Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [54]
It was between noon and one o’clock when they reached the half-way point. Augusta was then only a little over seven miles away, and when they got to the top of the last hill they would be able to see the city down in the valley beside the big muddy river.
The last hill they had to climb before reaching that point was a long one. It was a mile and a half from the creek at the bottom to the filling-station on top, and they were about half way up, when suddenly the car slowed down to a few miles an hour. The water was boiling in the engine and radiator, and steam shot higher than the top of the wind-shield. The engine was making a great noise, too. It sounded as if it were knocking in the same way that Jeeter’s old car had, only a little harder and a little louder.
“What’s the matter with us?” Bessie said, leaning over the door and looking around outside.
“It must have got hot climbing the hill,” Dude said. “I don’t know what else is wrong with it.”
They went a hundred yards, and the car stopped. The engine choked down, and the steam whistled out of the pipes like pistons on a freight train at the coal chute.
Jeeter jumped out and shoved a big rock under the rear wheel before Dude could put on the brakes. The car stopped rolling backwards.
“What’s the matter with it, Dude?” Bessie said again. “Is something gone wrong?”
“I reckon it just got hot,” he said.
He made no effort to get out. He sat under the steering-wheel, grasping it tightly and jerking it from side to side as far as it would go. Presently he began blowing the horn again.
“That won’t help it none, Dude,” Jeeter said. “You’ll wear out that durn horn before you know it, if you keep doing that all the time. Why don’t you get out and try to do something?”
Several automobiles passed them at high speed, going up the hill and coming down, but none of them slowed up or stopped to offer help.
Another car was coming slowly up the hill behind them. It was coming very slowly in low gear, and it was steaming like Bessie’s new car. As it chugged slowly past them, some of the negroes leaned out and looked at the stalled automobile.
One of them called to Jeeter.
“What’s the matter with your automobile, white-folks? It looks like it ain’t going to run no more.”
“By God and by Jesus!” Jeeter said, angrily. “What’s your name, nigger? Where you from?”
“We come from Burke County,” he said. “What you want to know that for, white-folks?”
Before Jeeter could say anything more, the negroes’ car was a hundred yards up the hill, and gaining speed. Jeeter had been going to make them pull Bessie’s car up the hill, if he could have stopped them.
Dude cranked up the engine and put the car into gear. Jeeter and Bessie hopped on the running-board just in time, because Dude soon had the car going fast. The engine had cooled, and they were going faster than the negroes’ car. They gained on the car ahead and were getting ready to pass it, when suddenly the engine began knocking louder than ever, and they came to a stop.
“This is the durndest automobile I ever saw,” Jeeter said. “It don’t do the same thing long enough to make me accustomed.”
They had stopped this time on top of the hill. Dude was getting ready to let it roll down, when Jeeter saw the filling-station, and he told Dude to wait a minute.
“I’ll bring some water and put it in,” he said.
He crossed the road and went into the filling-station. He was back in a few minutes carrying a bucket of water. The man who ran the station came out with him.
While Jeeter was unscrewing the radiator cap, the other man was raising the hood to measure the oil.
“The trouble with you people, brother,” he said, “is you ain’t got a drop of oil in your car. Your bearings is burned out. How far did you come from?”
Jeeter told him they lived near Fuller on the old tobacco road.
“You’ve already ruined your new car,” he said. “That’s a shame. I hate to see people who don’t know no better ruining automobiles.”
“What’s wrong with it now?” Bessie said.
“Your new car is ruined, sister. It’ll take a gallon and a half of oil to put enough in it to run on. Do you want me to fill it up for you?