I get drunk, an’ I go wild.”
“Ever’body goes wild,” said Casy. “I do too.”
“Yeah, but you ain’t got a sin on your soul like me.”
Casy said gently,
“Sure I got sins.
Ever’body got sins.
A sin is somepin you ain’t sure about.
Them people that’s sure about ever’thing an’ ain’t got no sin—well, with that kind a son-of-a-bitch, if I was God I’d kick their ass right outa heaven!
I couldn’ stand ’em!”
Uncle John said,
“I got a feelin’ I’m bringin’ bad luck to my own folks.
I got a feelin’ I oughta go away an’ let ’em be.
I ain’t comf ’table bein’ like this.”
Casy said quickly,
“I know this—a man got to do what he got to do.
I can’t tell you.
I can’t tell you.
I don’t think they’s luck or bad luck.
On’y one thing in this worl’ I’m sure of, an’ that’s I’m sure nobody got a right to mess with a fella’s life.
He got to do it all hisself.
Help him, maybe, but not tell him what to do.”
Uncle John said disappointedly,
“Then you don’ know?”
“I don’ know.”
“You think it was a sin to let my wife die like that?”
“Well,” said Casy, “for anybody else it was a mistake, but if you think it was a sin—then it’s a sin.
A fella builds his own sins right up from the groun’.”
“I got to give that a goin’-over,” said Uncle John, and he rolled on his back and lay with his knees pulled up.
The truck moved on over the hot earth, and the hours passed.
Ruthie and Winfield went to sleep.
Connie loosened a blanket from the load and covered himself and Rose of Sharon with it, and in the heat they struggled together, and held their breaths.
And after a time Connie threw off the blanket and the hot tunneling wind felt cool on their wet bodies.
On the back of the truck Ma lay on the mattress beside Granma, and she could not see with her eyes, but she could feel the struggling body and the struggling heart; and the sobbing breath was in her ear.
And Ma said over and over,
“All right.
It’s gonna be all right.” And she said hoarsely, “You know the family got to get acrost.
You know that.”
Uncle John called,
“You all right?”
It was a moment before she answered.
“All right.
Guess I dropped off to sleep.”
And after a time Granma was still, and Ma lay rigid beside her.
The night hours passed, and the dark was in against the truck.
Sometimes cars passed them, going west and away; and sometimes great trucks came up out of the west and rumbled eastward.
And the stars flowed down in a slow cascade over the western horizon.
It was near midnight when they neared Daggett, where the inspection station is.
The road was floodlighted there, and a sign illuminated, “KEEP RIGHT AND STOP.”
The officers loafed in the office, but they came out and stood under the long covered shed when Tom pulled in.
One officer put down the license number and raised the hood.