HIGHWAY NUMBER 66

We drove down the road Like two bats out of Hell, And before us the gates At the rail crossing fell. But we crashed through the splinters And over the tracks, And the train whistled madly And screamed at our backs. And we rode on in silence With never a word, And only the wind And the motor were heard. For a lad lay a-dying That both of us knew, And over the hills To his bedside we flew. He was dead when we got there, And somehow I know At that curve on the hill With the valley below, Where the crossing is laid, And that monster of steel, Not my hand, but his Was guiding the wheel.