The Burning: An Atlantic "First"

by Jack Cady

SUNLIGHT gleamed as Singleton and I walked down the hill to the charred wreckage of what had been a truck. Gates was dead, and the breeze lifted sooty material that mixed with the valley smells of weeds, flowers, and diesel stink. Manny was in jail. Nothing more could be done for Gates, but now Manny was sitting in his own fire, burning because he was kind, because he was gentle.

Traffic was moving as usual on the long slopes; only an occasional car slowed, its occupants looking over the scene of last night’s fire. The truck drivers would know all about the trouble, and they did not want to see. Besides, there was a hill to climb on either side of the valley. They could not afford to lose speed. I knew that by now the word of the burning had spread at least a hundred miles. As far as Lexington, drivers would be leaning against counters listening, with wildness spreading in them. Singleton and I had not slept through the long night. We revisited the scene because we felt it was the final thing we could do for both men.

Close up the sunlight played on bright runs of metal where someone had pulled the cab apart hoping to recover enough of Gates’s remains for burial. An oil fire, when the oil is pouring on a man, doesn’t leave much. Only the frame and other heavy structural members of the truck remained.

“If he had only been knocked out or killed before the fire got to him. . .” We were both thinking the words. Either might have said them.

“His company’s sending an investigator,” Singleton told me. “But since we’re here, let’s go over it. They’ll be sure to ask.”

“Are you going to pull?”

“No.” He shook his head and ran his hand across his face. “No. Next week maybe or the week after. I’m not steady. I called for three drivers. That’s one for your rig too.”

“Thanks. I’ve got vacation coming. I’m taking it.”

The road surface along the wreck was blackened, and the asphalt waved and sagged. It was a bad spot. The state should have put up signs. Fortyseven feet of power and payload; now it seemed little there in the ditch, its unimportance turning my stomach. I wanted to retch. I felt lonely and useless.

We walked to the far hill to look at the tire marks. Narrow little lines which swung wide across the other lane and then back in, suddenly breaking and spinning up the roadway. Heavy black lines were laid beside them where the driver of the car being passed had ridden his brakes and then gone on up the hill. Coming down were the marks Gates made, and they showed that he had done what a trucker is supposed to do. He had avoided at all costs. The marks ran off the road.

I never knew him. Manny, tall, sandy-haired, and laughing, was my good friend, but I did not know Oates. I did not know until later that Singleton knew him.

WE HAD picked Gates up twenty miles back on the narrow two-lane that ran through the Kentucky hills. We rode behind him figuring to pass when ho got a chance to let us around. It was early, around 3 A.M., but there was still heavy vacation-season traffic. Manny was out front behind Gates. My rig was second behind him, and Singleton was behind me. Our three freights were grossing less than fifty thousand so we could go.

Gates’s tanker must have scaled at around sixty thousand. Even with that weight you can usually go, but his gas-powered tractor was too light.

It slowed us to be laying back, but there was no reason to dog it. He was making the best time he could. He topped the hill by June’s Stop and ran fast after he crested on the long slope down. He had Manny by maybe two hundred yards because Manny had signaled into June’s.

When he signaled I cheeked my mirrors. Singleton kept pulling so I kept pulling. When he saw us coming on, Manny canceled the signal and went over the top behind Gates. It allowed enough of a lag for Gates to get out front, and it kept Manny from being killed.

We took the hill fast. You have to climb out the other side. I was a quarter mile back, running at forty-five and gaining speed, when I saw the headlights of the little ear swing into the lane ahead of Gates’s tanker. The driver had incorrectly estimated the truck’s speed or the car’s passing power.

It was quick and not bad at first. The tanker went into the ditch. The car cut back in, broke ti action, and spun directly up the roadway. It came to a stop next to Manny’s rig, almost brushing against his drive axle and not even bending sheet metal, a fluke. The car it had passed went onto the shoulder and recovered. The driver took it on up the hill to get away from the wreck and involvement.

Manny was closer, lie had perhaps a second more to anticipate the wreck. He had stopped quicker than I believed possible. It was about a minute before the lire started. I was running with my extinguisher when I saw it, and knew I would be too late.

“I wish he’d exploded,” Singleton said. He kicked up dust along the roadway. He was too old for this, and he was beat-out and shaken. The calmness of resignation was trying to take him, and I hoped it would. I wondered to myself if those clear eyes that had looked down a million and a half miles of road had ever looked at anything like this.

“Exploded? Yes, either that or got out.”

“He was hurt. I think he was hurt bad.” He looked at me almost helplessly. “No sense wishing; let’s go back up.”

After the wreck Singleton had backed his rig over the narrow two-lanc, following the gradual bend of the road in the dark. He had taken the two girls from the small car into his cab.

I had stayed a little longer until Gates’s burning got really bad. Then I brought the little car in, feeling the way I feel in any car: naked, unprotected, and nearly blind. I was shaking from weakness. The road was blocked above. There was no oncoming beyond the pot flares. The cop with the flashlight had arrived ten or fifteen minutes after the wreck. Behind me the fire rose against the summer blackness and blanketed the valley with the acrid smell of number-two diesel. Because of the distance, Manny’s rig seemed almost in the middle of the fire and silhouetted against the burning, though I knew he had stopped nearly fifty yards up the roadway. My own rig was pulled in behind him; its markers stood pale beside the bigger glow. As I was about to go past the cop, he waved me over.

“Where you taking it?”

“Just to the top,” I told him. “The girls were pretty shaken up. Don’t worry, they won’t go anywhere.”

“ Think they need an ambulance?” He paused, uncertain. “Christ,” he said. “Will that other cruiser ever get here?”

“What about Manny?” I asked.

“In there.” He nodded to where Manny sat in the cruiser. The lights were out inside. He could not be seen. “I’ll take a statement at the top. You’ll see him at the top.”

I wanted to call to Manny, but there was nothing I could do. I took the car on to June’s Stop. Bigs were starting to pile in, even stacking up along the roadway. Gars were parked around and between them, blacked out and gleaming small and dull in the lights from the truck markers. Most of the guys had cut their engines. It would be a long wait.

Singleton’s truck was down by the restaurant. Inside around the counter, which formed a kind of box, drivers were sitting and talking. A few were standing around. They were excited and walked back and forth. I wanted coffee, needed it, but I could not go in. At least not then. A driver came up behind me.

“You Wakefield?” he asked. He meant did I drive for Wakefield. My name is Arnold.

I told him yes.

“Your buddy took the girls to Number Twelve. He said to come.”

“As if we didn’t have enough trouble. . .”

“He’s got die door open.”The guy grinned. He was short with a light build and was in too good a mood. I disliked him right away. “Listen,” he said. “ They say there’s going to be a shakedown.”

“Who says?”

“Who knows? That’s just the word. If you left anything back there, you’d better get it out. Check it with June.”

He meant guns and pills. A lot of companies require them in spite of the law. A lot of guys carry them on their own, the guns I mean. Pills are Benzedrine, Bennies, or a stronger kind called footballs. Only drivers who don’t know any better use them to stay awake or get high on.

“I’ve got it right here,” I told him, and patted my side pocket. “I’ll hang onto it myself.”

“Your funeral,” he said, grinning. He gave me a sick feeling. He was a guy with nose trouble, one who spreads his manure up and down the road, a show-off to impress waitresses. “Thanks,” I said, and turned to go to the motel room.

“Hey,” he yelled, “what do you think will happen to him?”

“You figure it out.” I went over to the motel, found Twelve, and went inside.

THE room had twin beds. Singleton was sitting on one, facing the two girls on the other. One was kind of curled up. The other was leaning forward still crying. Vassar, I thought. No, nothing like that on 25 South; University of Kentucky likely, but the same sorry type. I edged down beside Singleton. “Why do you bother?” I asked him. “To hell with them.” The girl bawling looked up hard for a moment and started bawling worse.

“I had room,” she bawled.

We were all under a strain. The diesel smell was bad, but the other smell that I would never forget had been worse. Even away from the fire I seemed still to smell it.

“You thought you had room!” I yelled at her.

“No, really. I was all right. I had room.” She was convinced, almost righteous. At some other time she might have been pretty. Both were twenty or twenty-one. The curled-up one was sort of mousy-looking. The one who was bawling was tall with long hair. I thought of her as a thing.

“No — really,” I yelled at her; “you had no room, but keep lying to yourself. Pretty soon that’ll make everything OK.”

“Leave it, Arn,” Singleton told me. “You’re not doing any good.”

He went to the sink to wet a towel, bringing it to the girl. “Wipe your face,” he told her. Then he turned to me. “Did you bring their car?”

“I brought it —just a minute. You can have them in just a minute.” I was still blind angrv. “Old, young, men, women, we’ve seen too many of their kind, I just want to say it once.” I looked directly at her. “How much have you driven?”

For a moment it didn’t take; then she understood.

“Five years.”

“Not years. Miles.”

“Why I guess - I don’t know. Five years.”

“Five thousand a year? Ten thousand? That would be plenty; you haven’t driven that much. Five years times ten is fifty thousand. Hint’s six to eight months’ work for those guys down there. You had no room!” I bit it out at her. She just looked confused, and I felt weak. “I’m ready to leave it now.” 1 told Singleton. “I should have known. Remember, we’ve got a friend down there.”

“I’ve got two.”

He looked different than ever before. He sat slouched on the bed and leaned forward a little. His hands were in his lap, and the tint’s and creases in his face were shadowed in the half-light from the floor lamp.

“Who was he?” I asked.

He looked at me. I realized with a shock that he had been fighting back tears, but his eyes were gray and clear as always. The silver hair that had been crossed with dark streaks as long as I had known him now seemed a dull gray. The hands in his lap were steady. He reached into a pocket.

“Get coffee.” He looked at the girls. “Get two apiece for everybody.”

“Who was it, Singleton?”

“Get the coffee. We’ll talk later.” He looked at the girl who was curled up. “She’s not good.”

“Shock?”

“Real light. If it was going to get worse, I think it would have. Maybe you’d better bring June.” He got up again and tried to straighten the curledup girl. He asked her to turn on her back. She looked OK. She tried to fight him. “Help him,” I told the one who had been bawling.

The restaurant was better than a hundred yards off. A hillbilly voice was deviling a truck song. June was in the kitchen. I told her I needed help, and she came right away. Business is one thing, people are another. She has always been that way. She brought a Silex with her. and we walked back across the lot. In the distance there was the sound of two sirens crossing against each other.

“The other police car.”

“That and a fire truck,” she told me.

June is a fine woman, once very pretty but now careless of her appearance and too heavy. It is always sad and a little strange to sec a nice-looking woman allow herself to slide. There must be reasons, but not the kind that bear thinking about. She had a good hand with people, a good way. She ran a straight business. When we came to the room, she asked us to leave arid started mothering the girls. We went outside with the coffee and sat on the step.

“I’m sorry, f told him. “I shouldn’t have blown up, but for a minute I could have killed them. I hate every fool like them.”

“It’s their road too.”

“I know.”

“Everybody makes mistakes. You — me — nobody has perfect judgment.”

“ Hut not like that.”

“No. No, we re not like that, but she won’t ever be again either. She has to live with that.”

I understood a little more about him. He was good in his judgments. It was suddenly not a matter for us to forgive. There was the law. It had nothing to do with us.

“Manny never held those brakes against you,” he told me.

Once I had checked his truck for him, and he had a failure. I wanted to say that it was different.

We sat listening to the muffled sounds from the room behind us. Soon, off at the downhill corner of the lot, headlights appeared coming from the wreck. The state car cruised across the lot. It stopped at the end of the motel row. Singleton stood up and motioned to him. The car moved toward us, rolling in gently. The cop got out. Manny was sitting in the back seat. He was slumped over and quiet. When the cop slammed the door, he did not look up.

He was an older cop, too old to be riding a cruiser. In the darkness and excitement there had been no way to tell much about him. He was tired and walked to us unofficially. We made room for him on the step. He sat between us, letdown, his hands shaking with cither fatigue or nervousness.

“Charles,” he said to Singleton, “who was he?”

“You’d better have some coffee,” Singleton told him. He reached over and put his hand on the cop’s shoulder. I poured coffee from the Silex. and he drank it fast.

“Gates,” said Singleton. “Island Oil. When Haber went broke, I pulled tanks for two years.” He stopped as if reflecting. “He was pretty good. I broke him in.”

The cop pointed to the car. “Him?”

“Manley, Johnny Manley.”

“You’re taking him in,” I said. “What’s the charge?”

“I don’t know,” the cop told me. “I wouldn’t even know what would stick. His rig’s half out in one lane. If you’re going to say I need a charge, then I’ll lake him in for obstructing the road.”

“I didn’t mean that. I’m not trying to push you.

I just wanted to see how you felt.”

“ Then ask straight out. I don’t know what I think myself till I get the whole story.”

Singleton walked to the car. He leaned through the window to call softly to Manny. Manny did not move, and Singleton leaned against the car for a little while as the cop and I sat and watched. A couple of drivers came by, curious but respectfully silent, and the cop ran them off. June came out with a chair and sat beside the steps. The two girls came out and stood quietly. I looked at them. They were both young, pretty, and in the present circumstances useless and destructively ignorant. I could no longer hate them.

“Is that him?” one of them whispered.

“Yes.” I felt like whispering myself. It seemed wrong to be talking about him when he was no more than ten yards off, but I doubted that he was listening to anyone. He was looking down, his long body slumped forward and his hair astray. His face, which was never very good-looking, was drawn tight around his fixed eyes, and his hands were not visible. Perhaps he held them in his lap.

“They can’t prove nothing,” the cop said. “I bet he gets off.” He stood up. “Let’s get it over with; we’ve wasted time.”

Singleton came back then. “Tell me,” the cop said to him.

“He won’t be driving again. I don’t know what the law will do, but I know what Manny can’t do. He won’t take another one out. You can take her statement on the accident” — he pointed at one of the girls — “and his” — he pointed at me. “I was just over the crest - couldn’t see it very well. What 1 can tell you about is afterward, but” — he turned to the girls — “I want to tell you something first because maybe you ought to know. I’ve known that man yonder seven, eight years, lie’s a quiet guy. Doesn’t say much; really not hard to get to know. He likes people, has patience with them. Sometimes you think he’d be more sociable if he just knew how to start.” He hesitated as if searching for words.

“I don’t know exactly how to tell it. Instead of talking, he does nice things. Always has extra equipment to spare if the scales are open and the ICC’s checking, or maybe puts a bag of apples in your cab before you leave out. Rid stuff—yes, that’s it. kid stuff a lot of the time. Sometimes guys don’t understand and joke him.

“When he finally got married, it was to a girl who started the whole thing, not him. She was wild. Silly, you know, not especially bad but not the best either. She worked at a stop in Tennessee and quit work after she married instead of going back like she planned. The guy has something. He did good for that girl. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them now. and it’s none of our business I guess, but I just thought you ought to know.”

He turned back to the cop. “I came over the crest and saw Manny’s and Arnie’s stoplights and saw Arnie’s trailer jump and pitch sideways till he corrected and got it stopped. I pulled in behind them, and they were both already out and running. Before I got there. I saw the fire. He could tell you more about how it started.” He looked at me, I was thinking about it. I nodded for him to go on because it was very real to me. still happening. I wondered if maybe I could get out of having to describe it. I knew there would have to be a corroborative statement, so as Singleton told it I thought along with him.

He did a good job of the telling. He had gotten there only a minute or so after Manny and 1 were on the scene. Manny jumped from his cab, dodged around the car with the girls in it. and ran to the wreck. I took only enough time to grab my extinguisher. When I got there, Manny was on top of the wreck trying to pull Gates out and holding the door up at the same time.

The tanker had gone in hitting the ditch fast but stretching out the way you want to try to hit a ditch. It had made no motion to jackknife. The ditch had been too deep, and instead it had lain over on its side. All along there for that matter, all through those hills—the roadside is usually an outcropping of limestone, slate, and coal. In the cuts and even in the valleys there is rock. Until the truck was pulled off, there would be no way to know. It was likely that the tank and maybe his saddle tank had been opened up on an outcrop of rock. There was a little flicker of fire forward of the cab. Gasoline, I had thought, but it did not grow quick like gasoline. The diesel from his tank was running down the ditch and muffled it some at first.

I went for it with the extinguisher, but it was growing and the extinguisher was a popgun. Mannv started yelling to come help him, and I whirled and climbed up over the jutting wheel. Singleton was suddenly there, grabbing me. boosting me up. I took the cab door and held it up, and Gates started to yell.

Manny had him under the shoulders pulling hard, had him about halfway out, but he was hung up. I believe Gates’s leg was pinched or held by the wheel. Otherwise Manny would not have gotten him out that far. Manny knew though. He knelt down beside him staring into the wrecked cab.

The fire was getting big behind me, building with a roar. It was flowing down the ditch but gaining backward over the surface rapidly. I gave Manny a little shove and closed the door over Gates’s head so we could both reach him through the window. He was a small chunky man — hard to grasp. We got him under the arms and pulled hard, and he screamed again. The heat was close now. I was terrified, confused. We could not pull harder. There was no way to get him out.

Then I was suddenly alone. Manny jumped down, stumbling against Singleton, who tried to climb up and was driven back, his face lined and desperate in the fire glow. Manny disappeared running into the darkness. Where I was above the cab, the air was getting unbearably hot. The fire had not yet worked in under the wreck. I tugged hopelessly until I could no longer bear the heat and jumped down and rolled away Singleton helped me up and pulled me back just as the screams changed from hurt to fear; high weeping, desperate and unbelieving cries as the heat but not the tire got to him.

I was held in horrified disbelief of what was happening. Outside the cab and in front of it were heavy oil flames. Gates, his head and neck and one hand outside the window, was leaning back away from them, screaming another kind of cry because the fire that had been getting close had arrived. The muscles of his neck and face were cast bronze in the fire glow, and his mouth was a wide black circle issuing cries. His eyes were closed tight, and his straining hand tried to pull himself away.

Then there was a noise, and he fell back and disappeared into the fire, quietly sinking to cremation with no further sound, and we turned to look behind us. Manny was standing helplessly, his pistol dropping from his shaking hand to the ground, and then he too was falling to the ground, covering his eyes with his hands and rolling on his side away from us.

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have stopped him,” Singleton told the cop. “Of all the men I know, he’s the only one who could have done that much.”

He hesitated, running his hand through his graying hair. “I didn’t help, you understand didn’t help.” He looked pleading. “Nothing I could do, no use — Arn didn’t help. Only Manny.”

The girls and June were sobbing. The sky to the eastward was coming alive with light. The cop who was too old to be riding a cruiser looked blanched and even older in the beginning dawn. I felt as I had once felt at sea after battling an all-night storm. Only Singleton seemed capable of further speech, his almost ancient features passive but alive.

He looked at the patrol car where Manny still slumped. “They can’t prove he killed a man. There’s nothing to prove it with. I’hey can’t even prove the bullet didn’t miss, and in a way that’s the worst tiling that can happen. You see, I know him. You think maybe he’ll change after a while maybe it will dull down and let him live normal. It won’t. I sat with him before you came and did what I could, and it was nothing. Do they electrocute in this state or use gas? If they were kind, the way he is kind, they’d do one or the other.”