The Road to Grace (The Walk) (24 page)

“And as far as the world being
fair
or
good,
the question that baffles me most isn’t why bad things happen. In a world like this, I would expect that. What I can’t comprehend is why good things happen. Why is there love? Why is there beauty? Why did I love my wife so much? And why did she love me? That’s what baffles me. That’s what I can’t explain.”

Israel didn’t say anything but continued walking with his head down. After a minute he suddenly stopped walking. “I’ve bothered you long enough.”

I stopped as well. “No bother,” I said. “But it was nice talking with you. Travel safe. And good luck with your book. If I ever see it in a store, I’ll buy a copy or two.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I hope you make it to Key West.” He shook my hand, then shrugged his pack from his shoulders and sat down on the side of the road with his sign. I just kept on walking.

After Marceline, the towns seemed to change, becoming more Southern. Missouri was always split like that. Even during the Civil War, they weren’t sure which side of the conflict they were on.

By the end of the third day from Marceline I entered Monroe City, a quaint town, like Sidney. The houses were
well kept with large porches and beautiful yards. It was also the site of the first Civil War battle in northeast Missouri. I learned this from a brochure I picked up at the town’s visitors center.

From what I read, the battle was an entertaining affair and the whole of the Monroe citizenry came out in buggies and wagons to picnic and watch the ruckus, which turned out to be a lot more bluster than blood.

The conflict started when a group of Confederate sympathizers gathered in Monroe and Federal troops, led by Colonel Smith, were sent in to break them up. The area was a hotbed of secessionists and Colonel Smith and his men were soon outnumbered and forced to take refuge in a building called the Seminary.

While the pro-secessionist troops surrounded the building, their leader, the Honorable Thomas A. Harris—known to love a good audience—began making a speech to the gathered crowd, who didn’t want words, but action.

Harris declared that without a cannon the best thing to do would be retreat and he dismissed his men. His troops declined his offer, and when their cannon arrived the battle resumed. The cannon was a nine-pounder, but the soldiers only had a few nine-pound balls, which they used up with great inefficiency. They then filled their cannon with six-pound balls, which fired so erratically that it dispersed both picnickers
and
Confederate soldiers who said they didn’t like being fired on by their own side. By the end of the attack, the pro-South soldiers claimed that the only safe place to be was in front of the cannon.

Federal reinforcements soon arrived to aid Colonel Smith and with one blast of grapeshot from the Union cannon, the secessionists retreated, hiding in buggies and wagons and mingling with the picnickers.

In the meantime, wild rumors of the battle spread and a day after the conflict had ended, Colonel Ulysses S. Grant arrived on the scene with more than two thousand troops. Learning the battle was over, he moved on to Mexico. Thus ended the battle of Monroe.

I passed the Rainbow Motel with a sign outside that read, “Look inside, then decide.” I looked inside. I felt as if I’d stepped back into the fifties. An old Pepsi vending machine stood next to the office door and a poster of the Ten Commandments.

I booked a room for the night. The next day I reached Hannibal.

Aside from Disneyland, historic Hannibal was about as magical a town as I could hope to walk through—a storybook hamlet still blessed by its patron saint Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.

Twain once wrote of his beloved hometown:

After all these years I can picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer’s morning; the streets empty, or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the wall … the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun…
.

Walking into Hannibal it is possible to still imagine it as Twain saw it. The city is picturesque, with carefully preserved historic architecture, its eastern panorama framed by the “magnificent” river. It was the kind of place I desperately wanted to share with McKale and wondered why I hadn’t.

I checked into the Best Western Plus On the River, which wasn’t really
on the river
, although, as a former adman, I could see how they could fudge this—since in 1993 the Mississippi overflowed its banks and flooded the town. So one could claim, in good conscience, that the hotel was, at the time, on the river. Or, more accurately,
in
it.

As the clerk handed me my room key she proudly said, “You might be interested to know that we just got a new treadmill in our exercise room. In case you feel the inclination to walk.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Good to know.”

I ate dinner across the street at a small, shoebox-shaped diner, Hannibal fried chicken with biscuits and sawmill gravy, then returned to the hotel to soak in the hot tub. I read a little of my Jesse James book, then retired early.

Being in Hannibal lifted my spirits, and, perhaps for the first time since I left Seattle, I felt more like a tourist than a man on a pilgrimage. The next morning I went for a walk around the town, stopping for breakfast and coffee at the Java Jive on Main Street. My waitress was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. I guessed her to be in her early to mid twenties, but she was dressed in retro clothing: a formfitting striped dress with a red beret and sash and high-heeled shoes. She reminded me of one of those girls that B-52 bomber squads painted on the noses of their flying coffins.

The pastry and coffee were good and I leisurely drank my coffee, the tourist traffic outside as meandering as the river the town parallels. It was a pleasure to watch others walk for a change.

I hadn’t planned on spending the day in Hannibal, but an hour into the morning I knew I would. After finishing my second coffee I walked north to see Twain’s home.

The Mark Twain historic complex was well preserved with cobblestone streets closed off to automobile traffic. Among the buildings still standing are Twain’s boyhood home, complete with the white fence Tom Sawyer hoodwinked the neighbor boys into painting, and the reconstructed home of Tom Blankenship—the boy
Huckleberry Finn
was based on. Twain wrote of his friend Tom:

His liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the only really independent person—boy or man—in the community, and by consequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy, and was envied by all the rest of us. We liked him; we enjoyed his society. And as his society was forbidden us by our parents, the prohibition trebled and quadrupled its value, and therefore we sought and got more of his society than of any other boy’s
.

There was also Twain’s father’s justice of the peace office and the home of Laura Hawkins, the neighbor girl on whom Twain had based the character Becky Thatcher. In this, the author and I shared common ground—both of our lives were forever changed by the girl next door.

After touring the homes, I walked south along the bank of the Mississippi until I came to the loading plank of the
Mark Twain
riverboat. I paid fifteen dollars for a one-hour cruise and boarded the craft.

The boat didn’t cover much ground, or water, just paddling up the river a spell then back down, but the ride was as pleasant and smooth as a southern drawl.

Steve, the riverboat captain, was a jovial host and as we pulled away from the dock, he sang out over the boat’s PA system an obligatory “Maaaark Twaaaaaaain,” reassuring us that the water was two fathoms deep, which to the riverboat pilot meant safe water. Safe water. It is still a comforting reassurance to us today.

I climbed up to the boat’s wheelhouse and asked Captain Steve something I’d always wondered: why were the top of the boat’s smokestacks fluted?

“Mostly tradition,” he replied. “But back in Twain’s day the flutes helped keep the embers from the boat’s furnace from falling on the passengers’ heads.”

Satisfied with the answer I went back to the ship’s bow and drank a Coke.

On our return to shore, the captain blew the boat’s powerful steam whistle thrice before sidling up to the dock. I thanked Captain Steve and disembarked, then walked to Main Street, ate lunch at Ole Planters Restaurant, then wandered back to my hotel, perusing store windows on the way.

Two blocks from my hotel I passed an office with a sign in the window that read:

Haunted Hannibal Ghost Tours

I went inside to check it out. No one was inside, but there was a sign-up list for the evening’s tour. I added my name to the list.

Just about everything in Hannibal is haunted, and everyone in town had a ghost story they were eager to share. The first ghost story I heard was shared that morning by my waitress over breakfast. The renter in an apartment next to the Java Jive kept complaining about the creepy organ music that woke him every night at 3
A.M.
He refused to believe that the coffeehouse management was not to blame even though the coffeehouse didn’t own an organ and closed at midnight.

Even the public library had stories of a fastidious apparition who, after closing hours, threw books on the floor that had been incorrectly reshelved.

After a nap at the hotel, I woke feeling a little dizzy again, but it soon passed. I ate dinner at the same diner I had the night before, then walked two blocks to the shop where I’d signed up for the ghost tour.

A long, gray passenger van was idling in front of the office
and a small congregation on the sidewalk. I walked inside the office. A tall, pleasant-looking woman with long, dishwater blond hair stood next to the counter holding a clipboard.

“I’m here for the ghost tour,” I said.

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” she said, wagging a pen in front of me. “You must be Mr. Christoffersen.”