I by Jack Olsen Page B

office from Brooks, Oregon, and stopped in Longview, Washington, to wash my bedroll. I thought, At one time that dumb bitch could have saved her life, but she wouldn’t listen. It’s never wise to threaten somebody that outweighs you by 150 pounds.
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    After I cooled down and began to think logically, I realized that I had to stop killing, if only because I was bound to get caught sooner or later. It was too easy for a long-haul truck driver. And too exciting. This was three deaths in the last four months. I wondered if I would have to quit trucking to quit killing. Or if I even wanted to quit. I didn’t know my own mind. I guess I never had.

9 Spring Rains
    Four months after Laurie Pentland I was headed south on I-5 in the early evening of a cold, rainy March day when I pulled into the Petro Truck Stop in Corning, California. A thick fog was rolling in off the ocean, and I had to clean the droplets off my glasses. I locked the truck but left it idling so I wouldn’t lose the heat in the cab.
    The café was jammed. It looked like the spring rains had flushed the street people out of their cardboard shelters. Some even sat in the hallway. I had a craving for fruit, so I piled up my plate at the buffet table. I was watching my weight, but I couldn’t drink one more container of Slim Fast.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wet-looking gal at the counter, staring at the food that passed under her nose. She sipped her coffee and looked half-starved. She was definitely a street person—reddish complexion, wet stringy hair, no makeup, wide-rimmed glasses. A long dress gave her kind of a motherly look or a schoolmarm down on her luck. I could tell she wanted to score a meal.
    I didn’t know what clicked in my head, but I decided right then and there that I had to take this woman. Why? Did she remind me of schoolteachers I’d liked—or hated? Did she remind me of my mother or my aunts or some of the neighbor women I knew as a kid? I never gave things like that a second’s thought. All I knew was I intended to take this woman. This was one of those perfect opportunities that only came because I was driving truck.
    I told my waitress, “See that drowned gal sitting over there? Give her anything she wants and put it on my check. But don’t tell her who bought it. I don’t need somebody following me around like a lost puppy.” I didn’t want the waitress to make any connections later.
    The woman ate like a famished rat. Then she gave me a sweet look like she’d known all along who bought her dinner. I motioned her over and she joined me in my booth.
    â€œThanks,” she said. I nodded like it was nothing to a big spender like me.
    She talked a lot but without really telling me anything except that her name was Cindy and she was curious as hell about the nice truck driver. I tried to avoid the personal stuff and the big question of where I was headed. Some of these just want a warm bed and a roof over their head without the worry of being rolled out of their cardboard box in the middle of the night, but others want money for drugs and would knock you in the head to get it. You can’t tell just by talking to them.
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    It was getting late and I knew she would soon be thrown out along with the other hippies. She seemed like a nice-enough person and quite intelligent. I decided to satisfy her curiosity about me. I said, “I’m headed for Salinas to pick up a load of produce for Seattle.”
    She said, “Then you’ll go through Sacramento?”
    â€œI could. Or I could take 505 and bypass Sacramento to 680 South and then 101 South. Or I could go to Sacramento and go through Stockton and Santa Nella and across 152 to 101 South.”
    â€œPlease,” she said, “take me to Sacramento! I have a sister there, and I can stay with her. You won’t be sorry. I’ll behave myself. Please!”
    I hate it when they beg. They do it so