“Sure. I’ll stay.”
Al took a paper bag from the seat. “This here’s some bread an’ meat Ma sent, an’ I got a jug a water here.”
“She don’t forget nobody,” said Casy.
Tom got in beside Al. “Look,” he said. “We’ll get back jus’ as soon’s we can. But we can’t tell how long.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Awright. Don’t make no speeches to yourself. Get goin’, Al.” The truck moved off in the late afternoon. “He’s a nice fella,” Tom said. “He thinks about stuff all the time.”
“Well, hell—if you been a preacher, I guess you got to. Pa’s all mad about it costs fifty cents jus’ to camp under a tree. He can’t see that noways. Settin’ a-cussin’. Says nex’ thing they’ll sell ya a little tank a air. But Ma says they gotta be near shade an’ water ’cause a Granma.” The truck rattled along the highway, and now that it was unloaded, every part of it rattled and clashed. The side-board of the bed, the cut body. It rode hard and light. Al put it up to thirty-eight miles an hour and the engine clattered heavily and a blue smoke of burning oil drifted up through the floor boards.
“Cut her down some,” Tom said. “You gonna burn her right down to the hub caps. What’s eatin’ on Granma?”
“I don’t know. ’Member the las’ couple days she’s been airy-nary, sayin’ nothin’ to nobody? Well, she’s yellin’ an’ talkin’ plenty now, on’y she’s talkin’ to Grampa. Yellin’ at him. Kinda scary, too. You can almos’ see ’im a-settin’ there grinnin’ at her the way he always done, a-fingerin’ hisself an’ grinnin’. Seems like she sees him a-settin’ there, too. She’s jus’ givin’ him hell. Say, Pa, he give me twenty dollars to hand you. He don’ know how much you gonna need. Ever see Ma stand up to ’im like she done today?”
“Not I remember. I sure did pick a nice time to get paroled. I figgered I was gonna lay aroun’ an’ get up late an’ eat a lot when I come home. I was goin’ out and dance, an’ I was gonna go tom-cattin’—an’ here I ain’t had time to do none of them things.”