The Lincoln Highway

When their boxcar reaches New York City, Ulysses acts as a guide to the Watson boys, helping them carefully navigate their way to a camp Ulysses has frequented over his years riding the rails. Emmett has explained his plans to locate Duchess through his father’s talent agency and has arranged for Billy to remain with Ulysses while Emmett accomplishes this task. Emmett is impatient with Ulysses, who, with his experience and knowledge of the city and the camp they are going to, takes the lead. Ulysses has no patience for Emmett’s questioning, and, when Billy stops to admire the view and Emmett and Ulysses find that he is momentarily out of their sight, Ulysses becomes frustrated. Ulysses stresses to Billy the importance of always remaining within touching distance of Emmett or himself. Billy has been drawn in by the sight of the Empire State Building and continues to marvel at the sights of the city around them as they make their way to the camp. Ulysses sneaks them into a building through which the train cars pass, using the boxcars as cover until they emerge at an abandoned section of track cordoned off by fencing.

Passing through a hole in the fence, they arrive at an encampment of makeshift shelters. Ulysses greets a man he calls Stew, who is surprised to find that Ulysses is in the company of others. Ulysses secures them an empty campsite and asks that Stew prepare a meal for them. When Emmett sees Ulysses reaching for his belongings as if to pay for their food, Emmett steps in and tries to cover the cost for all three. Taking it out, Emmett quickly realizes that the bill Mr. Parker placed in his pocket was not $5 but in fact $50. Ulysses scolds Emmett to put it away. Billy and Emmett dine on an expertly rendered chili, sitting by the fire and making small talk with two of the men living in the camp. When Billy is once again a bit too forthcoming about their plans to pick up their car and head out for California, and one of the men begins asking questions that set off warning bells for Ulysses, so Ulysses quickly intimidates the man and his companion into leaving the fireside, glowering at Emmett to impress upon him how unwise it is for Emmett to allow Billy to be so forthcoming about their circumstances. 

Woolly is not happy to be in Manhattan, which he feels is “terribly permanent,” and “absotively [sic] filled with expectations” (264). The busy, densely populated city overwhelms and disorients him. Similarly, Woolly has always been bowled over by the volume of news and events he feels people in Manhattan are compelled to be appraised of, “things you were expected not only to be knowledgeable about, but on which you were expected to have an opinion that you could articulate at a moment’s notice” (265), a pressure he feels incapable of managing. Sitting in the lobby of the Sunshine Hotel waiting for Duchess, Woolly is pleased to find that the newspaper vendor who happens by is selling not just the papers of the day but newspapers from the past three days. Though the vendor’s price for all three papers is a nickel, Woolly happily gives him several bills that he finds in the pockets of Mr. Watson’s pants, telling the vendor that he can keep the change. In the evening, giving himself an additional dose of his medicine, Woolly pores over the papers and reads about the civil defense testing that had taken place in the city, transfixed by a published photo of Broadway from the evacuated test area, the streets empty and serene. 

Duchess learns from Bernie at the Sunshine Hotel that his father and Fitzy are in the habit of commencing their heavy drinking each night around 8 pm at the Anchor bar, so Duchess sets himself up at the establishment, waiting. Duchess approaches Fitzy’s booth just as Fitzy is about to take his first drink, and Fitzy is shocked to see him. Fitzy observes how much Duchess has grown up, and Duchess cites the “hard labor” he has been subjected to as the cause, an intentional reference to his time in Salina. Duchess is direct with Fitzy about the fact that he is looking for his father, that they have “unfinished business” (270), and that Duchess suspects if anyone had any information about his father’s whereabouts it would be Fitzy. Fitzy claims that he has not seen Duchess’s father in weeks.

Duchess goes to the bar for a bottle of Fitzy’s chosen drink, presuming that if he plies Fitzy with what he wants most, Fitzy will be more likely to divulge his father’s whereabouts as the liquor takes effect. Duchess begins to allude to the circumstances of his incarceration, emphasizing the word “swore,” and “thieves,” to gauge Fitzy’s reactions. Finally, Fitzy utters his apology, “I’m so sorry, Duchess […] I’m sorry I put those things about you in that statement. Sorry that I signed it” (272). Fitzy begins making excuses about why he had acted that way. As Duchess goes quiet, he realizes that Fitzy is frightened of him. Using Fitzy’s fear to his advantage, Duchess issues a veiled threat, explaining that, having wronged him, if Fitzy were to tell him where his father had gone, he would consider them even. If not, Duchess informs him “I’ll have to use my imagination to think of some other way for the two of us to settle up” (273).

Sally is tearing up the road in her pickup named Betty and comes to an abrupt stop at the fence, where she finds her father in the field with two of his employees. Her father warns her if she continues to drive her truck that way it won’t last much longer, and he won’t help her repair it. Snapping back that she knows her truck and her father and knows what to expect from both, her father urges Sally to get on with whatever she has come to say. She produces the FOR SALE sign that had been posted at Emmett and Billy’s home and asks him why she found it in the trash. Her father explains that he has purchased the Watson home, and Sally confronts him, “The speed with which you bought the place […] it makes one wonder just how long you’ve been lying in wait to do so” (275), and further suggests her father might have helped Mr. Watson in all the time that the fam was failing. Her father dismisses his employees, waiting until they leave to address his daughter. He explains that, with Charlie Watson’s lack of skill and the financial struggles the family endured as a result, it was inevitable the farm would come up for sale, and it’s only natural that a rancher would try to expand his acreage.

Sally counters his argument by reminding her father he had nudged Emmett out of town and into the concession of the property to the bank, which is further evidence he was acting in his own interests. Seizing on the opportunity to address the issue of his daughter and Emmett, Mr. Ransom tells Sally that Emmett, like his mother, was never going to remain at the farm and that Emmett was eager to embrace the opportunity to make a life elsewhere. Her father likens people to “stayers,” and “goers,” and Sally challenges her father, asking which he thinks she is. Sally’s father tells her that he regrets having been so permissive with her after the passing of her mother, that she has become “willful,” and “unsuited to matrimony” (278), and she is incensed by the audacity that he exhibits in characterizing her in such a fashion. Enraged, she gets back into her truck and tears back to the house, screeching up to the front porch to find Sheriff Petersen waiting for her.

As Ulysses sits by the fire, Stew approaches him and asks if the Watson boys are leaving the following day. When Stew says that he will keep their bedding for them, he is surprised to hear Ulysses ask for his to be kept as well, knowing Ulysses to be a man who never spends more than one night in any given place. To Ulysses, Billy’s logic about friendship, which Billy had shared with him earlier, made the situation reasonable. If Ulysses remained another day and spent it in Billy’s company, their third day together would mark their transition from acquaintances to friends.