Ray Gorham - 77 Days in September

Louise and Kyle waited in the truck until a little after noon, when the sky finally started to clear and the wind died down. Together they left the shelter of the semi behind, with Louise perched carefully in the cart and Kyle straining against the handle. Kyle’s joke with Ed about pulling a rickshaw no longer seemed nearly as funny. When the unlikely pair had set off three days before, Kyle had tried to have Louise walk, but that had worked for only about a half mile before it became apparent that because of her age and condition, she would only be able to walk a few minutes at a time before becoming too exhausted to continue. So, a half hour and a half-mile into their journey together, Kyle had been forced to repack his cart to make a place for her to sit. And there she rode, while he strained at the handle.

“It sure is muggy,” Louise said from the cart, the first complaint coming less than three minutes into their day’s travel.

“I know Louise. It rained,” Kyle answered, trying to sound pleasant but no longer caring very much if he did. “It will probably be muggy like this for the rest of the day.” He had grown numb to her ability to find the cloud to every silver lining, and while he wasn’t expecting a reward, at the very least he didn’t want to hear her constant complaints: the food, the heat, the wind, the uncomfortable cart, how slow he was walking, not enough food, the smelly truck, nothing to read, and on and on. By this point, each new whine had become something of a joke to him.

Dalhart was about eight miles ahead and, to Kyle’s inexpressible relief, was where Louise was headed when the attack had occurred and where Kyle would soon be able to deliver his passenger to her family. The temptation to abandon Louise on the side of the road the first night had been strong, and had she been headed much further north, he would have left her somewhere in Texas without a second thought, or at least that’s what he told himself. However, because so many people had been willing to help him, he had decided he could put up with a cranky old lady for a few days.

Six hours later, and three days after finding Louise, Kyle halted the cart on the north side of Dalhart in front of a cream-colored, stucco house adorned with a gray, armadillo-shaped welcome sign that hung to the side of the front door. He knocked, waited, and was about to knock again when he heard footsteps. A short, heavy-set, teenage girl cracked the door open and peered through the narrow crack. Kyle wondered to himself what she must be thinking, to find a strange, bruised and bearded man on her doorstep. The girl eyed Kyle and seemed poised to slam the door shut when Kyle spoke up.

“This is the Kennedy home, correct?”

The girl nodded. Kyle could see a man, likely the girl’s father, coming towards the door from a kitchen, his face wary.

“I found your grandmother on the side of the road. I brought her here.”

The girl looked past Kyle to the street where Louise was gathering what few possessions she had brought. “Daddy!” she called, turning towards her father.

The man had heard the comment, pulled the door open wide, and looked out to the street. “I don’t believe it,” he said to no one in particular, then stepped past Kyle and ran to his mother.

The girl called for her mother and older brother, and the family hurried outside to help Louise with her things. Kyle watched from the sidelines, musing that normally if a woman who’d been missing for two weeks had been found and returned, the family would’ve been overcome with emotion and barely able to contain themselves, an event worthy of a live CNN broadcast. This celebration was reserved. They hugged and talked, but there were no tears and no big displays of emotion. It was almost business-like in manner, as if they were actors in a play that no one really cared about.

Louise’s son approached Kyle. “I need to thank you,” he said. “We’ve been worried about Mom for the past two weeks, but I didn’t know how I could find her, and….”

Kyle interrupted him. “Look, it’s been rough for everyone. You don’t need to explain anything. I’m glad I could do it.” Kyle extended his hand to Mr. Kennedy, who embraced Kyle’s hand with both of his.

“I’d offer you something, but we don’t have much,” he said, assessing Kyle’s cart.

“I don’t need anything. Besides, you have more people to feed than I do.” Kyle started to walk towards his cart, and Mr. Kennedy followed along behind. “You know, I could use a hammer though; my cart needs some repairs. And, if you’ve got a way to get me to Montana, I’d take that as well,” Kyle said over his shoulder. “Otherwise, I’d better get on my way.”

The man shook his head soberly. “I don’t have any way to get you to Montana, but I do have a hammer. Give me a minute.” Mr. Kennedy ran off to look for the hammer, and Louise hobbled over to offer her thanks and say goodbye, then walked to the house with a grandchild under each arm just as her son returned, leaving the two men alone in the street.

Mr. Kennedy handed Kyle the hammer. “Go ahead and take this with you. I have another one. Good luck on your trip. We’ll be praying for you.”

“Thank you. Good luck to you too. Things are tough.”

The man nodded in agreement, his expression obviously anxious.

As he swung his cart around and headed back towards the highway, Kyle wondered if he’d done the family any favors, giving them one more mouth to feed. With conditions already bad, maybe they would have been better off without Louise, as cruel as that sounded. He trudged towards the edge of town, hoping he hadn’t made the family’s predicament worse.

Staying near Dalhart for the night was an option that would have fit his schedule, as tired as he was, but everything about the town unsettled him. It had been a week since he’d passed through any big towns, and in comparison the overall mood in Dalhart was much bleaker. There were no children playing in the streets or in the front yards, and despite the rain, even the grass and trees seemed lifeless and wilted. Instead of the friendly waves and words of encouragement that had been offered earlier in his trip, people eyed him suspiciously and retreated towards their homes when he approached, much as the people in Lubbock had done.

Walking gave Kyle plenty of time to think, and the hopelessness of the Kennedy’s stuck with him for a long time. They were hungry and fearful, like so many other people, perhaps even his own family. With those thoughts haunting him, Kyle walked on into the night, wanting desperately to be home, not stopping until long after the sun had set and the darkness had fully engulfed him.

Wednesday, September 21 st

Oklahoma Panhandle

Day 19

Covered good ground today. I’m traveling alone once again after finding an old lady 3 days ago who, by some miracle, had survived for two weeks in the middle of nowhere. Yesterday I delivered her (Louise Kennedy) to her family, but their reunion was not the joyful experience I expected. Her granddaughter’s eyes have haunted me all day. She reminded me of the children from Africa you see on the late night TV commercials, hopeless and starving and waiting for someone to save them. The father’s expression wasn’t much better. I feel like rather than saving one life, I’ve endangered four others, or at least consigned them to more severe hunger than they would have experienced without Louise. It made me worry about how you are surviving. The biggest problem with walking is no longer the physical demands (not that my feet and legs don’t ache), but the time to think and worry and not know. Just the chance to get any news would be worth so much to me. This afternoon I met a man with a ham radio that was working. He said he’d been anticipating something like this for 20 years. I gave him a message to try to send but have little hope it will get to you. I will keep my fingers crossed.