desolation’s dusty heart, while night deepened and the moon crested overhead, full and round and bright as a silver dollar.
They parted company at Kingman, her ride’s path now veering southwest toward Yucca. The older woman offered her a room for the night, breakfast in the morning for a fresh start. Tempting, but Allison declined; sleep in Yucca, and tomorrow she would have to backtrack. As well, she’d been gone but a few hours, the urge to keep moving like the deep marrow itch of a healing bone. The woman smiled sadly, with a final wish of good luck, then continued on her solitary way.
Allison set up temporary camp in the booth of a truck stop, the suitcase and duffel forming a protective wall as she drank her coffee and listened to the night. Outside, travelers rolled up to the gas pumps, stood blearily as they fed their machines, then paid and journeyed on with replenished junk food stashes. Beyond, highways met in confluence as white lights drew closer, and red lights vanished into the distance. She pulled her attention back inside, to the table of the empty booth ahead of her. Plump flies buzzed in from other tables, other windows, circled, lighted, left again. Same story, smaller scale.
The waitress who filled and refilled her mug was a bedraggled-looking teenager, hair pulled and clipped to one side to shield an angry cluster of acne on her forehead. Allison put in a word with her that she could use a ride — anybody here continuing on toward Phoenix? The girl said she’d check while on her rounds, reporting back in as though taking bids, something more alive about her now than ten minutes ago. Flattered, perhaps, to be entrusted with something more than coffee, omelets, pie.
Barstow and Flagstaff, somebody else going toward Vegas — the destinations were pushpins on a map, and all wrong. She got a refill of coffee and settled in to wait awhile longer.
The waitress had her linked up after another half hour, and Allison had already noticed the man pulling in, four big doors and Utah plates. Sandy-haired, with glasses. Maybe a Mormon — he had that suited, well-scrubbed look that she associated with the door-to-door Brigham Young brigade. The waitress pointed him out as he sat at the counter, finishing a tuna melt that he ate with knife and fork instead of fingers. When the waitress relayed he was going to Phoenix, he turned on his stool and nodded their way.
“He’s not been giving out tracts, has he?” Allison asked.
“Not yet. But whenever they do that it’s in place of a tip, usually. Like, thanks a lot.”
The man offered to carry her bags but she declined, lugging them herself to his wide backseat. He was only a few years older than she, yet seemed older still, by choice, reservedly polite and stiff in the spine. As they stood in the cool desert night, neon buzzed and names were swapped, Allison for Marshall J. Dillon, and she couldn’t help but grin. He wanted to know if it was really that amusing.
“Were your parents big fans of Gunsmoke ?” she asked.
“My parents never watched TV.” She felt chastised by the way he said it, like a reproachful parent himself. “Marshall was my uncle’s name. Most people are tactful enough not to bring this up when we’re introduced.”
I can see why now, she thought, and apologized as he unlocked her door. “I met a John Wayne once, and he didn’t seem to mind the inevitable. He seemed flattered.”
Dillon was quiet as he drove, preferring to listen to some talk radio show. It sounded very conservative, callers and host frothing at the mouth about the enemies of decency. All the usual suspects. Their cure for everything was so simple: Both father and mother in the home equated with stability, crucial to the balance that the callers sought to restore across a land gone wrong.
Allison’s gaze lingered on the car phone, and she felt like making her own plea over the airwaves: Tell me what it was I did wrong, to make him come up those creaking
They parted company at Kingman, her ride’s path now veering southwest toward Yucca. The older woman offered her a room for the night, breakfast in the morning for a fresh start. Tempting, but Allison declined; sleep in Yucca, and tomorrow she would have to backtrack. As well, she’d been gone but a few hours, the urge to keep moving like the deep marrow itch of a healing bone. The woman smiled sadly, with a final wish of good luck, then continued on her solitary way.
Allison set up temporary camp in the booth of a truck stop, the suitcase and duffel forming a protective wall as she drank her coffee and listened to the night. Outside, travelers rolled up to the gas pumps, stood blearily as they fed their machines, then paid and journeyed on with replenished junk food stashes. Beyond, highways met in confluence as white lights drew closer, and red lights vanished into the distance. She pulled her attention back inside, to the table of the empty booth ahead of her. Plump flies buzzed in from other tables, other windows, circled, lighted, left again. Same story, smaller scale.
The waitress who filled and refilled her mug was a bedraggled-looking teenager, hair pulled and clipped to one side to shield an angry cluster of acne on her forehead. Allison put in a word with her that she could use a ride — anybody here continuing on toward Phoenix? The girl said she’d check while on her rounds, reporting back in as though taking bids, something more alive about her now than ten minutes ago. Flattered, perhaps, to be entrusted with something more than coffee, omelets, pie.
Barstow and Flagstaff, somebody else going toward Vegas — the destinations were pushpins on a map, and all wrong. She got a refill of coffee and settled in to wait awhile longer.
The waitress had her linked up after another half hour, and Allison had already noticed the man pulling in, four big doors and Utah plates. Sandy-haired, with glasses. Maybe a Mormon — he had that suited, well-scrubbed look that she associated with the door-to-door Brigham Young brigade. The waitress pointed him out as he sat at the counter, finishing a tuna melt that he ate with knife and fork instead of fingers. When the waitress relayed he was going to Phoenix, he turned on his stool and nodded their way.
“He’s not been giving out tracts, has he?” Allison asked.
“Not yet. But whenever they do that it’s in place of a tip, usually. Like, thanks a lot.”
The man offered to carry her bags but she declined, lugging them herself to his wide backseat. He was only a few years older than she, yet seemed older still, by choice, reservedly polite and stiff in the spine. As they stood in the cool desert night, neon buzzed and names were swapped, Allison for Marshall J. Dillon, and she couldn’t help but grin. He wanted to know if it was really that amusing.
“Were your parents big fans of Gunsmoke ?” she asked.
“My parents never watched TV.” She felt chastised by the way he said it, like a reproachful parent himself. “Marshall was my uncle’s name. Most people are tactful enough not to bring this up when we’re introduced.”
I can see why now, she thought, and apologized as he unlocked her door. “I met a John Wayne once, and he didn’t seem to mind the inevitable. He seemed flattered.”
Dillon was quiet as he drove, preferring to listen to some talk radio show. It sounded very conservative, callers and host frothing at the mouth about the enemies of decency. All the usual suspects. Their cure for everything was so simple: Both father and mother in the home equated with stability, crucial to the balance that the callers sought to restore across a land gone wrong.
Allison’s gaze lingered on the car phone, and she felt like making her own plea over the airwaves: Tell me what it was I did wrong, to make him come up those creaking
Similar Books
