The Longest Road (57 page)

Authors: Jeanne Williams

“I'm not dying. Neither are you. Somehow, we'll make it through the year.” Somehow, though she couldn't imagine a year of this.

Way's eyes flickered. “You bet we will! Now let's climb back inside that sucker before Dub comes toolin' back.” He paused. “But you got to promise me this, Laurie. If I fall, if my head goes under the crud, don't try to help me. Once that stuff's in your mouth and nose, you're done for. Tank-cleaning contractors tell their boys thatâif your buddy goes down, keep away. You can't save him and you'll just get drowned yourself.”

“If I go down, will you leave me alone?”

“Now, Laurieâ”

“Neither of us is going down,” she said, and climbed through the hatch.

Men made their living this way, day in, day out, but Laurie couldn't understand how. It must be you got used to the fumes after a while. “Don't try to stay inside if you start feelin' dizzy,” Way cautioned. “I've cleaned tanks where there was so much poison in the settlings that a man couldn't work for more than three or four minutes without comin' outside to breathe.”

“Makes you appreciate good air,” Laurie said. Her head throbbed and her insides twisted though she'd gone out of the tank five times in what, from the position of the sun, might have been an hour, though it seemed interminable.

Way, thank goodness, wasn't coughing so much, though she could hear his ragged breathing and feared that any moment it could tighten into that constricted laboring wheeze. Her neck and shoulders ached from scraping. The stuff was like solid tar. There was usually a certain amount of water in oil and it often contained particles of sand and clay. Under pressure, water emulsified with oil to form a mixture that was neither one. This emulsion, free water, and fine-ground minerals sank to the bottom of the storage tanks. Whatever you made the initials BS stand for, bottom settlings, basic sludge, or basic sediment, it was nasty stuff. Not all of it went to the bottom. Some flowed into the pipeline and it was usual for purchasers, before they paid for the oil, to deduct from 1 to 2 percent for BS and W, Basic Sediment and Water.

Way's coughing erupted. He doubled over, wracked by spasms. That frightful wheezing increased as he fought for air. “Get out of here!” Laurie called. “Way! Get to the hatch right now!”

Between fits, weaving, he made his way toward the opening. Struggling as he was for breath, the effect of the noxious fumes must have been multiplied. Laurie started toward him.

“Keepâkeep away!” he choked, staggering.

Drenched with cold sweat, Laurie watched his lurching progress. If she tried to get close, it could upset him enough to make him fall; but if he started to go down, she'd reach for him, hang on to the rake dug into the muck, and try to drag him to the hatch.

It wasn't far. A few more steps and he could lean there, catch his breath.â¦

Redwine blocked the opening. “How's the air in there, Wayburn? From the looks of what you've shoveled out, you've been loafing outside more'n you've been working. Call that fair, good as I've been to you?”

“Get out of his way!” yelled Laurie. “Can't you see he's in trouble?”

Redwine leaned in, blinked, and stared. His bulk in the hatch made the tank even darker. She could scarcely see his face. He seemed to speak from a vast dark hulk that shut her off from air and light.

“Larry-Laurie! What in hellâ” Shock changed to fury. “By God, are you in there with that lousy old bastard, that wino scrounger, thatâ”

“Get out of the way! Let him breathe!”

“You'd rather clean tanks with him than come with me!” raged Redwine. “You and that goddam Marilys! Well, you're not goin' to have a year, you sleazy tramp!” Redwine reared back and stuck a leg through the hatch. “I'm goin' to put you where you belong, you miserable, sniveling, whining son-of-a-bitch!”

Redwine heaved over the rim. One step brought him almost to Way, who was desperately trying to straighten up, to ward off Redwine's doubled fist.

Laurie brought up the rake. Instinctively bracing her feet, she pushed the rake against Redwine. Already off balance from his maddened haste, the thrust sent him skidding. He threw up his arms but there was nothing to catch. His feet went out from under him and he fell, head disappearing beneath the sludge.

The muck sucked and moved sluggishly from his struggles. Laurie took a step forward but Way shouted, “Leave him alone! Even if we got him out, there's no way to clear his mouth and nose before he suffocates. Get outside, honey!”

“You go first.”

Coughing, gasping, Way lurched to the hole, leaned on the rim. He didn't look behind him. Neither did Laurie. The sounds stopped.

Awful, awful â¦ When they managed to drag themselves outside, they lay on the ground a long time shaking, sick. But even in the horror, Laurie began to feel relief. Redwine couldn't hurt them now, not ever again! At last they dragged to their feet, got to their truck, and went down to the refinery office to tell what had happened.

Laurie trembled and leaned back against the seat for a while before she could drive them home. Way was still in the grip of his asthma attack, though it was easing.

“Yeah, honey.” He touched her hand. They were both going to have a hard time getting clean, not only of the sludge, but the horror of Redwine going down.

“IâI guess I really killed him.”

“He killed himself.” Way's voice was grim. “If he'd got in range, I sure meant to take him with me.”

The sun had never looked so bright, the sky so blue, the scattered cottonwoods so green. As they drove home, wind carried off much of the permeating stench, filled their lungs. How good it was to breathe! How good to be alive!

If only Johnnyâ

A few days later, Mrs. Marriott handed Laurie the phone. “Hello?” she said absently. Her mind was still on that afternoon in the tank. After questioning her and Way and the tank-cleaning crew that had seen Redwine climb through the hatch, the sheriff had called her use of the rake plain self-defense.

“Ain't nobody goin' to mourn after Dub Redwine,” he said. “A wonder you got out alive, but I'm glad you did. If anyone deserved to drown in BS, it was him!”

The male voice coming over the phone startled her out of her preoccupation. “Laurie? Is that you, honey?”

That voice! She had never hoped to hear it again. Her ears were playing tricks. But she cried out anyway, “Johnny! Oh, Johnny, is it really you?”

“You bet it is.”

“Youâyou're alive!”

He laughed and explained as she gripped the phone, still terrified that her wishes were tricking her, that she was imagining all this. He had crawled out of a swamp more dead than alive, badly wounded and with no identification. He was unconscious or delirious for weeks on the hospital ship and when he did begin to get better, it was a while before his memory returned. It came back as he was holding the New Testament, puzzling about who had given it to him, and Laurie's face rose up.

“Guess that's not too surprising.” He laughed. It was the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard. “Honey, there's a line of guys waiting for this phone. I can't talk much longer. But I want you to know it was your face I saw before a battle, your face came to me when I thought of home. And it was your voice that sang to me while I was getting well.”

The war was over for him. An explosion had deafened him in one ear and medics had dug out a lot of shrapnel, though bits were still lodged near his spine.

But he was alive, in San Francisco, and he was coming home!

Jim, Vance Morrow, Marilys, Way, and Laurie were all at the depot to watch his train pull in. They crowded forward, the others keeping Laurie in front, as the train appeared, whistled, started grinding to a halt.

Johnny, in his uniform, was the first person off. The other passengers must have held back to let him pass. He stood there, pale, thinner, but blessedly Johnny. Laurie couldn't move. She stood rooted to the spot. And then he called her name.

As if in a dream, she moved toward him. Would he kiss her like a friend, like a little sister? Then she was in his arms, finding her love, her home at the end of a long, long road. His mouth, hard and sweet on hers, told her all she needed to know.

People were shouting, cheering, and clapping. Laurie moved away so Johnny could kiss Marilys and shake hands with Jim and Way and Vance. When the greetings were over and his duffel bag was in the truck, Johnny said to Way, “It's so good to feel this ground under my feet again. Do you mind if we walk home?”

“Go right ahead,” Way chuckled.

“There's so much to say,” said Johnny as he took Laurie's arm. His eyes searched hers. “So much to ask. I don't know where to start.”

“We've got time.”

Time to tell him about Redwine's death and whatever he needed to know about his partner's deceit and Crystal. Time to tell him his old farm was a producing oil field.

Time to share, to laugh and love and work and sing. She stopped in the street and kissed him. Time and the world were theirs now; with Johnny, no road could be too long.

About the Author

Born on the High Plains near the tracks of the Santa Fe Trail, Jeanne Williams's first memories are of dust storms, tumbleweeds, and cowboy songs. Her debut novel,
Tame the Wild Stallion
, was published in 1957. Since then, Williams has published sixty-eight more books, most with the theme of losing one's home and identity and beginning again with nothing but courage and hope, as in the Spur Awardâwinning
The Valiant Women
(1980). She was recently inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won four Western Writers of America Spur Awards and the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award. For over thirty years, Williams has lived in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3632-0

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

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