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There's a whole lot of things Art Baker realized he didn't know before starting the Walk that he ended up learning real quick the moment they started moving. There's not a whole lot that can prepare a fella for a thing like this, but he didn't think he'd be taken by surprise quite so much as he has been. The most surprising of all, Art thinks, is all this doggone heat.
See, it ain't like Art Baker's any sort of stranger to the heat. Growing up dirt poor in Baton Rouge meant suffering summer after endless summer of thick, swampy humidity and a sun so sweltering it'd sting you like nettles after just a couple of seconds standing beneath it. The worst part of it all had to be how inescapable it was—ain't a single soul on his street had any sort of air conditioning to speak of and window panes alone weren't ever enough to keep out that damp, stifling air.
It's the sort of thing a person just sort of gets used to after a while, Art supposes, especially living so far south for long enough—just like the steady drone of katydids or the sharp bite of a hundred swarming mosquitoes after a heavy rain. But getting used to something's never made it more pleasant before, not in his experience. The thing is, Art expects that sort of thing down home in Louisiana. He doesn't feel like it's all that foolish he thought he might get some sort of break from it all the way up here in Maine, some hundreds of miles north of where he grew up.
Turns out, Art was real wrong about that. At least he's never been afraid of admitting when he's been a dang fool.
Art almost didn't pack his handbook with him. He didn't think he'd need it, if he's being perfectly honest. He's already read it more times than he can count, after all, front to back and back to front and all the way around again. If he didn't know the rules by the time he showed up and started walking, would he really even have a shot? Art didn't think so. No, it was his grammaw who convinced him to put it in his bag the night before he left.
"It don't weigh an ounce over nothin', Arthur," she'd said, shooing him away from the open knapsack on his bed so she could rearrange its contents herself. "Now hush up and mark my words—you'll be better off having it and not needing it than needing it and not having it, wouldn't you?"
She'd hugged him after that, wrapped her arms around him tight as she could and pressed her cheek to his chest and just held him that way for a good long while, the way she used to when he was younger and she'd chide him in that unserious way of hers for growing up too fast. It was hot then, too, even with his bedroom window propped open to let in the night air and the ceiling fan looping lazy circles overhead. He could feel her shirt sticking to the ever present sheen of sweat on his arms, her hair clinging to his neck, but Art found he didn't mind that heat quite so much. In fact, he thinks he'd give just about anything to feel it right now.
To his right, Art can hear the rest of the musketeers bickering now, too—McVries is blotting at his face with a bandana and bemoaning the temperature like he ain't from Macon his dang self while Garraty tries to interject every couple of steps in defense of his home state's wicked weather. He says something about how it'll cool down come dusk and how they'll all be wishing for the sunshine come nightfall, but Art doesn't want to hear anything of it. He knows better. Back home, the heat didn't go nowhere in the dark, not really.
Olson shuffles a few paces ahead, head tilted toward the road. If he's got a horse in this race, he doesn't say so. He's been real quiet the past few miles and Art can't help but wonder how his legs are doing and if that's what's got his own tongue all tied up in silence again. But Art doesn't ask, not yet. Olson does shed his jacket after a while, though, and Art watches as he knots it tightly around his waist. That's good.
"How you holding up so steady over there?" McVries asks and Art glances over to realize he's talking to him.
Art only grins, shaking his head. "Y'all don't know a thing about the heat if you're sweating already," Art tells them, matter of fact. It might be bad but it ain't nothing compared to what he's used to. "You of all people should be doin' just fine, musketeer," he says, reaching out to give McVries a friendly swat on the shoulder. He's just a few inches shy, just a pace or two away. The gesture doesn't quite land. McVries sees it anyway and Art can't help but bark out a laugh at the way he looks at him for it, bright and loud and mirthful. "Nothin' we're not used to, that's what I say," Art continues through his laughter, turning his eyes back to the road. "Half these boys would've done dropped already if they had us starting down in Baton Rouge, I'll tell you that for free."
"You don't really make it sound like a great place to live, you know," Garraty points out but Art's already shaking his head.
"The heat don't make it bad," Art says, and there's conviction in his tone when he corrects Garraty. "I didn't say that."
And he wouldn't, either. Some of the best memories of his life were spent in the sweltering heat, memories he wouldn't trade for anything. If he closes his eyes, he can almost go back there—Sunday mornings in mid-July when everybody and their mamas were packed into the pews of the tiny church house on 7th Street, shoulder to shoulder, shoutin' and singin' and sweatin' so much it was an honest ten degrees hotter inside than out. Art remembers hearing his grammaw's voice ring out above all the others, high and loud like she was singing for the good Lord Himself, the way she'd fan herself with her bulletin just to keep from swooning under the weight of all that praise and glory.
"Warning, number eight! First warning!"
Art doesn't even realize he's stumbled but he can't help it, the way the thought's suddenly struck him.
"Whoa there, Art!" McVries says. "You good? Did I speak too soon?"
"I'm good," Art replies, and he's already slinging his backpack around to the front of his chest and rifling through it for a few clumsy seconds before pulling out his handbook—slightly rumpled, torn at the edges, but still in decent shape. "I just had an idea is all."
"There's no hints about heatstroke in there," Garraty says. Art wonders if he's always this contrarian or if it's just the Walk that's bringing it out in him. It don't matter either way. Art just lets it roll right off his shoulders. Water off a duck's back, he thinks. That's how he keeps cool. Well—that's one of the ways.
"Oh, I know," Art says. "I read it too." He opens the booklet to the very center, smoothing out the pages between his palms until the pages lay flat. It ain't perfect, but it's bigger than a whole lot of the pamphlets ushers used to pass out on Sundays and, when he flicks his wrist just right, he can feel that gust of cooler air on his face that's enough to take him right back home, if only for a second. "Now that's what I'm talkin' about," Art says, grinning at his own stroke of genius as he continues to fan himself. "This might be 'bout the only good thing this handbook's done for me."
They're all laughing now. Even Hank turns to glance back at them when McVries claps Art on the shoulder and says, "See, now you're thinking! That ain't a bad idea, Art, not a bad idea at all."
After a couple of miles, his idea's caught on. At least half the boys around him have dug some sort of makeshift fan out of their bags—photos, letters, more handbooks, anything they've got. The hand that ain't still fanning himself comes up to curl around the rosary that hangs from his neck and Art thinks about his grammaw again as the arms of the cross press into his palms. She'd hung it from his neck that very same night after she finally let him go, straightened it on his chest right where her head had only just been before looking up at him. He can still see her smile when he closes his eyes like she's standing right in front of him.
"This don't weigh nothin' either," she'd told him, "but it'll still hold you up when your legs get weary. Your faith in Him is stronger than anything you could ever fit in that bag, and you hold it right here. This is gonna bring you right back home to me. He's going to bring you home." His grammaw's always been a devout woman, but Art thinks it almost sounded like she was trying to convince herself, too.
That's okay, though. Art believes enough for the both of them.
"The way of the cross leads home. The way of the cross leads home," Art murmurs softly beneath his breath, lifting the rosary to his lips. The words get lost under the flutter of a dozen paper fans, but he can still hear them. That's all that matters. "It is sweet to know, as I onward go, the way of the cross leads home."