“So, what do we do ’til then?” I asked as the tow driver hitched the tow to the Mercury. “Where do we stay?”
“Been thinking on that. Maybe we can find a motel. We planned enough for an emergency.”
“Not for a motel,” said Christopher-John. He looked at Man, who had done all the budgeting for the trip. “What do you think?”
“We can manage it,” said Man, “depending on the price of a room.”
“Just one room?” asked Christopher-John. “What about Cassie?”
“All I want to do is stretch out,” I said, “and I can do that on the floor.”
“I don’t think you have to do that, Cassie,” Stacey said. “You can have the bed; rest of us can sleep on the floor. We’ve sure done it before or slept on the ground.” Both Man and Christopher-John nodded at that. “When the man gets finished hooking up the car, I’ll ask him about a place.”
Stacey rode in the truck cab with the tow driver. The rest of us stayed in the hooked-up Mercury. Once we were at the gas station the driver unhitched the car. Christopher-John, Man, and I started to get out, but Stacey motioned us to stay inside. As Stacey paid for the tow, the white driver said, “Now, they’ll take a look at your car in the morning, but far’s a room, you probably won’t find one here. We’ve only got one motor court, but you probably won’t get a room there.”
“All full?” asked Stacey.
The driver glanced over at Christopher-John, Man, and me in the car. “It’s right across the street there,” he said, looking back at Stacey. “You can go on over and check for yourselves. They don’t have rooms, you can spend the night here in your car.” He folded the bills Stacey had given him and slipped them into his pocket. “See you in the morning. We open at six.” With that, the driver got back into his tow truck and left.
Stacey leaned inside the car. “Well, what you want to do? Shall we try it?”
We all looked at each other, and I said, “Well, it is Iowa, not Mississippi.”
“Yeah,” Little Man pessimistically agreed, “but we all know it’s still the United States.”
Christopher-John opened his door. “Let’s walk on down.”
At the motor court a sign flashed “ROOMS AVAILABLE.” At the office door the manager said, “Sorry, all full up. No rooms available,” then shut the door.
We spent the night in the Mercury.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
We wasted practically a whole day in Iowa. We held on to our patience and our tempers. The mechanics did not have an alternator for the Mercury, but they ordered one from a shop in another town. We ate the food Dee and our Chicago family had packed and counted the minutes and the hours. Finally, late afternoon, the alternator was delivered and in place and we were on our way again. As soon as the speed limit allowed, we were out of Iowa and into Nebraska. We had no trouble in Nebraska. Maybe that was because we didn’t stop except for one fill-up. From Nebraska we headed into Wyoming. We drove through the night. We all had been looking forward to Wyoming, for we were eager to see the West, the mighty frontier West, and the Great Rocky Mountains. Soon after we crossed into Wyoming, we stopped by the side of the road to sleep. We did not want to miss the first sight of the mountains, so we took a few hours and waited until the sun rose to continue. It was worth the wait.
All of us had seen movies about the wild, wild West with images of majestic white-capped mountain peaks, pure clear expansive land that stretched to the edge of the world, it seemed, deep green mountain valleys, cobalt blue-sky country, ponderosa pine country, God’s country. We were all astounded, hardly believing we were actually here. We imagined buffaloes roaming this land and the native people of this land, the keepers of it. We had all been romanced by the heroes and outlaws of the West portrayed in movies: Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hickock, Geronimo, Cochise, Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull, Billy the Kid, and Frank and Jesse James. We knew the stars of those great western movies, like Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, all figures so mighty that no one could defeat them. We were now in the true West, and like those mighty figures, maybe we were feeling we could not be defeated either.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
After two days of eating cold food, we all wanted something hot, and when we saw the sign advertising mouthwatering-looking hotcakes, cheeseburgers and fries, and steaming hot coffee at a restaurant just off the highway, we decided to stop. Still infatuated by the West, we marveled at everything made of logs in the restaurant, everything from the hand-hewn railing that ran along the steps we climbed and along the porch that stretched the full front of the restaurant, to the log building itself. The entry was two enormous pine doors, and above them were mounted horns from a longhorn steer. Everything was totally western. We stepped inside and waited as we observed the “wait to be seated” sign. Beyond the entry, in the dining area, brightly colored woven Indian rugs hung on the walls, and a massive fireplace constructed of rock, larger and grander than any we had ever seen, was at the back wall. We marveled at it and felt part of another world.
“Know what I want?” said Christopher-John. “Stack of flapjacks this high.” He indicated at least a foot of pancakes with upstretched hands.
Stacey smiled. “That all?”
“Nope, not hardly. Want some scrambled eggs, some ham this thick.” Again Christopher-John indicated measurement with his hands. “Sausages and strips of crisp fried bacon, huge glass of milk, orange juice, and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.”
“Think that’ll keep you?” I teased.
“For a while. What about you?”
“Maybe close to the same, minus a few of the flapjacks. I want to see a menu.”
Christopher-John laughed. “What about you, Stacey? And you, Man? Same?”
Stacey didn’t answer as he looked around the lobby and then into the dining area. He seemed apprehensive. Clayton too was unsmiling and his look was stern. There were no other colored people in the restaurant.
I chose to ignore it. “Well?” I said, following up Christopher-John’s question, but before Stacey or Man answered, a man stepped from the dining area and approached us. He did not look western friendly, like the sign outside had suggested.
“Something I can do for you people?” he asked.
We all knew that tone.
I glanced at Christopher-John and Clayton Chester, then at Stacey, waiting for him to speak for us. “We’d like to be seated,” he said.
“What? At a table?” the man questioned.
“We’d like to get something to eat,” Stacey continued. “I think we’ll need a table for that.”