There was a most satisfying screech. That Linc took out like a roadrunner in heat. The salesman’s head snapped backward, and his shoulders dug into the seat. Potato gave a happy, happy woof and stuck his nose out the open window. I felt like yelling, “Hosanna,” but knew enough to keep my big mouth shut. The Linc shrugged off a couple of cars that were conservatively motoring. It wheeled past a hay truck as the tires started humming. The salesman’s freckles began to stand up like warts while the airstream howled. Old Potato kept his nose sticking through the open window, and the wind kept drying it. Potato was so damn dumb he tried to lick it wet while his nose stayed in the airstream. His tongue blew sideways.
“It ain’t nothing but speed,” Jesse complained. “Look at this here steering.” He joggled the wheel considerable, which at ninety got even more considerable. The salesman’s tie blew straight backward. The little red ducks matched his freckles. “Jee-sus-Chee-sus,” he said. “Eight hundred, and slow down.” He braced himself against the dash.
When it hit the century mark, the Linc developed a little float in the front end. I expect all of us were thinking about the tires.
You could tell Jesse was jubilant, The Linc still had some pedal left.
“I’m gettin’ old,” Jesse hollered above the wind. “This ain’t no car for an old man.”
“Seven hundred,” the salesman said. “And Mother of God, slow it down.”
“Five-fifty,” Jesse told him, and dug the pedal down one more notch.
“You got it,” the salesman hollered. His face twisted up real teary. Then Potato got all grateful and started licking the guy on the back of the neck.
So Jesse cut the speed and bought the Linc. He did it diplomatic, pretending he was sorry he’d made the offer. That was kind of him. After all, the guy was nothing but a used-car salesman.
We did a second night in that motel. The Linc and DeSoto sat in an all-night filling station. Lube, oil change, and wash, because we were riding high. Jesse had a heap of money left over. In the morning, we got new jeans and shirts, so as to ride along like gentlemen.
“We’ll go back through South Dakota,” Jesse told me. “There’s a place I’ve heard about.”
“What are we looking for?”
“We’re checking on The Dog,” Jesse told me, and would say no more.
We eased west to Bowman, just under the North Dakota line. Jesse sort of leaned into it, just taking joy from the whole occasion. I followed along as best the DeSoto could. Potato rode with Jesse, and Chip sat on the front seat beside me. Chip seemed rather easier in his mind.
A roadside café hunkered among tall trees. It didn’t even have a neon sign. Real old-fashioned.
“I heard of this place all my life,” Jesse said as he climbed from the Linc. “This here is the only outhouse in the world with a guest registry.” He headed toward the rear of the café.
I tailed along, and Jesse, he was right. It was a palatial privy built like a little cottage. The men’s side was a three-holer. There was enough room for a stand-up desk. On the desk was one of those old-fashioned business ledgers like you used to see in banks.
“They’re supposed to have a slew of these inside,” Jesse said about the register as he flipped pages. “All the way back to the early days.”
Some spirit of politeness seemed to take over when you picked up that register. There was hardly any bad talk. I read a few entries:
On this site, May 16th, 1961, James John Johnson (John-John) cussed hell out of his truck.
I came, I saw, I kinda liked it.—Bill Samuels, Tulsa
This place does know squat.—Pauley Smith, Ogden
This South Dakota ain’t so bad,
but I sure got the blues,
I’m working in Tacoma,
’cause my kids all need new shoes.—Sad George
Brother Jesse flipped through the pages. “I’m even told,” he said,
“that Teddy Roosevelt crapped here. This is a fine old place.” He sort of hummed as he flipped. “Uh, huh,” he said, “The Dog done made his pee spot.” He pointed to a page:
Road Dog
Run and run as fast as you can
you can’t catch me—I’m the Gingerbread Man.
Jesse just grinned. “He’s sorta upping the ante, ain’t he? You reckon this is getting serious?” Jesse acted like he knew what he was talking about, but I sure didn’t.
II.
We didn’t know, as we headed home, that Jesse’s graveyard business was about to take off. That wouldn’t change him, though. He’d almost always had a hundred dollars in his jeans anyway, and was usually a happy man. What changed him was Road Dog and Miss Molly.
The trouble started a while after we crossed the Montana line. Jesse ran ahead in the Lincoln, and I tagged behind in my DeSoto. We drove Highway 2 into a western sunset. It was one of those magic summers where rain sweeps in from British Columbia just regular enough to keep things growing. Rabbits get fat and foolish, and foxes put on weight. Rattlesnakes come out of ditches to cross the sun-hot road. It’s not sporting to run over their middles. You have to take them in the head. Redwings perch on fence posts, and magpies flash black and white from the berm, where they scavenge road kills.
We saw a hell of a wreck just after Wolf Point. A guy in an old Kaiser came over the back of a rise and ran under a tanker truck that burned. Smoke rose black as a plume of crows, and we saw it five miles away. By the time we got there, the truck driver stood in the middle of the road, all white and shaking. The guy in the Kaiser sat behind the wheel. It was fearful to see how fast fire can work, and just terrifying to see bones hanging over a steering wheel. I remember thinking the guy no doubt died before any fire started, and we were feeling more than he was.
That didn’t help. I said a prayer under my breath. The truck driver wasn’t to blame, but he took it hard as a Presbyterian. Jesse tried to comfort him, without much luck. The road melted and stank and began to burn. Nobody was drinking, but it was certain sure we were all more sober than we’d ever been in our lives. Two deputies showed up. Cars drifted in easy, because of the smoke. In a couple of hours there were probably twenty cars lined up on either side of the wreck.
“He must of been asleep or drunk,” Jesse said about the driver of the Kaiser. “How in hell can a man run under a tanker truck?”
When the cops reopened the road, night hovered over the plains. Nobody cared to run much over sixty, even beneath a bright moon. It seemed like a night to be superstitious, a night when there was a deer or pronghorn out there just ready to jump into your headlights. It wasn’t a good night to drink, or shoot pool, or mess around in strange bars. It was a time for being home with your woman, if you had one.
On most nights, ghosts do not show up beside the metal crosses, and they sure don’t show up in owl light. Ghosts stand out on the darkest, moonless nights, and only then when bars are closed and the only thing open is the road.
I never gave it a thought. I chased Jesse’s taillights, which on that Lincoln were broad, up-and-down slashes in the dark. Chip sat beside me, sad and solemn. I rubbed his ears to perk him, but he just laid down and snuffled. Chip was sensitive. He knew I felt bad over that wreck.