He did the work thoroughly, feeling down in the hole again, but found
nothing more. Then he stuffed the bag inside his blouse and buttoned up
his sweater with his well hand and somehow got up the stairs. That arm
pained him a lot, and he found his sweater was wet. So he took his
handkerchief and tied it tight around the place that hurt the most,
holding one end in his teeth to make the knot firm.
The sun blinded him as he stumbled down the back steps and went to get
his wheel, but somehow he managed it, plunging through the brakes and
tangles, and back to the road.
It ran in his brain where the Shaftons lived out in the country on the
Jersey shore. He had a mental picture in the back of his mind how to
get there. He knew that when he struck the Highroad there was nothing
to do but keep straight on till he crossed the State Line and then he
would find it somehow, although it was miles away. If he had been
himself he would have known it was an impossible journey in his present
condition, but he wasn't thinking of impossibilities. He had to do it,
didn't he? He, Billy, had set out to make reparation for the confusion
he had wrought in his small world, and he meant to do so, though all
hell should rise against him. Hell! That was it. He could see the
flames in hot little spots where the morning sun struck. He could hear
the bells striking the hour in the world he used to know that was not
for him any more. He zigzagged along the road in a crazy way, and
strange to say he met nobody he knew, for it was early. Ten minutes
after he passed the Crossroads Elder Harricutt went across the Highway
toward Economy to his day's work, and he would have loved to have seen
Billy, and his rusty old wheel, staggering along in that crazy way and
smelling of whiskey like a whole moonshiner, fairly reeking with
whiskey as he joggled down the road, and a queer little tinkle now and
then just inside his blouse as if he carried loaded dice. Oh, he would
have loved to have caught Billy shooting crap!
But he was too late, and Billy swam on, the sun growing hotter on his
aching head, the light more blinding to his blood shot eyes, the lump
bigger and bluer on his grimy forehead.
About ten o'clock a car came by, slowed down, the driver watching
Billy, though Billy took no note of him. Billy was looking on the
ground dreaming he was searching for the state line. He had a crazy
notion it oughtta be there somewhere.