"It's my responsibility," I said, "don't worry" – and said that because Dean was in such obvious frenzy everybody could guess his madness.
Dean became businesslike and assisted the Jesuit boys with their baggage.
They were hardly seated, and I had hardly waved good-by to Denver, before he was off, the big motor thrumming with immense birdlike power.
Not two miles out of Denver the speedometer broke because Dean was pushing well over no miles an hour.
"Well, no speedometer, I won't know how fast I'm going. I'll just ball that jack to Chicago and tell by time."
It didn't seem we were even going seventy but all the cars fell from us like dead flies on the straightaway highway leading up to Greeley.
"Reason why we're going northeast is because, Sal, we must absolutely visit Ed Wall's ranch in Sterling, you've got to meet him and see his ranch and this boat cuts so fast we can make it without any time trouble and get to Chicago long before that man's train."
Okay, I was for it.
It began to rain but Dean never slackened.
It was a beautiful big car, the last of the old-style limousines, black, with a big elongated body and whitewall tires and probably bulletproof windows.
The Jesuit boys – St. Bonaventura – sat in the back, gleeful and glad to be underway, and they had no idea how fast we were going.
They tried to talk but Dean said nothing and took off his T-shirt and drove barechested.
"Oh, that Beverly is a sweet gone little gal – she's going to join me in New York – we're going to get married as soon as I can get divorce papers from Camille – everything's jumping, Sal, and we're off.
Yes!"
The faster we left Denver the better I felt, and we were doing it fast.
It grew dark when we turned off the highway at Junction and hit a dirt road that took us across dismal East Colorado plains to Ed Wall's ranch in the middle of Coyote Nowhere.
But it was still raining and the mud was slippery and Dean slowed to seventy, but I told him to slow even more or we'd slide, and he said,
"Don't worry, man, you know me."
"Not this time," I said. "You're really going much too fast."
And he was flying along there on that slippery mud and just as I said that we hit a complete left turn in the highway and Dean socked the wheel over to make it but the big car skidded in the grease and wobbled hugely.
"Look out!" yelled Dean, who didn't give a damn and wrestled with his Angel a moment, and we ended up backass in the ditch with the front out on the road.
A great stillness fell over everything.
We heard the whining wind.
We were in the middle of the wild prairie.
There was a farmhouse a quarter-mile up the road.
I couldn't stop swearing, I was so mad and disgusted with Dean.
He said nothing and went off to the farmhouse in the rain, with a coat, to look for help.
"Is he your brother?" the boys asked in the back seat.
"He's a devil with a car, isn't he? – and according to his story he must be with the women."
"He's mad," I said, "and yes, he's my brother."
I saw Dean coming back with the farmer in his tractor.
They hooked chains on and the farmer hauled us out of the ditch.
The car was muddy brown, a whole fender was crushed.
The farmer charged us five dollars.
His daughters watched in the rain.
The prettiest, shyest one hid far back in the field to watch and she had good reason because she was absolutely and finally the most beautiful girl Dean and I ever saw in all our lives.
She was about sixteen, and had Plains complexion like wild roses, and the bluest eyes, the most lovely hair, and the modesty and quickness of a wild antelope.
At every look from us she flinched.
She stood there with the immense winds that blew clear down from Saskatchewan knocking her hair about her lovely head like shrouds, living curls of them.
She blushed and blushed.
We finished our business with the farmer, took one last look at the prairie angel, and drove off, slower now, till dark came and Dean said Ed Wall's ranch was dead ahead.
"Oh, a girl like that scares me," I said.
"I'd give up everything and throw myself on her mercy and if she didn't want me I'd just as simply go and throw myself off the edge of the world."
The Jesuit boys giggled.
They were full of corny quips and Eastern college talk and had nothing on their bird-beans except a lot of ill-understood Aquinas for stuffing for their pepper.
Dean and I paid absolutely no attention to them.
As we crossed the muddy plains he told stories about his cowboy days, he showed us the stretch of road where he spent an entire morning riding; and where he'd done fence-mending as soon as we hit Wall's property, which was immense; and where old Wall, Ed's father, used to come clattering on the rangeland grass chasing a heifer and howling,
"Git im, git im, goddammit!"
"He had to have a new car every six months," said Dean.
"He just couldn't care.