Now Scott was feeling a disturbingly similar feeling in the Charger, looking over at the empty seat. He was barely aware of himself guiding the car west on I-70. The loud sound of a horn startled him back to the present. A green Mustang convertible passed. There were four teenage boys in the car, the two in the backseat stood and mooned Scott, howling and laughing all the while, their white asses seeming brilliant in the late morning sun. Scott laughed aloud, honked his horn and waved as they sped off.
Just then, he had noticed the gas gauge was nearly bottomed out. If he didn’t stop soon he was going to do some walking. He drove in silence for another ten minutes, and then the boys in the Mustang offered him another chuckle. They were parked on the side of the road, a white state trooper sedan, lights flashing parked directly behind them. Scott gave the horn another toot and waved as he passed, but this time the boys were not laughing.
A short while later he took the exit leading into Staples, Kansas, population 753. He pulled into a Texaco station at the edge of town. It was like he had driven back in time. The pumps had the old spinning cylinders numbered zero to nine. The big red Texaco star was mounted high on a post out near the road. It even had an air hose across the ground that rang a bell inside the one bay garage when a car ran over it. A man in a grey Texaco uniform came meandering out wiping grease from his hands with a rag that was so dirty he may well have been wiping the grease on his hands as much as off. He looked to be in his forties, but too much hard work and way too much time in the sun gave his features a creased, older look.
His shirt had the Texaco star on one pocket and his name, Stew, embroidered on the other. Scott was always reminded of his dad’s advice when he saw this type of uniform. “Scottie,” he’d say, “Get a good education; you don’t want to find yourself sluggin’ it out in some grunt job, sportin’ your name on your shirt.” Of course his dad would always qualify his statement with, “Nothing wrong with hard work, but it pays better to work smart, not hard.”
“Well, Dad,” he thought as he watched Stew approach,
“
I’m working smart not hard
.
”
“Fill it,” Scott instructed as Stew stepped to the pump. Stew just nodded and began to squeeze the nozzle, the wheels in the pump display started spinning and clicking, one set counting off the gallons the other tallied the dollars and cents.
Scott surveyed his surroundings and turned to Stew, poised to speak; Stew just pointed at the garage and said, “Restroom’s around the corner. Light’s broke in there so just leave the door open a crack.”
Scott walked around to the side of the building, a narrow gravel drive lead to an auto graveyard out back. Looks like Stew had his own supply of spare parts for dozens of cars. The trouble was, these cars most likely had very few brothers still on the road. The weeds grew tall between the old wrecks. A thick layer of dust blanketed the steel carcasses giving them a ghostly dull look.
Scott opened the only door in sight and a smell so foul he nearly gagged, bombarded his senses. He thought better of going in and walked over to a rusted K-car. He urinated on the front wheel of the old Reliant, resisting the temptation to write his name in piss on the car door.
“That’s quite a collection you’ve got out back,” Scott said, approaching Stew, who was returning the nozzle to the pump.
“Well, folks who got no money try drivin’ cars that got no business bein’ on the road, from who knows where to Californ-I-A. Everybody thinking they could be a movie star.” Stew chuckled, more like a grunt than a laugh, but Scott thought it was as much of a laugh as Stew had in him. “Them shitty cars break down and I tow ’em here. When they find out how much it costs to fix, they go out to the highway and stick out their thumb.” With the same grunt-laugh he said, “That’ll be thirty-two even.”
“Would you check all the fluids, Stew?” Scott asked.
“Did I scare ya, mister?”
“Scare me?” Scott asked, confused.
“About the cars breaking down, ’cuz I don’t think you need worry about this car.”
“No, you didn’t,” Scott answered. “I drove this car from Michigan. Better safe than sorry, you know what I mean?”
“Sure thing,” Stew said. “I could change yer oil for ya, if ya like. Be done in a half hour, maybe twenty minutes.”
“That might be a good idea if there’s any place nearby to get a bite.”
“Mollie’s, ’bout a mile up the road. You can take my old truck over there. Key’s in it.”
“Sounds like a good deal,” Scott said. He didn’t realize how big a grin he was sporting until he saw himself in the mirror in the truck. Did people actually live like this? Here take my truck, and go get yourself something to eat. Scott was sure Sheriff Taylor and Deputy Fife would be at Mollie’s having a cup of coffee when he got there.
He drove alongside the Charger and told Stew to top up the tranny and rad if they needed it, then drove away from the Texaco station, a cloud of gravel dust following him half way into town.
From the outside, Mollie’s was reminiscent of Charlie’s, where Grace had shown him more than ordinary hospitality. The whole room inside was done in knotty pine. The walls were tongue and groove pine straps. The floor was covered with long slabs of ten inch pine. The window and door frames were made of split pine logs. The wood glistened in the sunlight streaming in the windows. All the windows and doors were flanked by carriage lights that gave off a yellow glow.
The circular tables, and matching chairs, were a perfect match to the window and doorframes. The inside could not have been more different from Charlie’s and Mollie could not have been more different from Grace. Mollie was a heavy woman, with silver hair and rosy cheeks. She wore a loose fitting tank top and a knee-length skirt. Covering the top and skirt was a white apron with Mollie’s embroidered over her left breast.
“Sit where ever you like sonny,” she called from across the room.
Scott sat at the table nearest the kitchen, and Mollie walked over with a pitcher of water and a large glass. After filling the glass, setting it in front of him, she said, “Car trouble, sonny?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I see you drove up in Stew’s truck. So, either you have car trouble, or you stole that truck. And you don’t look like a car thief.”
“I stopped for gas and lunch. Stew mentioned an oil change and I thought it might be a good idea.”
“I bet Stew put that good idea in your head.”
“As a matter of fact he did, but it was a good idea. I drove the car from Michigan.”
“That Stew,” Mollie, said shaking her head. “You need a menu, sonny?”
“What’s good here, Mollie?”
“Everything’s good, sonny, but I make the best burger in the country and the fries are fresh cut, none of that frozen stuff.”
“Then a burger and fries it is, Mollie. I’d also love some lemonade if you’ve got some, a Coke if you don’t.”
“Burger, fries and some of my fresh squeezed lemonade comin’ up.”
Scott was back on the road, feeling better than he had in days. The warm feeling that flooded over him earlier had remained through lunch. Mollie was true to her word, the burger was great, the fries fresh. When he got back to Stew’s Texaco the Charger was gassed up, the oil had been changed and Stew was toweling off the water drops left by the wash he had just finished. Scott left Staples with the feeling that if he were ever to settle in a small town, he would want it to be like Staples, Kansas.
By two that afternoon, he had crossed into Colorado with no more visits from Matt the bum, and all was right in Scott’s world.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The air in the tent was cold and damp. Rain that started to fall during the night had slowed to a drizzle. Roger woke with Beth wrapped around him inside the doublewide sleeping bag like a hungry boa constrictor. The mountain air must have agreed with them both he thought, having slept more soundly than he had since leaving Vermont and Beth was still sleeping soundly. He moved her arm off his chest and she rolled away from him. Squirming like a snake, he managed to get out of the sleeping bag without waking her. He wrapped his arms tightly around his chest to battle the cool air. His T-shirt and briefs along with his skin were damp with sweat from the warmth he had just left, adding to his chilled condition. The sun already risen, its light weakened from the overcast sky gave everything inside the tent a greenish hue. He crawled to the tent door opened the zipper and stuck his head out into the drizzle.
“Great,” he said to himself as he made a dash to the nearest tree to relieve himself.
“Mornin’, son.”
Roger spun around with a start to see a woman, dressed in jeans and a denim jacket, holding a large red and white umbrella over her head. Her straw cowboy hat covered her dark hair that flowed down over her shoulders. She grinned at Roger with a bit of flush in her cheeks.
“Gotta tell ya son, that’s the first time in a while I’ve been greeted like that.”
Roger then realized he was still holding his penis and spun back around to put himself together. He no longer felt the chill in the air, in fact he felt flushed and hot. Fear and embarrassment engulfed his emotions. He turned back to face the woman, his T-shirt stretched down as far as he could, trying to hide his Fruit of the Looms.
“Sorry about that, Mrs. Miller.”
Beth had left the highway while Roger was sleeping, she said she wanted to see the country, not speed through it seeing nothing but a four-lane highway. Tiring and sure they weren’t going to find a campsite, Beth pulled into Mrs. Miller’s driveway. She stopped the Jeep right in front of the house, boldly walked up the front steps, and knocked on the door.
“Hello, my name is Beth and that’s Roger.” By this time, Roger was out of the Jeep and standing behind her. “We’re on our way to the Grand Canyon and we need a place to camp for the night.”
“There’s no campgrounds anywhere near here,” Mrs. Miller said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Beth continued with the confidence of a career politician. “What I was hoping was maybe you wouldn’t mind if we pitched our tent on your ranch here, just for the night.”
“Where are you kids from?” Mrs. Miller asked.
Beth went into a long explanation of where they were from and how they came to be on her doorstep. She stressed the part about Roger’s lifelong dream of getting to the Grand Canyon. Roger was waiting for her to add a terminal illness to her story but it wasn’t necessary.
Mrs. Miller didn’t just give them permission to camp on her property; she invited them to sleep in the house. Beth declined that without consulting Roger, but thanked her for the offer. They did however accept Mrs. Miller’s invitation of food and drinks.
They sat up well past midnight, listening to Mrs. Miller regale them with stories of her past, which included three husbands. The first had died in an avalanche. She chuckled with the telling of this, she seemed to find humor in the fact that a mountain guide got himself killed like some stupid tourist. The second had passed while making love to her on their seventh wedding anniversary. She laughed even harder at this one, “It was the only orgasm he ever gave me,” she stuttered through her snickering. The last one she divorced after only a year,
“He couldn’t get it up,” she told them.
Now Mrs. Miller lived alone on five hundred acres, in the shadow of Scruff Peak. Twenty of those acres were cleared, and she kept a menagerie of odd bedfellows, which included a five hundred pound Siberian Tiger named Zeus, seven pygmy goats and an ostrich. She told them all about her collection of critters, how they had found their way to her, and how the money from her husbands paid for the whole thing, food and all.
“Don’t sweat it, son,” Mrs. Miller said now referring to Roger’s obvious embarrassment. “When Bethie wakes up I want you two to come up to the house to have some breakfast.”
She gave Roger another once over then went back to the house giggling to herself.
Roger trotted back to the tent, wet and cold. He hadn’t really been aware of how wet he was getting until Mrs. Miller had turned to walk away from him. He pulled the wet fabric from his skin and realized that everything he was wearing was pretty much transparent. He may as well have been standing in front of Mrs. Miller naked. He felt his ears start to get warm again and hurried to the tent. He abandoned his concern for waking Beth in his rush to get out of the rain-chilled air. Once inside the tent it occurred to him that their packs were in the Jeep and his dry clothes were in his pack. He scurried outside again and sprinted to the Jeep not bothering to zip the tent behind him. The rain stopped just as he arrived behind the car; opening the back he got the towel from his pack, looked around for Mrs. Miller, stripped down and quickly dried himself.
“That’s what I like to see first thing in the morning,” Beth hollered, her head sticking out of the open tent, now laughing aloud at Roger as he fumbled to cover himself with the towel.
“Shit,” he said, just loud enough for Beth to hear. “I thought maybe it was Mrs. Miller again.”
“Again?” Beth laughed even louder as she raised an eyebrow trying to look shocked but failing miserably through her laughter. “What is that supposed to mean?”