Tobacco Road (18 page)

They opened the door and walked to the end of the hall. All the doors were closed, and Jeeter did not know which one to open. The first two he opened were not occupied, but the next one was. He turned the knob and went inside. There were two people asleep in the bed, but the woman was not Bessie. Jeeter backed out of the room and closed the door. Dude tried the next room. The door of that one was unlocked, too, and Jeeter had to go across the room and look at the woman’s face before he was satisfied she was not Bessie. In the other rooms they entered they failed to find Bessie, and Jeeter did not know what to do. The last room they entered had only a single bed and he was about to close the door, when the girl opened her eyes and sat up. Jeeter stood looking at her, not knowing what else to do. When the girl was fully awake, she smiled and called Jeeter to her.

“What you want?” he said.

“Why did you come in here?” she said.

“I’m looking for Bessie, and I reckon I’d better go hunt for her some more. I’m liable to disgrace myself if I stay here looking at you.”

She called Jeeter again, but he turned his back and ran out of the room. Dude caught up with his father.

“By God and by Jesus, Dude,” Jeeter said. “I never saw so many pretty girls and women in all my days. This hotel is just jammed with them. I’d sure lose my religion if I stayed here much longer. I’ve got to get out in the street right now.”

At the foot of the stairway they saw the man who had rented them the room the night before. He was reading the morning paper.

“We’re ready to leave now,” Jeeter said, “but we can’t find Sister Bessie.”

“The woman who came in with you last night?”

“She’s the one. Sister Bessie, her name is.”

“I’ll get her,” he said, and started up the stairs. “What’s wrong with her nose? I didn’t notice it last night, but I saw it this morning. It gives me the creeps to look at it.”

“She was born like that,” Jeeter said. “Bessie ain’t much to look at in the face, but she’s a right smart piece to live with. Dude, here, he knows, because he’s married to her.”

“She’s got the ungodliest-looking nose I ever saw,” the man said, going up the stairs. “I hope I never get fooled like that again in the dark.”

In about five minutes both he and Bessie came down the stairs. The man was in front and Bessie behind.

Out in the street, where they had left the car, Jeeter found the bag of crackers and cheese, and he began eating them hungrily. Dude took a handful of crackers and put them into his mouth. A few doors away was a store with a Coca-Cola sign on it, and all of them went in and got a drink.

“You don’t look like you slept none too much last night,” Jeeter said. “Couldn’t you go to sleep, Bessie?”

She yawned and rubbed her face with the palms of her hands. She had dressed hurriedly, and had not combed her hair. It hung matted and stringy over her face.

“I reckon the hotel was pretty full last night,” she said. “Every once in a while somebody came and called me to another room. Every room I went to there was somebody sleeping in the bed. Looked like nobody knowed where my bed was. They was always telling me to sleep in a new one. I didn’t sleep none, except about an hour just a while ago. There sure is a lot of men staying there.”

Jeeter led them outside the store and they got into the automobile and drove off towards the residential part of the city. Bessie yawned, and tried to take a nap on the front seat.

Selling the load of blackjack was no easier than it had been the afternoon before. Nobody wanted to buy wood, at least not the kind Jeeter had for sale.

By three o’clock that afternoon all of them were thoroughly tired of trying to find somebody to take the wood.

Sister Bessie wanted to go back home, and so did Jeeter. Bessie was sleepy and tired. Jeeter began swearing every time he saw a man walking along the street. His opinion of the citizens of Augusta was even less than it had been before he started the trip. He cursed every dollar in the city.

Dude was anxious to go back home, because he would have the opportunity of blowing the horn when they went around the long curves on the highway.

Bessie bought the gasoline and Jeeter paid for it out of the money they had left. No trouble with the engine developed, and they sailed along at a fast rate of speed for nearly ten miles.

“Let’s stop a minute,” Jeeter said.

Dude stopped the car without question and they all got out. Jeeter began untying the plow-lines and untwisting the baling wire around the load of blackjack.

“What you going to do now?” Bessie asked him, watching him begin throwing off the sticks.

“I’m going to throw off the whole durn load and set fire to it,” he said. “It’s bad luck to carry something to town to sell and then tote it back home. It ain’t a safe thing to do, to take it back home. I’m going to pitch it all off.”

Dude and Bessie helped him, and in a few minutes the blackjack was piled in the ditch beside the road.

“And I ain’t going to let nobody else have the use of it, neither,” he said. “If the rich people in Augusta won’t buy my wood, I ain’t going to let it lay here so they can come out and take it off for nothing.”

He gathered a handful of dead leaves, thrust them under the pile, and struck a match to them. The leaves blazed up, and a coil of smoke boiled into the air. Jeeter fanned the blaze with his hat and waited for the wood to catch on fire and burn.

“That was an unlucky trip to Augusta,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ve ever had such luck befall me before. All the other times I’ve been able to sell my wood for something, if it was only a quarter or so. But this time nobody wanted it for nothing, seems like.”

“I want to go back some time and spend another night at that hotel,” Bessie said, giggling. “I had the best time last night. It made me feel good, staying there. They sure know how to treat women real nice.”

They waited for the blackjack to burn so they could leave for home. The leaves had burned to charred ashes, and the flame had gone out. The scrub oak would not catch on fire.

Jeeter scraped up a larger pile of leaves, set it on fire, and began tossing the sticks on it. The fire burned briskly for several minutes, and then went out under the weight of the green wood.

Jeeter stood looking at it, sadly. He did not know how to make it burn. Then Dude drew some gasoline from the tank and poured it on the pile. A great blaze sprang up ten or twelve feet into the air. Before long that too died down, leaving a pile of blackened sticks in the ditch.

“Well, I reckon that’s all I can do to that damn-blasted blackjack,” Jeeter said, getting into the car. “It looks like there ain’t no way to get rid of the durn wood. It won’t sell and it won’t burn. I reckon the devil got into it.”

They drove off in a swirl of yellow dust, and were soon nearing the tobacco road. Dude drove slowly through the deep white sand, blowing the horn all the way home.

T
HE NEXT AUTOMOBILE TRIP
Jeeter had planned after the return from Augusta was a journey over into Burke County to see Tom. From the things Jeeter had heard repeated by various men who had been in that section of the country, he knew Tom was a successful cross-tie contractor. Those men who had had business that took them close to the cross-tie camp came back to Fuller and told Jeeter that Tom was making more money than anybody else they knew. Jeeter was almost as proud of Tom as he was of Dude.

Very little else was known about Tom Lester. That was one of the reasons why Jeeter wanted to go over there. He wanted to find out how much money Tom was making, first of all, and then he wanted to ask Tom to give him a little money every week.

Bessie and Dude were not thinking of staying at home either while the new car was in running order. The trip to Augusta had not caused them to lose any of their enthusiasm for automobile travel any more than it had Jeeter. Springing the front axle, cracking the wind-shield, scarring the paint on the body, tearing holes in the upholstery, and parting with the spare tire and extra wheel were considered nothing more than the ordinary hazards of driving a car. The mashed front fender and broken rear spring had softened everybody’s concern for the automobile. After their first accident, when Dude ran into the back end of the two-horse wagon near McCoy and killed the colored man, anything else that happened to the car would not matter so very much, anyway.

Jeeter the next morning casually mentioned the fact that he would like very much to ride over to Burke County and see Tom.

Dude was filling the radiator at the time, and he stopped to hear what Bessie was going to say. She said nothing, and Dude picked up the bucket again and filled the radiator to overflowing. Jeeter walked away, waiting for Bessie to make up her mind. He went towards the rear of the house as if he were going to get out of sight until she had time to make up her mind definitely whether she would go or not. Jeeter did not go so far away that he could not keep his eye on the car. Bessie was liable to do most anything when his back was turned, and he did not want them to slip off and leave him.

“Jump in and let’s go in a hurry, Dude,” Bessie whispered excitedly, pushing him to the car. “Hurry, before your Pa sees us.”

Jeeter was standing by the well, looking out across the broom-sedge, and he did not know they were getting ready to leave him.

When he heard Dude start the motor, he dashed for the automobile. By that time, Dude had got the gears engaged, and the car shot over the yard to the tobacco road.

He had swung the front wheels sharply, making a circle around the chinaberry trees, and he bumped over the ditch without slackening speed. They were away in a few short seconds, long before Jeeter could run to the road. He stood looking after them.

“Well, I never saw the likes of that,” he said. “I don’t know why they want to run off and leave me. I always treated Bessie fair and square. When a man gets old, folks seem to think that he don’t care about riding around, and they go off and make him stay at home.”

He stood watching them until the car was out of sight. Ada and Ellie May stood on the porch looking at the disappearing car. They had come to the door the moment they heard the car start. Both of them wanted to go somewhere, too; they had not been allowed inside the new car since it was bought.

Jeeter took a seat on the porch and sat down to wait for them to return. He was glum and silent the rest of the morning. When Ada told him to come into the kitchen at dinner time and eat some cheese and crackers, Jeeter did not move from his chair. Ada went back into the house without urging him to eat. There was so little food, she was glad he was not coming. The cheese and crackers that had been brought back from Augusta provided barely enough of a meal for one or two persons; and as he would not leave the porch, there would be more for her and Ellie May. It did not matter about the grandmother, because she was going to be given the cheese rinds and cracker crumbs that were left when they had finished. Jeeter always ate so fast that there was never time for anybody else to get his full share at any meal. Jeeter ate as if it were the last time he would ever taste food again.

Ada and Ellie May sat down to eat their meal, leaving Jeeter alone.

Late that afternoon when Bessie and Dude returned home, Jeeter was still waiting for them on the porch. He got up as they approached, and followed the car to its place beside the chimney. He was as angry as ever, but he had forgotten about it momentarily. He was anxious to know if they had found Tom.

“Did you see Tom?” he asked Bessie. “What was he doing? Did he send me some money?”

Ada came out to listen. The grandmother took her accustomed position behind a chinaberry tree, looking and listening. Ellie May came closer.

“Tom ain’t at all like he used to be when I knowed him better,” Bessie said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s come over Tom.”

“Why?” Jeeter asked. “What did he do—what did he say? Where’s the money he sent me?”

“Tom didn’t send no money. He don’t appear to be aiming to help you none. He’s a wicked man, Tom is.”

“You ought to have taken me along, Bessie,” Jeeter said. “I know Tom better than I do my own self. He was my special boy all along. Me and Tom got along all right together. The other children was always fighting with me, looks like now. But Tom never did. He was a fine boy when he was growing up.”

Bessie listened to Jeeter talk, but she did not want to stop and argue about going off and leaving him at home. It was all over now. The trip was finished, and they were back.

“Why didn’t you let me go along and see Tom?” he said.

“Tom works about a hundred ox,” Dude said. He was very much impressed by the large number of oxen his brother worked at the cross-tie camp. “I didn’t know there was that many ox in the whole country.”

“When did Tom say he was coming over here to see me?” Jeeter asked.

“Tom said he wasn’t never coming over here again,” Dude said. “He told me to tell you he was going to stay where he was at.”

“That sure don’t sound like Tom talking,” Jeeter said, shaking his head. “Maybe he has to work so hard all the time that he can’t get off.”

“Ain’t that,” Bessie said. “Tom said just what Dude told you. Tom said he ain’t never coming over here again. He don’t want to.”

“That don’t sound like Tom talking. Me and Tom used to get along first-rate concerning everything. Me and him never had no difficulties like I was always having with my other children. They used to throw rocks at me and hit me over the head with sticks, but Tom never did. Tom was always a first-rate boy when I knowed him. Ain’t no reason why he ought to change now, and be just like all the rest of them.”

“I told him how bad off you was, and his Ma, too,” Bessie said. “I told him you didn’t have no meal or meat in the house half the time, and that you can’t farm and raise a crop no more, and Tom says for you and Ada to go to the county poor-farm and stay.”

“You made a mistake by telling Tom I wasn’t going to farm no more. I’m going to raise me a big crop of cotton this year, if I can get hold of some seed-cotton and guano. The rest of what you told him is true and accurate, however. We is hungry pretty much of the time. That ain’t no lie.”