Earl woke up and took a moment to orient himself. The truth was, this motel had turned out to be worse than the one in Rock Springs, with a TV so bad that the Monday-night football game had been more static than picture. Earl and Teller had gone to bed early, and Earl had slept quite well, but his preparation for the day was awkward. The shower had no handles to grasp, and the plastic temperature control seemed to adjust only from “way too hot” to “way too cold.” The water smelled wrong too, like it was pumped out of some slough out back.
But Earl took his shower and tried not to burn or freeze himself, and then he began the laborious task of dressing. He wasn’t one to walk out into the main room naked, so he tried at least to get his garments on and his pants pulled up before he left the bathroom. But putting pants on was a chore. His left leg, for some reason, had lost its capacity to lift the way it should. He sat on the toilet and got his right foot through the pant leg, but then he had to grab the shin on his left leg with his right hand and tug it upward as far as it would go. At the same time, he had to reach with his left hand to lower his pants under his foot. Doing both stretched him to the limit. And then, once he had his foot hooked in, he still had to extend it through the pant leg. That was hard, sitting down, but he knew he couldn’t manage the process standing up.
“You okay in there, Earl?” Teller finally yelled.
“Yes. I’m fine.” Earl knew he had to move faster and not hold everything up, so he jerked hard on his pants and almost tipped himself off the “throne.” He caught himself, took a big breath, and then jerked again. He stood up at that point. He couldn’t feel the cold of the floor with his numb feet, and that was maybe a blessing, but he also knew that he had to be careful to watch his balance so early in the morning, especially after such an exertion. So he took baby steps and worked his way out of the bathroom.
But now he realized the only shirt he had to put on was the one he had worn since they had left Salt Lake. “I don’t have a change of shirts,” he told Teller. “I didn’t haul all those canvas bags in last night. We need to buy suitcases, like we talked about, so I can put everything in one place.”
“It’s okay. Wear that ugly brown one another day, and then throw it in a dumpster somewhere. We need to buy you a couple of shirts that were manufactured in this century.”
“This brown one’s fine,” Earl said. “No use throwing something away when it’s still got plenty of wear in it.”
It was the discussion he and Becky had had a thousand times. But Earl decided he was okay with putting on the same shirt one more day.
Teller, who was usually slow about getting ready, hurried that morning, and when he came out in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, he looked like someone had just dragged him out of a lagoon, his hair wet and stringy and his blue shorts spotted with drips. Teller didn’t have a big belly; he was simply thick from armpits to hips, built like a barrel. But Teller could dress pretty fast, and as he did, he told Earl, “I studied the map again while you were in the bathroom. I’ve picked out some back roads we can use to head up to Gillette and then on over to Mount Rushforth.”
“Rushmore.”
“Exactly. I’m thinking we can head over to a place called New Castle and then up through part of the Black Hills National Forest.”
“That sounds good. What about breakfast?”
“Maybe we can find a McDonald’s somewhere outside of Casper without actually going into town. I think we still need to stay out of sight as much as we can.”
Earl didn’t really like the stuff they served at McDonald’s, and he hated eating in a car, but he figured Teller was thinking right about staying off main roads. So when they went through a drive-through and kept on going, he ate an Egg McMuffin and thought it tasted all right. He told Teller he’d like to put the top down on the car again—as soon as the temperature rose a little. And then he admitted, “You know, I’m kind of getting used to this. I don’t want to be chased by the police again, but it’s fun to look around at the mountains and everything without going so fast. And to tell the truth, it’s kind of exciting to see a police car and wait to see whether he’ll recognize us or not.”
“I told you, that’s one of the pleasures in life—living a little on the edge. You know, as long as you haven’t done anything really wrong.”
Earl tried to think how he felt about that. “I don’t know,” he said. “In the movies these days—the ones my grandkids watch when I go over to Becky’s house—there’s always wild car chases and crashes and people shooting guns. I don’t think stuff like that would be any fun.”
“No. Of course not. But we’re more like Cary Grant and that pretty girl in North by Northwest—that great old movie. We’re good guys, but we’re being chased by people who don’t know that. And we’re heading for Mount Rush . . . more.”
“Let’s not get up on the presidents’ faces, though. That scared me, even in the movie.”
Teller laughed hard.
“I’d like to see that show again sometime,” Earl said. “I really liked it. So did Muriel.”
“It was a good movie, Earl. But old guys like us spend too much time talking about the good old days and how everything was better then. We forget that a lot of things weren’t so great.”
“I don’t know. It seems to me that most things were better. Remember the old radio shows? You didn’t have to see them. Everything was like a picture in your brain.”
“Sure. But I remember Amos and Andy, which made fun of Black people. That’s the ‘good old days’ too.”
Earl remembered the program, but it had never occurred to him until that moment that anything had been wrong with it. It had just seemed funny, that’s all.
“That’s one thing about traveling the world and meeting people from different places. I started to see that not all our attitudes in America were what they should be.”
Teller did have a point. Earl remembered how his father had talked about Black people and American Indians and people who moved in from Mexico. Earl had never really argued with him about that, but as he grew older, he realized that he had a lot of his dad’s attitudes in him, and some of them were things he’d had to reject.
Earl liked that Teller made him think. He hadn’t expected that from him when he first met him. “So tell me the truth, Teller,” he said. “Have you really traveled all over the world?”
“How can you ask me that? I’ve told you about all the places I’ve been.”
“I know. But sometimes . . .”
“Sometimes you doubt me. But here’s the truth: I’ve been everywhere. I’ve crossed the international date line probably a dozen times, and I’ve crossed the ice caps all the way to the North and South Poles, and I’ve sailed—”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Haven’t what?”
“You haven’t been to the two poles.”
“Oh, Earl, there’s so much you don’t know about me. But how can I tell you if you don’t trust what I say?”
Still, Teller was grinning, and Earl didn’t know what that meant. “Come on, Teller. You tell stories that I know couldn’t have happened.”
“What are you talking about? What have I told you that isn’t true?”
“You told that guy in that truck stop all that stuff about us being lumberjacks, and you knew I hadn’t ever worked in a logging camp.”
“I was just trying to make you feel included. I didn’t want to tell my story and imply that I was better than you.”
“I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe for one minute that you were ever a logger or that you hit that guy or that you had dinner with him and then became his friend.”
“Really? Earl, it hurts that you would say that.”
“That’s because I tell the truth and you make up the world.”
“I thought you liked my stories.”
“I do.” Earl smiled to show Teller that he wasn’t mad. “But your stories are like movies—all imagination.”
“Thank you.”
Earl shook his head, hardly knowing what Teller meant by that.
But Teller added, “When we get back to Salt Lake, I’ll show you the Christmas cards the big guy has sent me over the years.”
“You mean Mercury Dinwitty?”
“Exactly. Except he’s Merc to me.” Teller broke out laughing, seemingly overjoyed by his own “truth.”
Earl thought he was nuts. The guy talked in riddles, but Earl knew truth was truth. Something happened, or it didn’t happen. It was crazy to get mixed up about that.
But Teller said, “I just remember things better than most people do. And you have to realize, every story starts with reality and then takes shape into something better. Reality isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.”
Earl thought he had a glimmer of an idea about what Teller was saying. He had watched some of his own family stories “grow” with time.
Teller drove on to Newcastle and then northeast into South Dakota. They stopped a couple of times in the national forest to view some scenic vistas and to use the toilet facilities. Teller had been a little nervous that the ranger at the entrance to the forest might be watching for their car—or notice the old license plates—but the young woman paid no attention, and Earl was starting to feel that they were now beyond the reach of those who might be searching for them. At one of their stops Teller put down the top again, and Earl enjoyed the ponderosa-pine woods and the chance he had to see a little herd of elk.
By the time they reached the Mount Rushmore monument, Earl was excited. He was ready to get out of the car, for one thing, but mostly he wanted to see how he felt about looking at the monument after seeing it only in pictures all his life. There was a fee to park the car, which Earl paid, but it turned out there was no fee to enter. Earl liked that.
A shuttle carried them to the gate, but the walk to the viewing area was still longer than Earl would have chosen. Thunderclouds had moved in by then, and the wind was pushing them across the sky. What he liked, though, was the dramatic picture these clouds created as they scudded over the mountain. He and Teller passed by some souvenir shops and then through a walkway lined with flags of many countries, and by then they could see the faces of the presidents. It was everything Earl had hoped for. The carved heads were bigger than he had expected, and he wondered how anyone had known how to sculpt something so immense.
When they reached an observation area, Earl and Teller stood at the edge of a crowd, everyone looking up, many expressing their awe at the monument, most speaking quietly. Earl wished Teller’s voice weren’t quite so loud when he said, “Well, Earl, it’s quite a sight, don’t you think?” Before Earl could answer, a tiny man, probably about Earl’s age, turned around and said, “It’s worth every minute of the long drive we took to get here. I’ve wanted all my life to see this.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Teller said as though he owned the place or at least was a tour guide. But then he asked, “Have you seen the Crazy Horse Memorial yet?”
“No. My son is driving us over there when we leave here.”
“Just between you and me, I like that one better.”
“Is that so? I thought it was still under construction.”
“Oh, it is. That’s the great thing about it. You can’t even make out that it’s the shape of a horse and rider yet; only the face of the chief is showing up so far. What you see is this enormous mountain being shaped by dynamite and heavy equipment. You have to picture the monument in your mind. That’s what I like.”
A younger man, certainly the son, turned and looked at Teller. “I hear they charge a lot to see it, and there’s really not much to see.”
“Oh, my friend, reality is such a trick—a dead-end alley. We value it way too much. The mountains we haven’t climbed are more inspiring than the ones we’re standing on. The paintings in our brain are better than any photograph.”
Both men—son and father—took a long look at Teller. They appeared perplexed by his words. They turned back around without replying. Earl was grinning. He sort of liked that Teller had shocked the two fellows. Still, he hoped Teller wouldn’t say much more.
“There’s been some talk of adding a fifth president up there on the mountain,” Teller told Earl, again loudly enough for many around them to hear.
Earl decided not to bite on this one. He really thought it would be better if Teller didn’t attract quite so much attention.
“Those who’ve been in on the discussions have let the word leak that the fifth guy might be Milford Fillmore.”
Heads turned. Earl could see that Teller liked that—but he wasn’t smiling.
“That may surprise some people,” Teller said, “but Fillmore was born in a log cabin, the same as Lincoln, and he worked his way up from poverty through sheer determination. Also, like Lincoln, he opposed slavery. On top of that, he was the one who opened trade with Japan, and we can all be thankful for that.”
That was it. Earl didn’t say a word, nor did anyone else, but Teller held his pose, his solemn look, and people continued to glance his way. A woman wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat made no bones about peering out from under the brim and scowling at Teller. When she turned back, Earl heard her whisper to her husband, “It’s Millard, not Milford. And why would he be up there with those great men? That’s ridiculous.”
Earl grinned at Teller, but Teller’s face didn’t change.
“There are a lot of stories told about the monument,” he announced in the same loud voice. “Some well-informed people claim that those faces could never have been sculpted by human hand. It’s too hard to create something so big when you can’t step back for perspective. One theory is that erosion—wind and water—came together in a miraculous way and etched those countenances.”
Teller’s face remained placid, thoughtful. But Earl thought he had pushed the joke—if that’s what it was—too far.
A young man standing behind Teller must have decided he had heard enough. He said to someone, not to Teller, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Teller replied, without looking back, “When we stop believing in miracles, we’re lost, my friends. These great men were miracles of a sort, so why couldn’t Mother Nature respond by carving a tribute for all the world to see?”
The little guy who had turned around before, looked back again and said, “That’s a good point. I don’t see why not.”
Teller should have been satisfied, but instead he took the final leap off the cliff of his own logic. “I’ve seen miracles in my own life. In my great push to reach the South Pole, I lost my toes to frostbite. The toes that didn’t fall off had to be amputated when I returned to warmer regions. But I knew I would need those appendages if I was to achieve my personal goal to be the only man to reach both poles and also the peak of Mount Everest. So I used self-hypnotism, and I concentrated every day on growing those toes back. It took some time—a month and a half, as I recall—but they all reappeared, fully formed. Some say that’s impossible, and I say, look at my toes. There they are, better shaped than they had been before, and that’s absolute proof that miracles can happen. I’ll show my feet to anyone who doubts me and wants to have a look. And did I reach the peak of Mount Everest? Not quite. A vicious storm stopped me when I was almost there. But I’m going to try it again next year. I’ll die on that mountain if I have to, but I’ll never give up. Never. Never. Not ever.”
The little guy said, “Good for you,” and the young man whispered, “That guy’s nuts.” The combination of the two comments seemed to offer some sort of fulfillment for Teller. He finally laughed, and the sound echoed all the way to the monument and back.
By then Earl was pulling Teller away from the crowd. “I think we should move on,” he told him.