“I could shut my eyes an’ walk right there.
On’y way I can go wrong is think about her.
Jus’ forget about her, an’ I’ll go right there.
Hell, man, I was born right aroun’ in here.
I run aroun’ here when I was a kid.
They’s a tree over there—look, you can jus’ make it out.
Well, once my old man hung up a dead coyote in that tree.
Hung there till it was all sort of melted, an’ then dropped off.
Dried up, like.
Jesus, I hope Ma’s cookin’ somepin.
My belly’s caved.”
“Me too,” said Casy. “Like a little eatin’ tobacca?
Keeps ya from gettin’ too hungry.
Been better if we didn’ start so damn early.
Better if it was light.” He paused to gnaw off a piece of plug. “I was sleepin’ nice.”
“That crazy Muley done it,” said Tom. “He got me clear jumpy. Wakes me up an’ says, ‘’By, Tom.
I’m goin’ on.
I got places to go.’
An’ he says, ‘Better get goin’ too, so’s you’ll be offa this lan’ when the light comes.’
He’s gettin’ screwy as a gopher, livin’ like he does.
You’d think Injuns was after him.
Think he’s nuts?”
“Well, I dunno.
You seen that car come las’ night when we had a little fire.
You seen how the house was smashed.
They’s somepin purty mean goin’ on. ’Course Muley’s crazy, all right.
Creepin’ aroun’ like a coyote; that’s boun’ to make him crazy.
He’ll kill somebody purty soon an’ they’ll run him down with dogs.
I can see it like a prophecy.
He’ll get worse an’ worse.
Wouldn’ come along with us, you say?”
“No,” said Joad. “I think he’s scared to see people now.
Wonder he come up to us.
We’ll be at Uncle John’s place by sunrise.”
They walked along in silence for a time, and the late owls flew over toward the barns, the hollow trees, the tank houses, where they hid from daylight.
The eastern sky grew fairer and it was possible to see the cotton plants and the graying earth.
“Damn’ if I know how they’re all sleepin’ at Uncle John’s.
He on’y got one room an’ a cookin’ leanto, an’ a little bit of a barn.
Must be a mob there now.”
The preacher said,
“I don’t recollect that John had a fambly.
Just a lone man, ain’t he?
I don’t recollect much about him.”
“Lonest goddamn man in the world,” said Joad. “Crazy kind of son-of-a-bitch, too—somepin like Muley, on’y worse in some ways.
Might see ’im anywheres—at Shawnee, drunk, or visitin’ a widow twenty miles away, or workin’ his place with a lantern.
Crazy.
Ever’body thought he wouldn’t live long.
A lone man like that don’t live long.
But Uncle John’s older’n Pa.
Jus’ gets stringier an’ meaner ever’ year.