for their own good, we won't tell Clem and Edna what we're doing. I'll leave them a note so they won't worry but the less they know, the better they can stand Dub off.”

“I—I don't have to leave my guitar, do I?” Laurie would almost as soon leave an arm or a leg.

“I've got a friend who can pick me up here in the afternoon when Edna takes her nap and Clem's at the pool hall. We'll bring all your things and come by school for you just as it's letting out. With luck, we'll pay for the truck and be out of Cross Trails before dark.” Marilys's words quickened as she planned, and her eyes glowed twilight blue. “I'll bring bedding so we can sleep in the truck. We'll have to buy a tarp to go over the back. In case Dub finds out about the Chevy, we'd better trade it the first good chance we get, but I hope we're a long way off by the time he gets back from Oklahoma.”

“I hope we'll have found Way.”

Again, Marilys gathered them close. “So do I, kids. So do I.”

Twenty-four hours later, they were cuddled in the back of
their
Chevy truck, parked off a dirt road several miles from the blacktop. The seller, Bart Rogers, a chunky, bow-legged cowboy who'd turned to roughnecking, was so taken by Marilys that he threw in two spare tires, a jack, some tools, and an oil-splashed but serviceable tarp with grommets. He even lashed it over the high board sides of the back of the pickup. Way had told him about his kid partners who were putting most of the money in the truck and Way had even phoned that day to ask Bart if he'd return the children's money.

“Didn't ask for his own,” Bart said, as he took Marilys's five twenties and gave her back a dollar. “But this works out better for all of us, ma'am, and I'm tellin' you this is a mighty good truck for the money. I just kind of hankered for a new one. Bein' a bachelor, and not bein' a hand for booze or cards, I don't spend much.” He watched Marilys shyly but couldn't keep pride from his voice. “Payin' cash for a brand new Studebaker. Sure couldn't do that if I was still cowboyin'.”

“You have done well,” Marilys praised, but when he asked if he could buy them supper, she'd smiled, shaken his hand, thanked him for everything, and said they had to be on their way.