I hide my cart behind the bushes near the door.
The lady at the desk asks me if I want a shower first. I did suspect I was pretty smelly by now, but I tell her I’ll just get dirty again. “I’m on the road,” I say.
“But wouldn’t you like to take this opportunity.”
I haven’t washed since I started on this journey. Just a little bit in the bathrooms at the rest stops.
I know she means the doctor I’m going to see would like it a lot better if I did.
“But what about my cat?”
She lets him come in to the bathroom with me. “Since,” she says, “he’s on a leash.” Then they let him into the doctor’s office with me, too.
Everybody is very nice here.
“I want to report my feet. And my cat’s feet.”
He doesn’t believe me about my feet predicting disaster. He doesn’t say so, but I can tell.
“Well,” he says, “there’s plenty of disasters around to predict.”
That type of little black mustache he has always intimidates me, but he’s quite nice underneath it.
“This is something really, really big. Like a tornado or an earthquake or a gigantic mud slide. Mud as far as the eye can see.”
“Where are you living? Are you eating?”
“Oh, yes, and fish, lots of fish. I know it’s good for you.”
I don’t want him to think I’m just an ignorant tramp.
“There’s a shelter just down the road if you need help. You can get a free meal there.”
“Will they have cat food?”
“Do you have a place to live?”
“But, Doctor, these tingly feelings? It’s getting worse. I thought maybe it was important. I thought you’d like to look into it.”
“Nothing to worry about. Old people get these odd nerve twinges all the time. Let me give you the address of this place where they’ll help you.”
I’m worried they might put me away. I’d have to stay here and the disaster might be right in this area and I couldn’t escape.
I say I’ll go there right away but I won’t.
“I’ll drive you, if you can wait a bit.”
“I don’t mind walking.”
I have to show him all my money before he finally lets me go. I still have quite a bit. Also I show him my vitamins and my cod liver oil. (Both Natty and I take it.) That impresses him.
At least he doesn’t charge me much. But he didn’t do anything either, except to tell me I’m fine.
It’s going to be too bad… I mean the big disaster… there are so many nice people in the world like these people at the hospital. It’s a shame so many of them will have to die. I’m trying to tell them but they won’t listen.
I don’t go for the free meal, though that would have been nice. I haven’t had any vegetables for a long time. But I’m worried they’ll stop me. I know it looks bad, an old lady with a big bundle walking—walking!—across the country. I’ll have to try to think of a good reason for doing it. Maybe for some cause or other like breast cancer. Why didn’t I think of that before?
By evening I finally come to the hill. The road climbs back and forth. It’s still a wide and sweeping four lanes. This is going to be hard. Dangerous, too. A good place for a landslide.
I struggle on. Not a single good place to rest. Everything on a slant.
A silvery sporty car stops next to me. The top down. It’s the doctor. Just the sort of car to go with his mustache. What’s he doing way out here?
He says he doesn’t like how I look. It’s twilight. How come he can see me so well?
He’s popped the trunk.
“Put your cart in back.”
I step off the road on the rocky down side. He can’t follow. Not in the car.
But he’s out and is opening the passenger door for me. “I’ll drive you.”
Thank goodness it’s almost dark. And it’s even darker in the shadows of the boulders where Natty and I hide. Natty’s a talkative cat, but he knows not to make a sound.
The doctor calls a few more times. “I can help.”
Exactly what I don’t want most is help.
Finally he drives off.
What now? Are they going to be chasing me? Capture the crazy woman? Do I have something else to worry about? Why do they care?
I’m going to walk on through the night. It’s safer.
Whenever a car goes by, I hide in the ditch. It’s not easy, what with my cart and all. At least you can see the cars coming from a long ways off.
We reach the top of the hill. Now the road will be flat again for a nice long while.
Finally, there in the ditch, I just have to stay and sleep.
In the morning I see there’s somebody else walking along, way, way, way ahead of me—by about six miles I’d say. Here the road is so straight and flat and there’s so few trees you can see for miles. I think the next hillock is probably about twelve miles away.
Hours pass, but I’m catching up. He doesn’t stop to rest. I don’t either. What if he, too, has funny feelings? And there’ll be safety in numbers. For me at least. Maybe if the doctor sees I have somebody… especially a man… he won’t bother me anymore.
I get all shaky with hope. Somebody else, maybe, who knows what I and Natty know. He won’t think I’m crazy.
Finally, he sits down. It takes me half an hour to catch up, and then I walk past so as to take a good look first.
We’re both elderly. We’re both skinny from so much walking. We’re both browned by the sun and have chapped lips. We both have big hats. I got mine when I started wondering about crossing the desert.
He stares as I go by. He’s wondering about me as much as I’m wondering about him. He has a cart much bigger and sturdier than mine. More like a wheelbarrow, only he’s rigged it with a loop around his waist so he can pull it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have a tent. And there’s a frying pan tied on top. I’ll bet he never hitch hikes. He’s got too much stuff.
He’s found a nice spot to rest. There’s an arroyo and actually a few spindly cottonwoods growing along the banks. Not exactly giving shade. Under the road is a culvert for when there’s water in the arroyo. That’ll be where he pees.
I turn around and come back.
He looks like a country person… farmer or some such… though by now I may not look like I’m from the city either.
Before I sit down (not too close), I search the sky. Out here you can see a lot of it.
I say, “So far everything is fine.”
He doesn’t bother answering. It’s clear that it is.
We sit silently but I can’t tell if it’s a comfortable silence or an uncomfortable one.
Natty’s the only one who gives a questioning, “Yeow?”
When the man gets up to go on, I do, too. He didn’t ask me to come, but he didn’t say not to.
It’s evening and this was a good spot to spend the night, but off he goes. He may be trying to get away from us. Some people don’t like cats.
Is he going to walk all night? I don’t dare ask. If I ask he may tell me not to follow.
We go on and on. Towards morning he comes to a group of spindly trees. I stay about twenty yards behind so as not to be a bother. I collapse just off the road. In the ditch so to speak. At least there’s enough run-off for there to be bushes all along the road side. Almost like the edges of the rivers. I don’t even have the energy to get us our can of cat food.
I wake up late the next morning. To the sound of traffic—if you can call one car about every ten minutes traffic. My feet are tingling even more than before. Whatever it is is coming closer.
I study the sky. Not a cloud in sight. Not a tree either except for the clump where the man camped. He’s gone on ahead. He’s already a few miles down the road. Maybe he does mind us following but I’m not going to let him get away.