American Boy - Larry Watson [63]
I gripped the steering wheel hard and turned my head to the side when Johnny opened the passenger door. Winter rushed in behind him.
“Jesus Christ!” he said, gasping as if he hadn’t been out in open country, but underwater. “It’s like getting shot with a BB gun!”
I wiped my hand through the snow that had dusted the dashboard in the seconds the door was open. “And above the waist is legal,” I said. That was a reference to one of our youthful activities in Frenchman’s Forest. Johnny and I and a few of our friends used to have BB gun fights in amongst the trees, and there was one clear rule: aiming above the waist was “illegal.” In spite of our heavy denims, getting hit in the legs or butt could sting like hell and raise a welt. Still, that was our rule.
“You ready?” I asked Johnny, punching the transmission button for Drive. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
We were able to make progress through the snowstorm due to a number of factors. A recent summer road crew had painted a fresh center dividing line, and its dashes revealed themselves just often enough for me to be sure I was staying on the right side of the road. A farmer had strung his wire fence close enough to the road that the fence posts occasionally showed through the blowing snow. Another farmer had planted a shelterbelt of trees, presenting me with an extra fifty yards of vision. And then the telephone company’s wires ran along the highway at intervals, and those creosote-coated poles were black enough to steer me away from the ditch.
Also, a driver, and I doubt there was more than one, who had driven that stretch of road before me, did so recently enough that I could sometimes see the faint impressions of his tire tracks, heartening proof not only that this highway could be traversed, but also that Johnny and I were not the only ones crazy, foolish, or duty-bound enough to be out in the storm.
And then finally, the wind that had blown so pitilessly all day began to lose some of its energy and malice, and gradually, gradually, after close to two hours on the road, I could see seventy-five, a hundred, two hundred yards ahead, so that by the time we were within five miles of Bellamy I increased our speed to fifty miles per hour, which was double what we’d been doing. At last the car’s speedometer matched the urgency we’d been feeling since we drove away from the Dunbars’. As if our lightened spirits could affect nature, the western horizon began to brighten and the faintest blue pushed its way through the iron sky. The sun would soon set, but at least it wasn’t lost to us for good.
“Looks like maybe the drive back will be easier,” said Johnny. Those were the first words he spoke since I’d taken over the driving.
My hands had turned to claws on the steering wheel. I took one hand off the wheel and then the other, shaking each in turn and flexing my fingers. “Jesus, are you ready for another trip already?”
“I just meant ... oh, shit. I don’t know what I meant. What if we can’t find them? We’ll have to turn around and head back.”
“We’ll find them.”
“We could’ve passed right by them and never seen them. If they slid off the road they could be in a ditch and—”
“—I said we’ll find them.”
And yet for all his worry and concern, once we caught sight of the doctor’s car, Johnny wasn’t ready to admit it.
One of the first businesses on the edge of Bellamy, right where the speed limit dropped to thirty-five, was the Wagon Wheel Motor Inn. For an instant the office and cabins—all painted white—looked like part of the snowy landscape. But neither the snow nor the frost sticking to its surface could have made that black Chrysler Imperial look like anything from the natural world.
Although the Wagon Wheel was on Johnny’s side of the car and he was looking out in that direction, I was the one who exclaimed, “That’s your dad’s car!”
I slowed, but not in time to turn into the Wagon Wheel’s lot.
Johnny, however, waved me on. “We have to check the hospital.”
“But your dad’s car is back there—”
“—the hospital.