The Road to Grace (The Walk) (11 page)

After the last two days of solitude, I was in the mood to talk to someone. Anyone, really. Unfortunately, my waitress wasn’t, so I just listened in on other diners’ conversations.

The next morning I ate a ham and cheese omelet at the Nibble Nook Café, then started off. The service road had ended at Kadoka, so I resumed my walk along 90 for another five miles or so until another frontage road appeared.

A little after noon an old, loaded-down pickup truck sped by me, close enough that the wind of the vehicle nearly knocked me down. The truck disappeared over a slight incline. About twenty minutes later I caught up to
the truck. It was pulled over to the side of the road, its hazard lights flashing, the road around it strewn with an eclectic array of items. I surmised that the truck’s cargo had been held in place by a queen-sized mattress, which had flown off.

The driver was grumbling and cursing as he collected his things, which were scattered over a fifty-yard radius up and down the service road, like a big, chaotic yard sale.

The man was a little shorter than me and much wider, probably carrying an extra fifty pounds. He wore a bushy beard and a Chicago Bears jersey. He reminded me of the kind of guy you’d see at a football game, shirtless with a painted face and wearing a rainbow Afro. He glanced over at me after throwing a pillow into the truck.

“Need a hand?” I asked.

He grimaced. “Sure. Why not?”

I slid my pack off and began picking up his things, most of them of little value, including a dozen faded T-shirts, some VHS cassettes of porn, and some plastic dishes—most of them now broken. The man just grunted and cursed.

“Looks like you’re moving,” I said.

“Got that right,” he replied. “Finally got smart and dumped the old nag.” He turned and threw a dish rack into the truck’s bed. “You know how you spell relief? D-I-V-O-R-C-E. You know what I mean?”

“No,” I said.

He bent over. “Then you’re not married, are you?”

“No,” I replied.

“Then you’re smarter than me. Life is short. You gotta grab it. You know what I mean? If you don’t look after yourself, who will?”

“You tell me,” I said.

“No one. No one looks out for you but you. You gotta watch your own back.”

I didn’t bother to point out that this was literally impossible. “Where are you headed?” I asked.

“Headed back to where life was good. You know what I mean, back in high school? Chicks and beer, we knew how to live back then. Life was one big party. That’s where I’m going.”

“Over the rainbow …” I said, picking up a couple cassettes with skanky covers.

“What?”

“Nothing. Do you think what you’re looking for will still be there?”

He stopped and looked at me as if he was annoyed by my stupidity. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

I didn’t answer him. We finished gathering the rest of his things, then I helped him lift the mattress onto the heap and we crisscrossed a nylon rope over the mattress and secured it to the truck bed. When the last knot was tied, I picked up my pack. “Well, good luck.”

“Thanks for the help,” he said. “Can I give you a lift?”

“No thanks. I’m walking.”

“Suit yourself.” He slammed his door, fired up his truck, which backfired a couple of times, then peeled off, spitting gravel at me. I shook my head. I think of all the people I had met so far on my journey, he was the most pitiable.

A few hours later I came to a building with a sign that read:

Petrified Gardens

“Family Approved Site”

Bring your camera!

I didn’t have a family or a camera, but I was curious about this building in the middle of nowhere so I went inside. A bell rang as I entered, and a gaunt, middle-aged man who looked a little like Christopher Walken met me at the door. “Would you like to buy a ticket?”

“Sure,” I said.

“How many?”

“It’s just me.”

“One ticket,” he said. “That’ll be seven dollars.”

I paid him. He handed me a ticket. Then (I’m not making this up) he said, “Just a second.” He walked back ten feet to the museum’s entrance and held out his hand. “Ticket, please.”

I handed him back the ticket.

“Right this way,” he said, motioning me forward.

I walked into a long, dark room with displays of mounted rocks behind glass and chicken wire. The room was lit by ultraviolet light, causing the rocks to fluoresce. I stayed there a few minutes, then walked out of the room through a door that led to the backyard.

The yard was scattered with petrified wood, fossils, quartz, and dinosaur bones. There was a “petrified wood pile,” also an old cabin, about the size of a utility van, with a sign that read, “Eleven people survived the winter of 1949 in this cabin.” At first I envisioned pioneers huddled in buffalo skin blankets, stranded in a blizzard. Then I realized the sign said 1949, the same year Russia got the atom bomb. This place really was remote.

To leave I had to walk back inside the building, where there was a display of fossils, a collection of geodes, and drilled slabs of stone that were somehow used or discarded in the making of Mount Rushmore. The exit led into a gift shop, which had much of the same Mount Rushmore merchandise I’d seen at the monument, and a whole lot of polished rocks set in various accessories: cuff links, tie tacks, key chains, and earrings. I asked the man, who now stood ready as the gift shop attendant, how business was.

“This place has been in the family for fifty-seven years,” he said.

He hadn’t really answered my question, but I suspected that was probably all he wanted to share. I used the restroom, then said good-bye and headed back to the road.

That afternoon, six miles past the town of Belvidere, I encountered a billboard that read, “1880 Town.
Dances with Wolves
movie props next mile.”

I smiled as I read the sign. I thought back to the evening I watched the movie with Nicole. That was also the first night I heard her crying. I wondered how she was doing.

Less than a mile or so later I crossed north under the freeway, to 1880 Town. There was a large, painted wood sign out front that read:

1880 TOWN

DAKOTA TERRITORY

ELEVATION: 2391 FT

POPULATION: 170 GHOSTS

9 CATS

3 DOGS

3905
820 36 6 2
RABBITS

The entrance to the town was through a fourteen-sided barn (advertised as the only one in the world). The front fence was flanked by two train cars, an authentic steam engine, and a stainless steel dining car, which, appropriately, had been converted into a diner.

I walked inside the barn where I paid twelve dollars to a grumpy woman with blue hair.

The building was piled to the rafters with Old West antiques and
Dances with Wolves
movie memorabilia—including the sod house and tent from the movie set, the Timmons Freight Wagons, and scores of pictures of Kevin Costner and Mary McDonnell, the woman who played Stands With A Fist, Costner’s love interest. I got my phone out of my pack and called Nicole. She answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Nicole, it’s Alan.”

Her voice was animated. “Alan! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s so good to hear your voice. Where in the world are you?”

“South Dakota.”

“South Dakota? Have you passed Wall Drug?”

“You know about Wall Drug?”

“Everyone knows about Wall Drug.”

“Yes, I stopped there.”

“How was it?”

“It was a really big drugstore.”

“I’ve got to go there someday,” she said.

“So, the reason I called. Do you remember that scene in
Dances with Wolves
, where Costner hunts the buffalo?”

There was a long pause. “Yeah. I think so.”

“I’m standing next to that very buffalo.”

“It’s still alive?”

“No, it never was. It’s an animatronic buffalo.”

“A what?”

“A robot buffalo,” I said.

She laughed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m great. Really. How are things? How is Kailamai?”

“She’s exactly what you said she’d be. She’s a remarkable young lady. She’s already enrolled in college.”

“How’s my dad working out?”

“He’s been a lifesaver. We’re getting things in order. I’m getting IRAs, mutual funds, and a bunch of things I know nothing about. But who cares about my boring life? Tell me about your adventure.”

“Not much to tell you. I’m still on my feet.”

“I think about you every day, you know.”

I was quiet for a moment. “We had some good times together, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, we did. If you ever get tired of walking, there’s always a place for you here.”

“For the record, I was tired of walking before we even met. But thanks for the invite. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’ve thought a lot about the time we spent together. I …” She paused. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“Promise me that I’ll see you again.”

“I promise.”

“Okay,” she said. “That will do for now.”

“May I talk to Kailamai?”

“She’s out with some friends. She’ll be disappointed she missed you. She has a whole new batch of jokes she’s been saving for you.

“Here’s one she told me this morning. A golf club walks
into a local bar and asks for a beer, but the bartender refuses to serve him. ‘Why not?’ asks the golf club. ‘Because you’ll be driving later,’ replied the bartender.”

“That’s really awful,” I said.

“I know,” Nicole laughed. “But it’s so funny that she tells them.”

“It sounds like the two of you are doing well.”

“We are,” she said.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Good. Because you’re responsible for it.”

“Good to hear I’ve done something right.” I sighed. “Well, I better let you go.”

“Okay,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Call again soon.”

“I will. Take care.”

“See ya.”

It was good hearing her voice. Still, our conversation reminded me of how lonely I was. I stowed my phone back in my pack then walked out the back door of the barn into the park.

1880 Town was an ambitious re-creation of the Old West, covering more than fifty acres. There was a post office, dentist office, bank, pharmacy, jail, a one-room schoolhouse, a livery full of authentic horse wagons, and at least two dozen other buildings, the whole being even more ambitious than Montana’s Nevada City. The most peculiar exhibit was a live, pretzel-loving camel named Otis, who was corralled in a pasture behind the town’s church.

I didn’t plan to walk any farther that night, so I hung around the town for about an hour, long enough to wander through every building. When I’d seen all I cared to, I walked back to the diner car to get something to eat.
There weren’t many other customers, just two families, and I sat at the opposite end of the train car, laying my pack on the red vinyl bench across from me. I looked over the menu, then sat back and waited until the waitress came over a few minutes later. She was young, with short red hair and a badge that read
MOLLY.

“Hi,” she said. “Sorry for the wait. May I get you something to drink?”

“I’d like some water. A lot of it, like a carafe.”

“A what?”

“A pitcher,” I said. “A whole pitcher.”

“Okay. Do you know what you’d like to eat?”

“How’s your meat loaf?”

“It’s good. I had it for lunch.”

“I’ll have the meat loaf and the chef’s salad with Thousand Island dressing.”

She scribbled down my order. “You got it. I’ll be right back with your water and some bread.” She walked back to the kitchen.

Outside my window there was a Shell gas station. On the near side of the station was a family sitting on a grass patch next to their minivan. The father was looking at a map spread out over the hood of their car, while the mother assembled sandwiches for the three children. Watching them brought back memories of the family trips we took before my mother died.