Tom said,
“Some fellas like to hit ’em.
Gives me a little shakes ever’ time.
Car sounds OK.
Them rings must a broke loose by now.
She ain’t smokin’ so bad.”
“You done a nice job,” said Casy.
A small wooden house dominated the camp ground, and on the porch of the house a gasoline lantern hissed and threw its white glare in a great circle.
Half a dozen tents were pitched near the house, and cars stood beside the tents.
Cooking for the night was over, but the coals of the campfires still glowed on the ground by the camping places.
A group of men had gathered to the porch where the lantern burned, and their faces were strong and muscled under the harsh white light, light that threw black shadows of their hats over their foreheads and eyes and made their chins seem to jut out.
They sat on the steps, and some stood on the ground, resting their elbows on the porch floor.
The proprietor, a sullen lanky man, sat in a chair on the porch. He leaned back against the wall, and he drummed his fingers on his knee.
Inside the house a kerosene lamp burned, but its thin light was blasted by the hissing glare of the gasoline lantern.
The gathering of men surrounded the proprietor.
Tom drove the Dodge to the side of the road and parked.
Al drove through the gate in the truck.
“No need to take her in,” Tom said.
He got out and walked through the gate to the white glare of the lantern.
The proprietor dropped his front chair legs to the floor and leaned forward.
“You men wanta camp here?”
“No,” said Tom. “We got folks here.
Hi, Pa.”
Pa, seated on the bottom step, said,
“Thought you was gonna be all week.
Get her fixed?”
“We was pig lucky,” said Tom. “Got a part ’fore dark.
We can get goin’ fust thing in the mornin’.”
“That’s a pretty nice thing,” said Pa. “Ma’s worried. Ya Granma’s off her chump.”
“Yeah, Al tol’ me.
She any better now?”
“Well, anyways she’s a-sleepin’.”
The proprietor said,
“If you wanta pull in here an’ camp it’ll cost you four bits.
Get a place to camp an’ water an’ wood.
An’ nobody won’t bother you.”
“What the hell,” said Tom. “We can sleep in the ditch right beside the road, an’ it won’t cost nothin’.”
The owner drummed his knee with his fingers.
“Deputy sheriff comes on by in the night.
Might make it tough for ya.
Got a law against sleepin’ out in this State.
Got a law about vagrants.”
“If I pay you a half a dollar I ain’t a vagrant, huh?”
“That’s right.”
Tom’s eyes glowed angrily.
“Deputy sheriff ain’t your brother-’n-law by any chance?”
The owner leaned forward.
“No, he ain’t.
An’ the time ain’t come yet when us local folks got to take no talk from you goddamn bums, neither.”
“It don’t trouble you none to take our four bits.