S’pose she wore her brains out on the trip.”
Pa said,
“Ma’s almost like she was when she was a girl.
She was a wild one then. She wasn’ scairt of nothin’.
I thought havin’ all the kids an’ workin’ took it out a her, but I guess it ain’t.
Christ!
When she got that jack handle back there, I tell you I wouldn’ wanna be the fella took it away from her.”
“I dunno what’s got into her,” Tom said. “Maybe she’s jus’ tar’d out.”
Al said,
“I won’t be doin’ no weepin’ an’ a-moanin’ to get through.
I got this goddamn car on my soul.”
Tom said,
“Well, you done a damn good job a pickin’.
We ain’t had hardly no trouble with her at all.”
All night they bored through the hot darkness, and jack-rabbits scuttled into the lights and dashed away in long jolting leaps.
And the dawn came up behind them when the lights of Mojave were ahead.
And the dawn showed high mountains to the west.
They filled with water and oil at Mojave and crawled into the mountains, and the dawn was about them.
Tom said,
“Jesus, the desert’s past!
Pa, Al, for Christ sakes!
The desert’s past!”
“I’m too goddamn tired to care,” said Al.
“Want me to drive?”
“No, wait awhile.”
They drove through Tehachapi in the morning glow, and the sun came up behind them, and then—suddenly they saw the great valley below them.
Al jammed on the brake and stopped in the middle of the road, and,
“Jesus Christ!
Look!” he said. The vineyards, the orchards, the great flat valley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows, and the farm houses.
And Pa said,
“God Almighty!”
The distant cities, the little towns in the orchard land, and the morning sun, golden on the valley.
A car honked behind them.
Al pulled to the side of the road and parked.
“I want ta look at her.”
The grain fields golden in the morning, and the willow lines, the eucalyptus trees in rows.
Pa sighed,
“I never knowed they was anything like her.”
The peach trees and the walnut groves, and the dark green patches of oranges.
And red roofs among the trees, and barns—rich barns.
Al got out and stretched his legs.
He called,
“Ma—come look.
We’re there!”
Ruthie and Winfield scrambled down from the car, and then they stood, silent and awestruck, embarrassed before the great valley.
The distance was thinned with haze, and the land grew softer and softer in the distance.
A windmill flashed in the sun, and its turning blades were like a little heliograph, far away.
Ruthie and Winfield looked at it, and Ruthie whispered,
“It’s California.”
Winfield moved his lips silently over the syllables.