“Just the same I’m glad I ain’t crossing the desert in no Hudson Super-Six. She sounds like a threshing machine.”
The other boy looked down at his book of bills. And a big drop of sweat rolled down his finger and fell on the pink bills. “You know, they don’t have much trouble. They’re so goddamn dumb they don’t know it’s dangerous. And, Christ Almighty, they don’t know any better than what they got. Why worry?”
“I’m not worrying. Just thought if it was me, I wouldn’t like it.”
“That’s ’cause you know better. They don’t know any better.” And he wiped the sweat from the pink bill with his sleeve.
THE TRUCK took the road and moved up the long hill, through the broken, rotten rock. The engine boiled very soon and Tom slowed down and took it easy. Up the long slope, winding and twisting through dead country, burned white and gray, and no hint of life in it. Once Tom stopped for a few moments to let the engine cool, and then he traveled on. They topped the pass while the sun was still up, and looked down on the desert—black cinder mountains in the distance, and the yellow sun reflected on the gray desert. The little starved bushes, sage and greasewood, threw bold shadows on the sand and bits of rock. The glaring sun was straight ahead. Tom held his hand before his eyes to see at all. They passed the crest and coasted down to cool the engine. They coasted down the long sweep to the floor of the desert, and the fan turned over to cool the water in the radiator. In the driver’s seat, Tom and Al and Pa, and Winfield on Pa’s knee, looked into the bright descending sun, and their eyes were stony, and their brown faces were damp with perspiration. The burnt land and the black, cindery hills broke the even distance and made it terrible in the reddening light of the setting sun.
Al said, “Jesus, what a place. How’d you like to walk acrost her?”
“People done it,” said Tom. “Lots a people done it; an’ if they could, we could.”
“Lots must a died,” said Al.
“Well, we ain’t come out exac’ly clean.”
Al was silent for a while, and the reddening desert swept past. “Think we’ll ever see them Wilsons again?” Al asked.