He had the gas tank filled, and he bought two five-gallon cans of gasoline and a two-gallon can of oil.
He filled the radiator, begged a map, and studied it.
The service-station boy, in his white uniform, seemed uneasy until the bill was paid.
He said,
“You people sure have got nerve.”
Tom looked up from the map.
“What you mean?”
“Well, crossin’ in a jalopy like this.”
“You been acrost?”
“Sure, plenty, but not in no wreck like this.”
Tom said,
“If we broke down maybe somebody’d give us a han’.”
“Well, maybe.
But folks are kind of scared to stop at night.
I’d hate to be doing it.
Takes more nerve than I’ve got.”
Tom grinned.
“It don’t take no nerve to do somepin when there ain’t nothin’ else you can do.
Well, thanks.
We’ll drag on.” And he got in the truck and moved away.
The boy in white went into the iron building where his helper labored over a book of bills.
“Jesus, what a hard-looking outfit!”
“Them Okies?
They’re all hard-lookin’.”
“Jesus, I’d hate to start out in a jalopy like that.”
“Well, you and me got sense. Them goddamn Okies got no sense and no feeling.
They ain’t human.
A human being wouldn’t live like they do.
A human being couldn’t stand it to be so dirty and miserable.
They ain’t a hell of a lot better than gorillas.”
“Just the same I’m glad I ain’t crossing the desert in no Hudson Super-Six.
She sounds like a threshing machine.”
The other boy looked down at his book of bills.
And a big drop of sweat rolled down his finger and fell on the pink bills.
“You know, they don’t have much trouble.
They’re so goddamn dumb they don’t know it’s dangerous.
And, Christ Almighty, they don’t know any better than what they got.
Why worry?”
“I’m not worrying.
Just thought if it was me, I wouldn’t like it.”
“That’s ’cause you know better.
They don’t know any better.” And he wiped the sweat from the pink bill with his sleeve.
The truck took the road and moved up the long hill, through the broken, rotten rock.
The engine boiled very soon and Tom slowed down and took it easy.
Up the long slope, winding and twisting through dead country, burned white and gray, and no hint of life in it.
Once Tom stopped for a few moments to let the engine cool, and then he traveled on.
They topped the pass while the sun was still up, and looked down on the desert—black cinder mountains in the distance, and the yellow sun reflected on the gray desert.
The little starved bushes, sage and greasewood, threw bold shadows on the sand and bits of rock.
The glaring sun was straight ahead.
Tom held his hand before his eyes to see at all.