Tom flicked his eyes down to the oil gauge. “I got a hunch nobody ain’t gonna see Mis’ Wilson for long. Jus’ a hunch I got.”
Winfield said, “Pa, I wanta get out.”
Tom looked over at him. “Might’s well let ever’body out ’fore we settle down to drivin’ tonight.” He slowed the car and brought it to a stop. Winfield scrambled out and urinated at the side of the road. Tom leaned out. “Anybody else?”
“We’re holdin’ our water up here,” Uncle John called.
Pa said, “Winfiel’, you crawl up on top. You put my legs to sleep a-settin’ on ’em.” The little boy buttoned his overalls and obediently crawled up the back board and on his hands and knees crawled over Granma’s mattress and forward to Ruthie.
The truck moved on into the evening, and the edge of the sun struck the rough horizon and turned the desert red.
Ruthie said, “Wouldn’ leave you set up there, huh?”
“I didn’ want to. It wasn’t so nice as here. Couldn’ lie down.”
“Well, don’ you bother me, a-squawkin’ an’ a-talkin’,” Ruthie said, “’cause I’m goin’ to sleep, an’ when I wake up, we gonna be there! ’Cause Tom said so! Gonna seem funny to see pretty country.”
The sun went down and left a great halo in the sky. And it grew very dark under the tarpaulin, a long cave with light at each end—a flat triangle of light.