A Walk Across Texas

Chapter Six

Chapter Six We passed mile sixty We’re still on the go People smile at us Saying, “Look at them go.” Walk across Texas With its wonderful sights. Walk across Texas With its beautiful nights. Eddie had awakened me several times one night battling with the raccoons who seemed intent on finding something to eat at our camp. They had ripped into a plastic bag of groceries the first night. We thought we had anchored everything down properly after that but never underestimate the power of a raccoon driven by hunger. They had torn off the end of a Styrofoam ice chest and had somehow managed to stick their claws inside and find some fruit. Just after I had drifted off to sleep I had been awakened by an explosion of profanity from Eddie. I heard what I took to be the sound of somebody hitting a punching bag and Eddie saying, “Take that. I told you to get out of here.” So I was not surprised as I wandered around the campground waiting for the coffee to boil to see raccoon tracks in the dust on the rear glass of our vehicle. I looked at them and they reminded me of some child who had gotten a pencil and had scrawled some tracks in the dust. Eddie saw me and came over. “They were looking for something to eat,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t leave the car keys lying outside on the table.” He asked me how my back felt. I told him not very good. “Feels like it has a hot wire down there in the right side,” I said. “I think I should go to the doctor.” We ate breakfast, loaded up, and drove to Perryton. We stopped at Jerry Whitehead’s Chiropractic Health Clinic. His son, Jarel Whitehead, examined me and said I was badly in need of an adjustment. I didn’t argue and allowed him to do his thing. I had to bite my teeth to keep from hollering a couple of times. But, after he had done a series of manipulations, he said he was done and that I should be able to continue my walking but that I should cut back on my daily mileage. His advice matched our revised plans so we drove to where we had stopped yesterday and continued our walking at an abandoned filling station that Norm had reached yesterday. We all prowled around the structure that had a railroad gasoline tanker car painted silver sitting on concrete blocks outside the main building. Trees grew out of cracks in the floors and walls of the structure. The strong wind slapped the limbs against the sides, making a lonely sound. I looked at the gasoline pumps in front. One had gasoline marked for 99.9 cents per gallon, which indicated the business had been closed for sometime . Inside pieces of sheetrock and insulation hung down like torn sheets of bandages from a giant wound. Had this station been somebody’s dream and for some reason they had had to close the business and go back to society and an hourly paid job that promised them so much per week but offered nothing to grab onto at night when their body was aching from the hours of work but they don’t really care about the pain because it came from working on something they own? “Boys, we had better hit the road,” said Eddie. “We are forty-three miles north of Pampa.” I looked at his map and the dot where he pointed. I looked down the line marking the road and saw the intersection of Highway 180 cutting into Highway 70 and then heading east and eventually leading us to Granbury. I felt a bit of concern as I thought about how much farther we had to walk. When you looked at the route on a highway map like this, well, it was a considerable distance. But, we kept on heading south on this day. Because of my back, Norm had decided to walk with me. We walked past mesas and one that looked like an upside down mushroom. We walked past herds of cattle and far off in a distance I saw four horses running with the wind. Streaks of pain began in my back. Norm moved in front of me, providing a draft from the wind as we walked up a rather long and steep hill. He pointed at some mountains, hazy in...