That made me feel kind of sad, because I was all pepped up about living on the farm, but I didn’t say anything. There ain’t no use arguing with Pop. After a while we found a tunnel going under the river and when we come out Pop said we was in Jersey. I didn’t say any more about Sig Freed, hoping he would forget he was there and not make me put him out, but every once in a while he would jump up and lick Pop on the face.
“Wet cuss, ain’t he?” Pop says, just barely missing a big truck.
But he didn’t say anything about making me put him out, and I could see he had something on his mind. He looked kind of worried, and he kept mumbling to hisself. After a while he pulled off the road and counted how much money we had.
“Is it very far from Aqueduct to Hollywood Park?” I asks him.
“It’s quite a piece. Take us a week, anyway.”
That night we found a place to camp by a little creek and while he was frying the baloney I asks him, “Pop, why can’t we go to Uncle Sagamore’s?”
“Well, for one thing, he may not be there. The last I heard he was about to be drafted.”
“Is he in the printing business too?”
“No,” Pop says. He opened a bottle of beer and sat down on a rock with his sandwich. “You might say he’s more in the manufacturing business.”
“Oh.” I give Sig Freed a piece of baloney. He flipped his head and throwed it, and then pounced on it like it was a mouse and gobbled it down.
“See, Pop,” I says, “he eats baloney.”
“Well, that’s nice of him,” Pop grunts.
“Democratic, ain’t he?”
“Can we keep him, Pop?”
“We’ll see,” he says. “But don’t bother me now. I got a problem.” He was looking worried again.
Sig Freed went over and started licking the frying pan. He liked the grease. It was dark now, and the fire was pretty under the trees. I got my blankets out of the trailer and unrolled ‘em, and laid down with Sig Freed curled up beside me. I wanted to keep him awful bad. Pop opened another bottle of beer.
“Have we ever been to Hollywood Park?” I asks. We been to so many cities I kind of lose track sometimes.
Pop shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Because you got to go across Texas to get there.”
“What’s Texas, Pop?” I asks.
“What’s Texas? Well, I’ll tell you.” He lit a cigar and stretched his legs out. “Texas is the biggest area without horse racing in the whole world, outside of the Pacific Ocean. I been wanting to go to Hollywood Park and Santa Anita for years, but I ain’t never had enough money to get all the way across Texas at one jump, and that’s the only way you can get across. One time, before you was born, I started out from Oaklawn Park. I got as far as Texarkana, and headed out into Texas real early in the morning before I could lose my nerve. But the more I thought about it the scareder I got, and in about fifty miles I got chicken and turned back. I ain’t never tried it since.”
He looked at the fire and let out a long breath, kind of shaking his head. “Maybe I’m getting a little old to try it now. A man’s either got to be young and full of sass and vinegar and ready to tackle anything, or else he’s got to have a lot of money. Texas ain’t no place to fool around with. There ain’t a race track in a thousand miles in any direction. A man was to run out of gas in the middle of it, he might have to go to work, or something like that. It just ain’t safe.”
I could see it had him worried considerable. Every night when we’d camp he’d get out the road maps and measure off with little sticks and count the money we had left, and it always come out the same. We’d run out of gas at a place called Pyote, Texas, half-way between Fairgrounds and Hollywood Park.
“It ain’t no use, dammit,” he says the last night. “We just can’t make her. We’re going to wind up spank in the middle of Texas, sure as you’re born. The only thing to do is hole up at Sagamore’s till Fairgrounds opens next fall.”