Mr. Shivers

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They awoke in the morning cold and hungry. They walked north and west, roughly in the direction they thought the train was headed. Roosevelt said the track curved west after a ways, but he did not know when. They trekked across dry brown fields and far, far to the west they saw the hint of mountains, mere bumps underneath the wide sky. Clouds seemed farther away than normal and sunlight fell in streaks and shafts, like rain.

“Big country,” said Monk, and they agreed.

They came to a fence and realized they were on someone’s land but saw no sign of livestock or owner. They climbed it and headed north and came to a road headed west and took up upon it. They saw no other travelers, no cars nor trucks. This path appeared to be one unused by the flood of migrants searching for better lives. It was an empty place and they passed through it silently, as its greatness seemed to eat words before they were even spoken.

Toward midday they saw cars pulled off the side of the road, big heaps of jalopies parked in a circle in a field. Pike slowed to a stop and Connelly and the others followed suit. Pike looked the cars over slowly, his bright, cold eyes watching each flicker of movement. Then he made a motion and they continued forward.

As they neared the vehicles they were spotted by a small dirty child sitting by the road. He got to his feet and stared at them. Then he ran back to the trucks. Four men came out and behind them five women. They watched Connelly and the others approach, their faces blank, their eyes thin.

Hammond came forward, smiling. “Good day!” he said.

One of the men nodded. “ ’Day,” he said.

“Sorry to be so forward, but you folks wouldn’t have any food you’d be willing to trade, would you?”

The man examined them. “You boys ’bos?”

“I suppose you could say that, sir.”

“Looks like you folks been on the losing side of a few beatings.”

“That’s so. We were trying to get up into Colorado. Headed west, like everyone else. We got tossed and robbed something fierce. Beat the hell out of a few of us.”

“What line was it?” said another man.

Hammond told him.

“All the lines have gotten tougher,” said the man. “My nephew tried to ride down to the city. He got tossed and they whupped the tar out of him.”

“Sounds familiar,” said Hammond with a smile.

The first man sighed, pushed his hat back, and scratched his rangy red hair. “You folks wouldn’t happen to know much about cars, would you?”

They looked at one another. Connelly said, “I know a little.”

“Do you?”

He nodded.

“Well… We got one of these cars broke down,” said the man. “Damn bastard sold us a lemon—”

“Clark,” hissed one of the women in reprimand.

“Sorry. My apologies,” said the man, “but I just knew he was doing it by how he smiled at us. I knew this thing would break down soon enough on the road. But we did it anyways. If you could get us back on the road, sir, well, we’d help you folks in any way we can.”

“I could take a look, I suppose,” said Connelly. “Which one is it?”

“That one yonder,” said the man. He and Connelly started walking over to it. The man stuck his hand out. “Clark. Clark Hopkins. My wife back there is Missy.”

They shook.

“Connelly.”

The truck was hardly a truck anymore. Its bedding was made of slats of wood, with everything hanging from it that could hang—mattresses, lanterns, bags of produce, bits of string and wire, rope, and jugs of water. As Connelly walked to it the rest of the family emerged from the back of the cars. Three boys and a girl, all barely past toddlers, a young man almost a teen, and a girl younger than Hammond, he supposed, about twenty. He felt nervy with them watching him.

“Damn, I hate cars,” said Clark, and glanced around to make sure his profanity had gone unnoticed. “Never used one before. I didn’t know what I was doing. The others, my brother and my brothers-in-law, they know how to drive, but how its guts work, that’s beyond us. I prefer mules, I got to say. You know how a mule works, what goes in, what comes out. Cars, well. That’s a different story.”

“Mighty young family to be traveling with,” said Connelly.

“Don’t I know it.”

Connelly took off his coat and hat and rolled up his sleeves. His arm still twinged but at least it worked. “What happened?” he asked.

“Thing was going fine before. We cut off the main road, thought we’d take a direct road into New Mexico. We pulled off for the night and in the morning we couldn’t get her started again.”

Connelly wiped at his forehead and squatted to look below. Clark joined him, then the children did, then Pike and the rest joined him as well.

Connelly glanced at them, uncomfortable. “I’m going to need a little light,” he said.

“Oh,” said Clark. “Oh, sure.”

The family shuffled backwards. Pike motioned and led his followers away to the side of the road. Connelly looked at the car and thought.

“Can you start her up?” he asked.

Clark’s brother climbed in the cab and tried. Connelly listened to it turn over but never catch, nodded to himself, and popped the hood and lifted it up. He looked in, then made a circle in the air with his finger, signaling to try again. The engine wheezed and clicked and clanked but never caught. He reached in and began sorting through it, not pulling but touching carefully, remembering which parts of the engine did what, like greeting old friends at a party. He was examining the carburetor when he noticed a small mop of brown hair peeking over the side, and below it two brown eyes looking into the hood with him. The eyes moved down and darted about the workings of the car like their owner was trying to sort out enemies. The looker noticed Connelly watching him, blinked, and stood up. It was a boy, small and gap-toothed, but he had been fed better than most boys Connelly had seen. They stared at each other and the boy said, “Is it sick?”

“It’s a car. Cars don’t get sick.”

“What do they get?”

“They get broke.”

“You going to fix it, then?”

“Going to try,” said Connelly.

The boy nodded gravely, then pointed at part of the car. “What’s that?”

“That’s the rotor,” said Connelly calmly, not dismissive, not irritated. Just treating the question like it had come from anyone.

The boy nodded again. Connelly returned to the car.

“And that?” said the boy, pointing at another part.

“That’s the spark plug,” said Connelly.

“Is that the problem?”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“What is the problem?”

“I’m not sure yet.” He glanced at the boy, then made another circle with his finger. The engine groaned and grunted as it tried to move and the boy jumped back, startled by the noise. Connelly’s hand shot out and grabbed on to the boy’s arm to stop him from falling. He was still breathing fast as Connelly eased him back onto the bumper of the car.

“Watch out,” said Connelly. “It won’t bite, but don’t hurt yourself.”

“For Chrissakes, Frankie, get down from there and let the man work,” said Clark from behind.

“It’s all right,” Connelly said. “I don’t mind.”

The boy nodded at him gratefully and Connelly went back to work as though nothing had happened.

Connelly reached in and touched two slender wires. He looked at them, then carefully brought them together. There was a spark. He nodded and placed them back together and then made the motion with his finger again.

Clark’s brother hit the ignition. Again there were the clicks and grunts as the engine sought the connection, but then it caught, rolled over, and with an unhappy grumble began to run again.

There was an eruption of cheers from behind him so loud Connelly swung around in surprise.

“Hot damn, you did it!” shouted Clark. He ignored the slap his wife gave his shoulder. “How’d you do it?”

“It’s the condenser,” said Connelly quietly, and waved Clark up. He pointed at the wires he had connected. “The points had come loose. It happens all the time with these older models. Usually I’d say you just need to have the condenser replaced, but you should be good until you can get to the next auto shop. If it happens again, check there first.”

“We’re lucky it was nothing serious,” said the little boy solemnly.

Connelly looked at him, amused. “Yeah. Yes, we are.”

“Well, you just saved the day for us,” said Clark.

“It was nothing. Just a few stray wires.”

“Oh, be quiet,” said Missy. “Come on down here. Lunchtime’s coming on and you and your friends look hungry as wolves. When’s the last time you ate?”

Connelly hesitated and glanced sideways at Pike and the others, who were getting to their feet. “A while,” he admitted. “A long while.”

“Well, we’ve got salted pork and nice rolls we can cook up for all of you.”

“There’s a lot of us,” said Connelly.

“That don’t mean nothing,” she said, grabbing his arm and steering him toward their makeshift shelter. “There’s a lot of us, too. There’s a lot of everybody. If you hadn’t come along at the right time we’d have been stuck here for… Oh, well, I shudder to think. I shudder, I really do.”

“God looks after His own,” said Pike as he approached.

She smiled at him. “If that’s not the truth, I’ve never heard it. Are you a man of the cloth?”

“Once,” said Pike. “Now I’m just a man.”

“Well, anyone who’s done the Lord’s work is a welcome guest at our table.” She frowned. “Even if we don’t have a table.”

“Ma’am, we haven’t even seen a bed in weeks,” said Roosevelt. “We’d be awful picky to turn you down just because there’s no dinner table on one of your trucks.”

“These times,” said one of the other women, fussing over them. “Oh, these times. I seen little boys with arms like sticks. We’re lucky to be doing as good as we are.”

They sat them down among the entire family and began their preparations for cooking. Connelly and the others could tell the family didn’t have much and so did their best to refuse what they could, but they were ravenous and soon accepted.

“Where you boys heading?” asked one of Clark’s brothers.

“West,” said Hammond. “South and west. To wherever we can find work.”

They accepted that. It was a common story among everyone.

Connelly turned to survey Clark’s cars again. “I could look those over for you,” he said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I bet there’s a few, well…”

“Problems,” Clark finished. “Because the man who sold them to us was a snake.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I would appreciate that. I really would. And we’d be happy to help you folks out.”

Connelly smiled a little. “Getting tossed from a train isn’t exactly fun.”

“We’ll do whatever you need in return,” said Pike. “Any help you need, you let us know.”

“Well, sir. I suppose all we want is just the chance to keep moving,” said Clark. “That’s enough for me.”

The Hopkinses’ convoy was in worse shape than they had imagined. Connelly spent the next day checking whatever came to his mind. He managed to scrounge up a crescent wrench and went to it before the sun came up. Cleaning fuel lines. Teasing radiator lines back into place. On one wheel the bearings were run down to the point of dissolving, mere days away from smoking and catching fire. Connelly used a jack and managed to remove the wheel and scrape away what was left of the bearing. He took a piece of rind from the pork barrel and cleaned it of salt. Then he wrapped it around the spindle and replaced the wheel. He told Clark this would not last for more than a hundred miles or so. Clark and the other men listened. They listened to every quiet word Connelly said like it was the word of Christ himself. And Clark’s son Frankie refused to leave, having assumed the role of Connelly’s tagalong. He stood beside Connelly whenever he could, like a lieutenant standing beside his general, looking out on a battlefield.

It was not long before Lottie joined the women in looking after the children. They cleaned and cooked and spoke, made sure the loads in all the cars were even, and spent time mending clothing and tending to wounds. For every second they were awake there seemed to be four more things to fix.

Pike and Hammond did not fit in well. Sometimes they came forward to help Connelly and the others but mostly they stayed at the outskirts, conversing in tones too low to hear. Roonie stayed with them, as he proved too nervous and uncoordinated and his help was more of a hindrance. Connelly, for once, was the center of all the attention. Monk and Roosevelt joined the Hopkinses and Connelly quietly gave them all direction, taking apart this and putting together that. Rubbing bar soap over holes in the fuel tanks caused by gravel from the road. One car burned oil and if Connelly had not gotten to it the engine would have been lost. Whoever had pawned the heaving wrecks off on the Hopkinses had done so knowing he was sending a family out on the road to flounder.

And Connelly enjoyed himself. He liked working with his hands again and he liked helping. He enjoyed seeing something wrong and putting it right. As afternoon came on his muscles ached but it was a pleasing ache. His body was letting him know that he had done something worth doing.

He sat and leaned up against a car and surveyed his work. He sipped water in the noonday heat and felt more satisfied than he had in weeks, even months. Frankie came and sat next to him, looking sideways to take in Connelly’s posture, then mimic it. Connelly offered him his canteen and the boy took it and sipped from it with a serious air.

“We’re going to New Mexico,” the boy said.

“You’re in New Mexico now,” Connelly told him.

He considered that. “New Mexico is where cotton is, though. And work. Money to make.”

“It’s out there somewhere,” said Connelly. “But not here.”

The boy struggled with something. “New Mexico is where we can build another house,” he said, and he looked at Connelly earnestly. “New Mexico is where I told Jeff I’d be.”

“Jeff?”

“Jeff’s my dog,” he said proudly.

“You named your dog Jeff?”

“ ’Course I did. Jeff’s a good name. There was a man named Jeff who lived a county over who could toss a ten-pound stone farther than anyone.”

“Was there?”

“Yes. So I named my dog Jeff because, well, that seemed like a pretty good thing to be named after. When we moved I told him we’d be in New Mexico. Pa says I should have said goodbye, but I know Jeff. Jeff’ll know what to do. He’s probably just a few turns of the road away.” He contemplated something very seriously. “Jeff is my friend,” he said. “I told him we’d have a house, a house just like the one we used to have. I’ll see him again.”

“I’m sure you will.”

The boy looked into the sun and shaded his eyes. “I hope he’s happy.”

“I hope so, too,” said Connelly.

Then the boy looked at Connelly, suddenly embarrassed, and he jumped to his feet and ran away. Connelly watched him go.

“He’ll be back soon,” said Missy.

“What did I do?” asked Connelly.

“You? Nothing. But you can’t just up and move a boy away from his home and expect him to be all right.”

“He’s a good boy.”

“He bears it better than most,” she said. “Some of the others… Well, they ain’t as hopeful as Frankie. You know, you’re good with children.”

“I’m not that good.”

“Sure you are,” she said. “You know how boys work. You know not to treat them like boys, for instance. Do you have any of your own?”

Connelly did not move. Then he said, “No.”

“No? Never wanted to settle down or nothing?”

Connelly shook his head.

“Well, it’s not for everyone, I suppose,” she said, and smiled kindly. “Just seems like a waste, is all.” Her smile faded from her face. “Have I said something wrong?”

“No,” said Connelly, and he stood up.

“I… I didn’t mean to overstep or anything…”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m just going to get some more water from the creek.”

He turned around and walked away, down toward the bend in the land where the silver string of water ran through the pasture. The wind picked up, sending fingers of dust twirling into the air. He heard shouting and saw the boy running out in the fields, a stick in hand, crying at some unknown attacker or maybe urging on invisible comrades. Thrust and parry, feint and dodge. Then a gruff battlecry, dust rising in clouds around his feet as he fought the very air.

Connelly walked down to the creek and filled his canteen. He dipped his hands in the water, felt the eddies form around his fingers and wrists. Then he took them out and went and sat on a stone by the creek and did his best not to cry.