West With Giraffes(34)

“Woody, did you tell Mr. Jones who I was when I hit the rig?”

I barely heard her. “What? No.”

“Good. Let’s wait on introducing me . . . you know, considering all. I’ll hang on back a bit longer.” Then, with a kiss on my cheek that froze me solid, she picked up her camera and disappeared inside her cabin.

It wasn’t near time for the Old Man to relieve me, but in no more than a minute he came lumbering up, pulling on his suspenders and squinting in the moonlight. “Half woke up a while ago. Never got full back to sleep. The darlings OK? Thought I heard a ruckus.”

“There was a bear,” I said, standing so he couldn’t see the crack in the rig. “It ran away.”

“A bear, eh?” he said, already grabbing his Lucky Strike pack and settling onto the rig’s running board. “He won’t come back. Go get some sleep. I’ll wake you at dawn.”

Heading to the cabin, I told myself I’d show him the crack in the road Pullman tomorrow if he didn’t find it himself first. Right then, though, I’d had enough of that pisser of a day.

As I closed my eyes, hoping for a bit of sleep without nightmares, I saw a flash of bear on the back of my eyelids and felt the touch of Red’s lips on my cheek. And I wondered what might be more dangerous, the bear, the giraffes, or a camera-packing redhead in britches.





. . . “Mr. Nickel?”

Rosie, Greasy, and the nurse are standing in my doorway.

“May we come in?” asks the nurse.

“Well, listen to you asking nicely,” I say, lowering my pencil.

“I tell you his heart stopped,” Greasy is saying.

“Daryl said you had a seizure of some kind. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine and dandy, fit as a fiddle,” I say, glancing at Wild Girl, who’s blowing a blubbery Bronx cheer Greasy’s way.

Greasy throws up his hands and leaves. The nurse comes over, takes my pulse, listens to my heart, and leaves, too.

Rosie, though, doesn’t move. “OK, hon, what happened? I won’t tell.”

I don’t answer, turning back to my writing pad. In a second, she sighs and leaves as well, giving my shoulder another squeeze as she goes.

But then I hear dominoes and I turn to see the younger Rosie on the edge of my bed, shuffling away. A game and a story, she is saying again . . . “So what’s next? I know! We’re about to meet Moses, aren’t we?”

My chest tightens.

“Oh, hon . . . why are you pushing yourself so?”

Haven’t you ever had a story you should’ve told someone before it was too late? I think, rubbing my heart.

You’ve told me, she says.

No, not all—and you’re not her. “I need to tell her,” I say out loud. But I’m talking to an empty room. I glance back quick for the darling Girl. She’s still there, peacefully licking the air. So, licking my pencil tip, I get back on the road.





8

Into Tennessee

At dawn, the first thing I saw as I pulled on my boots and stumbled out of the log cabin was the Old Man inspecting the rig’s splintered crack as Wild Girl stomped her displeasure. Throwing up his hands, he said, “Let’s go.”

Squinting through the far shadows, I could see the Packard was still there. The Old Man hadn’t noticed, and as we headed out I spied Red watching from her cabin door.

We stopped at the first roadside store we saw for gas and food. As I checked the giraffes and watched for Red, I eyed the store’s Western Union sign, wondering if he was sending that telegram for a new Memphis driver like he said. Getting gloomier by the second, I just got back behind the wheel.

In a minute, the Old Man marched out and dropped the food sacks and a newspaper on the seat between us. As he bit into his breakfast salami, I recall looking down at the newspaper. In letters as big as my fist, it said: HITLER INVADES CZECHOSLOVAKIA: “Thus Begins Our Great German Reich.” I barely took notice. All I could think about was the telegram. Did he or didn’t he send it?

The Old Man held out the salami. “Want a bite?”

I shook my head.

Taking another big bite as I pulled us onto the road, he stored it in his cheek to say, “By the way, I wired for the new driver.”

There it was.

“So get us there and I’ll buy you that train ticket. Anywhere you want to—”

But I was already spewing out what I’d been practicing since the mountain store. “I had the mountain beat till we got hit! I can go the distance! I can go to Californy, swear to God I can!”

The Old Man chuckled. “Clean the wax out of your ears, boy. I said I’ll buy you a ticket anywhere you want to go.”

“Anywhere?”

“You earned it,” he answered, swallowing down the last of the salami. “Even to California, if you’re so set on it.”

“You mean it?”

“Yep. You’ll be getting there before we will.”

That quick, I was going to California. Soon. My plan had worked. All I had to do was get to Memphis and I’d be on my way straight to the land of milk and honey.

I felt my flickering hope flame up high as all glory.

The next few miles were a blur. I’m surprised I didn’t run us into a ditch I was so over the moon with the Old Man’s big announcement. I wasn’t even looking back for Red. In fact, I don’t recall a thing about that part of the trip until we found ourselves in Tennessee, crossing through a nice little pass that rolled us to the other side of the Smoky Mountains, the biggest ups and downs behind us, at least of the geographical kind.