and the duffel bag extending from his left arm.
“So far, so good,” he said, and resumed shining his flashlight through the open slats in the side of the trailer. The dense circle of yellow light moved over a massive Angus bull. The animal’s warm smell had a sweet yet acrid quality and when it shifted its weight from one set of legs to another, the trailer groaned respectfully.
July walked to the other side of the road and urinated on the gravel shoulder.
It was a clear, summerlike night, and the sky glowed with unusual green luminance.
The spilling sound reminded the old man of his own full bladder and he also peed on the edge of the road. Far in the distance a dog barked.
“You need a ride, young man?”
Inside the truck, the driver adjusted his billed hat and lit a cigarette. July shoved the duffel bag under the seat and sat beside him. “Where you going?” he asked.
“Wisconsin. Ever been there?”
“Nope,” said July.
As they rode through Wyoming, the old man explained that he and his brother kept a herd of Herefords in southwestern Wisconsin. They wanted to breed up some black baldy calves, and the old man had driven out to the stockyards in Cheyenne, looking for a long yearling with eye appeal. At a late auction, he’d bought one.
July liked the way the old man talked—his accent and choice of phrases. On this basis he decided to continue with him.
“How long you been in Wyoming?” the old man asked.
“Eight or nine months, working on a ranch.”
“You from around here?”
“Nope.”
“Where you from?”
“Everywhere,” said July. “Never been to Wisconsin, though.”
“Where were you before you were in Wyoming?” asked the old man, openly exhibiting the interest of someone who currently lived in the same house he had grown up in.
“Unloading ships on the docks in California.”
“And before that?”
“Hauling wheat in Canada,” July said. His window was open and the warm night air blew against the side of his face. “I spent almost a year in the prairie provinces, driving truck. While I was there I met a man, a logger with a plastic leg who could run faster than anyone I’d ever seen. And at night he’d take off his leg and count the money hidden inside it. Other people were always betting him he couldn’t outrun them.”
“How’d he lose his leg?”
“Cut it off by mistake with a chain saw, above the knee.”
It was the kind of talk people make in bus stations and other places when they do not expect to see the person they’re talking to again—stories about other people, maybe true and maybe not. It was good-natured talk, well suited to the thin, fleeting comfort shared by strangers. Ghost talk.
They traded driving in South Dakota and continued all the way into Wisconsin, where the old man began to anticipate returning to his brother and their farm more eagerly.
“It’s not that far now,” he said. “Only about twenty miles past the next town. My brother should be waiting up for us. The coffeepot will be on and we can have a real meal.”
The trailer rattled loudly after running over a large pothole in the pavement, and the old man stopped at the deserted intersection and went back to check on his young bull. It was dark, and after looking at the tires, he inspected the interior of the trailer with his flashlight.
July got out and stretched.
When the old man climbed back behind the wheel, July stood in the road and drew the large canvas duffel bag from under the seat. He pulled the strap over his shoulder.
“Thanks again for the ride.”
“My place is just a little ways ahead. Look, my offer for a place to sleep is good.”
“Thanks, but, well, no thanks.”
“At least let me drive you into Grange. I don’t feel right leaving you here in the middle of the night.”
The young man looked away. He was uncomfortable with not complying with the older man’s wishes yet remained determined to be on his own. “Where does that road go?” he asked, nodding north.
“To Words—nothing up there but a handful of houses. Look, my brother will be waiting for me. Our place is only a little ways from here. You can spend the night, and in the morning—”
“I wonder why they put so many stop signs here?” asked the young man, neither expecting nor waiting for an answer. “I really appreciate the ride.”
Smiling, he closed the door.
“Wait,” said the old man. “The sandwiches—there are a couple left. You paid for them.” And he handed a greasy, lumpy paper sack through the open window.
July tucked it under his arm. “Well, thanks again, and goodnight.”
He stood in the middle of the road and watched the glowing taillights move beyond his sight. The clanking and banging sounds of the trailer faded and disappeared. A grinning yellow moon dissolved all the stars around it and threw a greenish-blue glow over the countryside.
July set his pack down and took out a denim jacket, replacing it with the paper sack.
“Okay,” he said, “which way now?” He hadn’t thought further ahead than this unknown intersection.
He stood in the middle of the road wondering which way to go, waiting for some inspiration—a beckoning or sign. After receiving none, he decided a town called Words was good enough.
His boots made clumping sounds against the road’s hard surface, which continued north in a meandering manner up and down hills. Moonlit fields of standing corn, hay, and soybeans merged with evergreen and hardwood, marshland and streams. Crickets, frogs, owls, and other nocturnal creatures called out to him as he passed. Of particular notice were the unidentifiable cries—the raw sounds of nature that refused to be firmly associated with mammal, fowl, or insect.
Set off from the road, an occasional yard light burned near a barn. The houses themselves remained dark, their occupants sleeping.
It had been some time since he’d been in the Midwest, and July attempted to picture himself in the central part of the United States once again. He’d been born just southwest of Wisconsin, in Iowa, so this seemed like a homecoming of sorts, or as much of one as his habitual homelessness could imagine.
In the distance a firefly of light appeared, disappeared, and reappeared at a different location. Once it was out of the hills, it advanced more earnestly, then disappeared for a longer time, only to float up into view a mile away. The single light rounded a corner and divided into two parts, accompanied by a harsh, rushing sound. Then the headlights grew brighter, bigger, and louder, like an
