The shadow of the billboard was sixty feet out by now. The afternoon lengthened away. Casy sat down on the running board and looked westward. “We gonna be in high mountains pretty soon,” he said, and he was silent for a few moments. Then, “Tom!”
“Yeah?”
“Tom, I been watchin’ the cars on the road, them we passed an’ them that passed us. I been keepin’ track.”
“Track a what?”
“Tom, they’s hunderds a families like us all a-goin’ west. I watched. There ain’t none of ’em goin’ east—hunderds of ’em. Did you notice that?”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“Why—it’s like—it’s like they was runnin’ away from soldiers. It’s like a whole country is movin’.”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “They is a whole country movin’. We’re movin’ too.”
“Well—s’pose all these here folks an’ ever’body—s’pose they can’t get no jobs out there?”
“Goddamn it!” Tom cried. “How’d I know? I’m jus’ puttin’ one foot in front a the other. I done it at Mac for four years, jus’ marchin’ in cell an’ out cell an’ in mess an’ out mess. Jesus Christ, I thought it’d be somepin different when I come out! Couldn’t think a nothin’ in there, else you go stir happy, an’ now can’t think a nothin’.” He turned on Casy. “This here bearing went out. We didn’ know it was goin’ so we didn’ worry none. Now she’s out an’ we’ll fix her. An’ by Christ that goes for the rest of it! I ain’t gonna worry. I can’t do it. This here little piece of iron an’ babbitt. See it? Ya see it? Well, that’s the only goddamn thing in the world I got on my mind. I wonder where the hell Al is.”