The Trail, scene thirty one

They ate the fried fish and roasted corn, and Tom could never remember being more grateful for a hot meal in his life. When they’d finished eating, there were still a few thick steaks left, so Tom cleaned out a plastic zipper bag and put them inside, and stowed them along with the remaining two ears of corn in a side pocket of his pack. He wadded up a sweatshirt and used it as a pillow, then laid on the cool gravel bar and watched Cat whittle on the walking stick, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Cat had been quiet since Tom had recounted the story of his grade school friend passing away, and he wondered if it had been a mistake to tell him. Cat had his hair loose from the ponytail, and it hung in a wild and tangled mess in front of his shoulders. He turned the stick this way and that, carving away little yellow half moon shavings, then blew away the fine pieces of wood still left in the crevices he’d shaved into the wood. Tom waited for him to stop carving for a second. “How do you decide where you’re going next when you’re out here on the road like this?” It was a question Tom had wondered for a while. Cat, who was sitting on smooth gray stone that was mostly buried in the gravel, let the far end of the walking stick come to rest on the ground, the other end propped in between his legs and resting on his right upper thigh. His eyes narrowed slightly and there was a twinkle, the hint of a smile in them. “How do I pick a place?” He laughed a little bit. “I don’t ever pick a certain place I want to go, did I give you that impression?” Tom started to answer, but before he could respond, Cat continued, “This is the place,” he slapped the stone he was sitting on. “The destination is wherever I am. Of course, I try to take certain factors in mind, I don’t want to be up here six weeks from now because I’ll be freezing my ass off, and I don’t want to be in Phoenix in July because that would be just plain stupid…but I don’t have a specific spot to go to. This is the spot, why do I need another?” Tom sat up and drew his knees in and wrapped his arms around them. At the water’s edge a small whirlpool played up and down the shoreline, spinning a dozen little green and yellow teardrop shaped leaves around and around, Tom watched them absently as he thought about what Cat had said. Finally he turned back to Cat, who was working on the stick again. “So there’s no destination, no end game…no little map inside your head that tells you that you need to get to some specific place?” Cat stopped carving again and took a big drag of the cigarette before flicking the butt end over end into the river. He exhaled a white stream of smoke as he folded his knife shut. “No…should I?” Tom stared at Cat without answering for a few seconds, looked at the wild hair, the sun darkened skin, the overall feral aura that seemed to emanate from him. It was almost as if he was looking at a domestic cat gone wild, wary of getting too close to society. After a second or two he shook himself from his stupor and raised his eyebrows, “No…I guess not.”

They camped in the shade of the bridge until the zenith of heat had passed. The smoke they had smelled earlier in the day was gone, leaving the sky clear and bright blue. They split the remaining fish steaks and ears of corn for lunch, and ate them cold before packing and climbing back up onto the road before crossing the river. On the far side of the bridge freshly mowed fields spread out, and a little breeze carried the smell of grass hay to them. Knapweed formed a thin band between the road and the mowed fields, and the rain and heat had caused light purple flowers to open on the tops of each plant. Honey bees, their legs heavy with lavender pollen, hovered over the flowers like living helicopters, bouncing flower to flower. The sun had descended toward the western horizon, and its light caused them to squint, and use their flattened hands as makeshift visors. Even though it had been a long and sunny day, and it was warm, something had changed, Tom could feel it. The intensity of the sun wasn’tt as great, the angle that shadows fell seemed somehow different, and all at once he knew...summer was dying and fall was breathing its first mists into the atmosphere. He knew if he mentioned it to Cat, or anyone else on such a beautiful, sunny, seemingly perfect summer day, they’d say he was nuts, but he was right, and he knew it.

Truck after truck passed down the road, and as each of them drove by, they both stuck their thumbs out and tried to look as unthreatening as possible, but no one stopped. Every vehicle blew by like they didn’t exist, and as the day progressed and the road dried from the rain, white dust billowed up from the churning tires, reddening their eyes and catching in their throats. After many failed attempts at hitching a ride, they finally decided they’d had enough of the dust and when they saw a vehicle coming they crossed the narrow borrow pit to get away from it. “These are some suspicious bastards, I’ll tell you that much. I’ve been hitching rides for almost 10 years and I’ve never had such a problem getting a ride…musta’ been a shit ton of hitchhiker murders happen in Montana or something,” Cat said, as he pretended to slit a throat in the air, using the point of his thumb as the knife. Tom burst out laughing as he watched Cat pantomime the scene. Cat joined him, and they both laughed as they walked into the honey colored sunset.

The earth rose and the sun sank, and the little breeze that had been pushing out of the west into their faces stopped. The lack of wind left every sound clear and easily identifiable. The sound of their shoes scuffing along the surface of the road, far above nighthawks circled for prey, and made short, shrill calls to one another. To the south side of the road a dozen black angus cows laid on their sides in the muddy corner of a field. They watched impassively with their shining, empty, black eyes as the interlopers walked down the road past them. Tom thought of the many evenings he’d spent before everything fell apart, that he and her sat out on the deck in weather identical to what he was enjoying. For a moment he recalled the plans they made together, the future they shared had been limitless with possibilities. They could have conquered the world, but as soon as he started to dwell on those moments, he put them away and brought himself back to the present. That was then, and this was now, and things had changed…and he was okay. Then, as he searched the horizon for nothing in particular, another thought entered his mind, he thought of the woman he’d met so briefly in Billings, Gina, and he wondered what it would be like to sit on a deck and make plans with her…

It was beyond dusky, and in fact mostly dark when out of nowhere, and without even attempting to hitch a ride, a clanking pickup pulling a panel sided trailer slowed. A window rolled down and a dark figure leaned back against the passenger seat, allowing the driver to lean over his lap and speak. “You boys lost, you okay?” The pickup rolled along at the same speed that they walked. “We ain’t lost, but we’re sure as hell are trying to get somewhere....anywhere.” Cat said it with humor, a hint of a question in his words. The darkened person said, “Well, I can get you up the road a piece if you ain’t too particular about a direction. We ain’t got any room here in the cab, but you’re welcome to jump in the trailer if you want.” They thanked him and climbed over the tailgate of the trailer, content to go anywhere the ride took them as long as they were off their feet. Two street motorcycles were strapped side by side in an upright position in the middle of the trailer.They worked their way around the bikes and sat at the front of the trailer, their backs against the front wall. Cat lit a cigarette quickly before the truck got rolling, his face yellow in the light of the flame. He slumped down onto his pack in an effort to get comfortable, “I sure as hell didn’t see this coming, I thought we were gonna wander forever…”

The truck banged and bumped loudly over potholes and washboard in the dirt road for miles. They drove due west, and on the far eastern horizon a white mist of a light formed beyond the curve of the earth. Tom watched the spot turn first into a dot of tiny white light, like someone on the other side of the curtain had used a hat pin to poke a hole and let the brilliance of full daylight through a dark curtain, but within a few minutes half of a crisp crescent moon was visible. He pointed at it and looked over at Cat, but he was asleep, his jaw slack and relaxed against his Adam’s apple, and his fingers interlaced over his belly. Tom watched the bumps in the road jar his unconscious and lolling head this way and that. He turned back and looked at the moon rise, watched it come up all the way over the horizon, a curved slit of snow white, like one of those Arabian daggers. He slouched down onto his own pack, the cool night air passing over his skin like constant spirits, and then the hypnotic effect of the bumpy road made it harder and harder to watch the moon, and soon he dropped into a different dimension, and Brian was there telling knock-knock jokes.

There was a sudden jolt that shook them both awake, and when they opened their eyes it was black, and much, much colder than it had been in weeks. Their teeth chattered and they shook involuntarily from head to toe, and for the briefest of moments there was confused terror. They both felt around wildly for a second before rising to their knees, using the front wall of the trailer as an aid to pull themselves up. Looking through the cab of the truck at the light from the headlights, a half dozen big brown necked, tan bodied elk hurried across the road in front of the truck, their heads held high, and the near eye black and trained on the headlights that had threatened to crush them. On either side of the road, which seemed to be climbing, were tall, black, thin silhouettes of trees against the starry, moonlit sky. The truck caught a low gear and started grinding up the grade again after the elk had passed, the transmission and motor growling low. The air that passed by them was fresh, sharply cold, and smelled like fresh pine sawdust. There was no other light anywhere except for what the headlights cast. A green and white mile marker shone in the headlights of the truck, and the yellow dashes in the middle of the road were brilliant. “Where the fuck is this guy taking us?” Asked Cat as he dug into his bag for clothes. “I don’t have a clue, but we might freeze to death before we get there,” said Tom, as he dug out his heaviest clothing and pulled them on awkwardly in the dark, his head and elbows catching where they shouldn’t. Then he unrolled his bag and climbed in, pulling it around all but his face. “It must’ve dropped 35 degrees since we got in here. How long were we sleeping?” Asked Cat. Tom looked up at the moon, then back down at the horizon, “Shit, I’m not a good guesser, but the moon was barely up when I drifted off. I’m guessing a couple hours anyway.”

The truck lugged up the grade for another fifteen minutes, all the while leaning left or right on sharp curves, the center of gravity shifting with each turn. Only three vehicles passed going the opposite way, all of them moving far slower than normal traffic. Finally the engine flattened out and they could feel the ease of how the truck moved for a quarter mile, and then they started down. Cat elbowed Tom, “We just went over a pass, we’re somewhere in the rockies. I thought this guy said he was gonna get us down the road a piece, we must’ve covered at least 150 miles by now…not that I’m bitching about it, but I could use a piss and a bite to eat.” Tom thought of his stomach for the first time, Cat’s words making him aware. He was starving, and he too had to pee. An image of the fish they’d eaten at noon popped into his mind and his mouth salivated. “What do we have left?” He asked Cat. They dug into their bags and came up with a can of vienna sausages and a plastic sandwich bag with the crumbled remains of a half dozen soda crackers. They split the food in silence, happy to temporarily fight off the hunger pangs. Cat lit a cigarette and they settled in against the header again, and watched the moon race through the treetops with them. “This dude has to stop at some point to get fuel,” said Tom, “unless he already did that while we were sleeping.” Cat took a drag from the cigarette that he held cupped in his hand against the wind. “He might have, I guess, but I don’t think I’d have slept through a stop.” With each syllable that Cat spoke, Tom could see cigarette smoke escape and illuminate for a second in the moonlight. “Me either, I’m sure I’d have gotten up. So if he ever stops this bastard maybe we can grab a little food…”

As they neared the bottom of the pass, more and more lights became visible, each of them lighting steep, shingled roofs, and the shining tops of cars and trucks parked in driveways. Within a few miles the traffic picked up dramatically, and the temperature also climbed noticeably. They climbed out of their bags and stowed them, but left the extra layers of clothing on. Finally they were in a town, and it felt odd to Tom, he hadn’t been under so much artificial light since Billings, and with Gina…a hundred years before. Both sides of the wide avenue they traveled were lined with peach toned street lights, moths bumping and whirling around them. The truck slowed, and in the process, the individual bumps of tread of the tires could be heard wearing along the blacktop. The truck pulled off the road and up to a pump that was bathed in blue fluorescent light that flickered so that it almost felt like it was the eye that was faulty and not the light. Tom and Cat stood and climbed over the tailgate. While the driver came around the front of the truck and took out the gas nozzle. He was a man about six feet tall, lean, wearing wranglers, hammered, once upon a time shiny cowboy boots, a red t-shirt that said Coca-Cola, and a battered straw cowboy hat, the sides of which were purposely curled up, and tight. He was deeply tanned, clean shaven, and had a big grin, “That’s a sombitch of a haul now, sure is, sure is. You fellas gonna call her quits here, or you gonna head on with us?” Tom realized he hadn’t seen the other half of us, yet. “Where we at now?” Asked Cat. The man smiled, he held the lever of the gas nozzle pressed all the way down, and Tom could see his fingers were cracked, and the cracks filled with dirt, clean dirt, work dirt. “You’re in Butte Montana, it ain’t the end of the world, but by God you can see her from there,” he laughed at his own saying. Cat laughed too, then asked him, “Where you heading to?” The man, who Tom couldn’t tell the age of, hooked a thumb over his shoulder to the west. “Taking these here cycles over to my brother in law’s place in Missoula. That’s gonna be another 2 hours or so. You fellas are welcome to hop back in if you want. Tom and Cat looked at each other, and the unspoken communication they’d developed was obvious. Cat turned back to the man, who might have been 35, or 55, “We’ll ride along if that’s alright? We need to use the john and grab a few things from the store if you can wait that long. The man nodded, “I ain’t in any big hurry, take your time.”

They relieved themselves in the restroom, then quickly passed through the store. They bought tuna, kippered snacks, a box of cream of wheat, crackers, two cans of peanuts and another half dozen items. Against one wall was a hot table, and under the glass were fried burritos, sandwiches wrapped in foil, and corndogs. They each grabbed three corn dogs, and poured large cups of coffee. Tom paid for everything because he wasn’t sure how much money Cat had left, and Cat didn’t argue. After the transaction was complete, Tom asked the cashier, “What time is it?” The cashier, who was a tall hunched fellow, who’s clothing hung on him like a scarecrow, raised a wrist and looked at a digital watch, “11:39…”

The man had pulled the truck forward, and it was angled so that they could easily merge onto the road. Tom and Cat climbed in, and found their places at the front of the trailer as the truck chugged into motion.

They ate the hot corndogs and sipped coffee, and felt as if a king’s banquet had fallen into their laps. Their moods were high, they were moving again, covering ground, their bellies were full, and they had a sense of accomplishment, they weren’t slogging along in the rain, they were getting somewhere, finally.

Cat lit his customary after meal smoke, then settled down at an angle, his back directly in a corner, Tom did the same in the other corner. They worked their way through Butte, and here and there they could hear music coming from open doors of bars, and could hear fleeting voices and laughter coming from those establishments as they passed by. Tom thought hard for a moment, what day is it? Maybe it’s Friday…or Saturday… He wondered if Gina was working. He pictured her behind the bar, working the patrons and pouring beer and mixed drinks. He wished he was there, he’d sit quietly at the end of the bar and see if she noticed him, see if there really was a spark, because his time with her had been such a short encounter that he was beginning to doubt if he was recalling it correctly.

The highway whined under the tires, and with every second that passed Tom felt a sense of reaching some ultimate goal, as if there would be some sort of sign that told him, this is it, you’ve reached the spot. He knew no such place existed, but he also knew he’d know the goal had been met when he got to it. Cat sat up a little and positioned himself higher against the trailer wall. “It’s amazing what can seem like a gourmet meal when a person is hungry. I was thinking about that when I was eating those corn dogs. Shit, I’ve eaten some slop over the years that wasn’t fit for a hog, but when you’re hungry, really, really hungry, any old thing seems delicious. I remember the last time I passed this way a few years back. I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and I hadn’t eaten in a couple days. I was sitting on a park bench down by the river there in Missoula and another traveler plopped down next to me. He had a little paper bag filled with pieces of bread, no crust, just the soft middle part. He looked me up and down and could tell I was hungry…you can always tell when a man is hungry. He says, ‘For a buck you can buy a whole bag of these pieces at a restaurant a couple blocks back, they call them bread guts.’ I just shook my head because I was on a terrible dry streak, and I didn’t even have a goddamn buck. The guy quit eating for a few seconds and eyed me up and down, then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a greasy dollar and handed it to me. I ate those bread guts and they may as well have been lobster, I’m not even shitting you. That was the best I’ve ever eaten.”

The highway was quiet by the time they wound their way through the steep canyons that lined the road as they traveled west. They passed over the same river a half dozen times on the way, and each time they did, the river was a bit wider, and had more current, moonlight dazzling on the crests of every little wave. The temperature gradually increased so that by the time they passed through the last big canyon into the Missoula valley they were able to shed one layer of clothing. The man drove to the far west side of the town, then turned to the south and drove another half mile before pulling into a big all night service station. They looked over the top of the trailer wall, and Tom watched the man crank his window down then stick a hand out with the thumb up like a hitchhiker. They climbed out, their butts numb, and legs stiff from sitting, and walked up to his window. “This here’s the end of the line boys, hope I helped you along the trail a little.” They thanked him profusely and he drove away, turning onto the road and disappearing to the south. It was very clear, very calm, and the moon gave off enough light so that the night didn’t seem impenetrably dark. Cat said, “Well, shit…we’re here…”

y ate the fried fish and roasted corn, and Tom could never remember being more grateful for a hot meal in his life. When they’d finished eating, there were still a few thick steaks left, so Tom cleaned out a plastic zipper bag and put them inside, and stowed them along with the remaining two ears of corn in a side pocket of his pack. He wadded up a sweatshirt and used it as a pillow, then laid on the cool gravel bar and watched Cat whittle on the walking stick, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Cat had been quiet since Tom had recounted the story of his grade school friend passing away, and he wondered if it had been a mistake to tell him. Cat had his hair loose from the ponytail, and it hung in a wild and tangled mess in front of his shoulders. He turned the stick this way and that, carving away little yellow half moon shavings, then blew away the fine pieces of wood still left in the crevices he’d shaved into the wood. Tom waited for him to stop carving for a second. “How do you decide where you’re going next when you’re out here on the road like this?” It was a question Tom had wondered for a while. Cat, who was sitting on smooth gray stone that was mostly buried in the gravel, let the far end of the walking stick come to rest on the ground, the other end propped in between his legs and resting on his right upper thigh. His eyes narrowed slightly and there was a twinkle, the hint of a smile in them. “How do I pick a place?” He laughed a little bit. “I don’t ever pick a certain place I want to go, did I give you that impression?” Tom started to answer, but before he could respond, Cat continued, “This is the place,” he slapped the stone he was sitting on. “The destination is wherever I am. Of course, I try to take certain factors in mind, I don’t want to be up here six weeks from now because I’ll be freezing my ass off, and I don’t want to be in Phoenix in July because that would be just plain stupid…but I don’t have a specific spot to go to. This is the spot, why do I need another?” Tom sat up and drew his knees in and wrapped his arms around them. At the water’s edge a small whirlpool played up and down the shoreline, spinning a dozen little green and yellow teardrop shaped leaves around and around, Tom watched them absently as he thought about what Cat had said. Finally he turned back to Cat, who was working on the stick again. “So there’s no destination, no end game…no little map inside your head that tells you that you need to get to some specific place?” Cat stopped carving again and took a big drag of the cigarette before flicking the butt end over end into the river. He exhaled a white stream of smoke as he folded his knife shut. “No…should I?” Tom stared at Cat without answering for a few seconds, looked at the wild hair, the sun darkened skin, the overall feral aura that seemed to emanate from him. It was almost as if he was looking at a domestic cat gone wild, wary of getting too close to society. After a second or two he shook himself from his stupor and raised his eyebrows, “No…I guess not.”

They camped in the shade of the bridge until the zenith of heat had passed. The smoke they had smelled earlier in the day was gone, leaving the sky clear and bright blue. They split the remaining fish steaks and ears of corn for lunch, and ate them cold before packing and climbing back up onto the road before crossing the river. On the far side of the bridge freshly mowed fields spread out, and a little breeze carried the smell of grass hay to them. Knapweed formed a thin band between the road and the mowed fields, and the rain and heat had caused light purple flowers to open on the tops of each plant. Honey bees, their legs heavy with lavender pollen, hovered over the flowers like living helicopters, bouncing flower to flower. The sun had descended toward the western horizon, and its light caused them to squint, and use their flattened hands as makeshift visors. Even though it had been a long and sunny day, and it was warm, something had changed, Tom could feel it. The intensity of the sun wasn’tt as great, the angle that shadows fell seemed somehow different, and all at once he knew...summer was dying and fall was breathing its first mists into the atmosphere. He knew if he mentioned it to Cat, or anyone else on such a beautiful, sunny, seemingly perfect summer day, they’d say he was nuts, but he was right, and he knew it.

Truck after truck passed down the road, and as each of them drove by, they both stuck their thumbs out and tried to look as unthreatening as possible, but no one stopped. Every vehicle blew by like they didn’t exist, and as the day progressed and the road dried from the rain, white dust billowed up from the churning tires, reddening their eyes and catching in their throats. After many failed attempts at hitching a ride, they finally decided they’d had enough of the dust and when they saw a vehicle coming they crossed the narrow borrow pit to get away from it. “These are some suspicious bastards, I’ll tell you that much. I’ve been hitching rides for almost 10 years and I’ve never had such a problem getting a ride…musta’ been a shit ton of hitchhiker murders happen in Montana or something,” Cat said, as he pretended to slit a throat in the air, using the point of his thumb as the knife. Tom burst out laughing as he watched Cat pantomime the scene. Cat joined him, and they both laughed as they walked into the honey colored sunset.

The earth rose and the sun sank, and the little breeze that had been pushing out of the west into their faces stopped. The lack of wind left every sound clear and easily identifiable. The sound of their shoes scuffing along the surface of the road, far above nighthawks circled for prey, and made short, shrill calls to one another. To the south side of the road a dozen black angus cows laid on their sides in the muddy corner of a field. They watched impassively with their shining, empty, black eyes as the interlopers walked down the road past them. Tom thought of the many evenings he’d spent before everything fell apart, that he and her sat out on the deck in weather identical to what he was enjoying. For a moment he recalled the plans they made together, the future they shared had been limitless with possibilities. They could have conquered the world, but as soon as he started to dwell on those moments, he put them away and brought himself back to the present. That was then, and this was now, and things had changed…and he was okay. Then, as he searched the horizon for nothing in particular, another thought entered his mind, he thought of the woman he’d met so briefly in Billings, Gina, and he wondered what it would be like to sit on a deck and make plans with her…

It was beyond dusky, and in fact mostly dark when out of nowhere, and without even attempting to hitch a ride, a clanking pickup pulling a panel sided trailer slowed. A window rolled down and a dark figure leaned back against the passenger seat, allowing the driver to lean over his lap and speak. “You boys lost, you okay?” The pickup rolled along at the same speed that they walked. “We ain’t lost, but we’re sure as hell are trying to get somewhere....anywhere.” Cat said it with humor, a hint of a question in his words. The darkened person said, “Well, I can get you up the road a piece if you ain’t too particular about a direction. We ain’t got any room here in the cab, but you’re welcome to jump in the trailer if you want.” They thanked him and climbed over the tailgate of the trailer, content to go anywhere the ride took them as long as they were off their feet. Two street motorcycles were strapped side by side in an upright position in the middle of the trailer.They worked their way around the bikes and sat at the front of the trailer, their backs against the front wall. Cat lit a cigarette quickly before the truck got rolling, his face yellow in the light of the flame. He slumped down onto his pack in an effort to get comfortable, “I sure as hell didn’t see this coming, I thought we were gonna wander forever…”

The truck banged and bumped loudly over potholes and washboard in the dirt road for miles. They drove due west, and on the far eastern horizon a white mist of a light formed beyond the curve of the earth. Tom watched the spot turn first into a dot of tiny white light, like someone on the other side of the curtain had used a hat pin to poke a hole and let the brilliance of full daylight through a dark curtain, but within a few minutes half of a crisp crescent moon was visible. He pointed at it and looked over at Cat, but he was asleep, his jaw slack and relaxed against his Adam’s apple, and his fingers interlaced over his belly. Tom watched the bumps in the road jar his unconscious and lolling head this way and that. He turned back and looked at the moon rise, watched it come up all the way over the horizon, a curved slit of snow white, like one of those Arabian daggers. He slouched down onto his own pack, the cool night air passing over his skin like constant spirits, and then the hypnotic effect of the bumpy road made it harder and harder to watch the moon, and soon he dropped into a different dimension, and Brian was there telling knock-knock jokes.

There was a sudden jolt that shook them both awake, and when they opened their eyes it was black, and much, much colder than it had been in weeks. Their teeth chattered and they shook involuntarily from head to toe, and for the briefest of moments there was confused terror. They both felt around wildly for a second before rising to their knees, using the front wall of the trailer as an aid to pull themselves up. Looking through the cab of the truck at the light from the headlights, a half dozen big brown necked, tan bodied elk hurried across the road in front of the truck, their heads held high, and the near eye black and trained on the headlights that had threatened to crush them. On either side of the road, which seemed to be climbing, were tall, black, thin silhouettes of trees against the starry, moonlit sky. The truck caught a low gear and started grinding up the grade again after the elk had passed, the transmission and motor growling low. The air that passed by them was fresh, sharply cold, and smelled like fresh pine sawdust. There was no other light anywhere except for what the headlights cast. A green and white mile marker shone in the headlights of the truck, and the yellow dashes in the middle of the road were brilliant. “Where the fuck is this guy taking us?” Asked Cat as he dug into his bag for clothes. “I don’t have a clue, but we might freeze to death before we get there,” said Tom, as he dug out his heaviest clothing and pulled them on awkwardly in the dark, his head and elbows catching where they shouldn’t. Then he unrolled his bag and climbed in, pulling it around all but his face. “It must’ve dropped 35 degrees since we got in here. How long were we sleeping?” Asked Cat. Tom looked up at the moon, then back down at the horizon, “Shit, I’m not a good guesser, but the moon was barely up when I drifted off. I’m guessing a couple hours anyway.”

The truck lugged up the grade for another fifteen minutes, all the while leaning left or right on sharp curves, the center of gravity shifting with each turn. Only three vehicles passed going the opposite way, all of them moving far slower than normal traffic. Finally the engine flattened out and they could feel the ease of how the truck moved for a quarter mile, and then they started down. Cat elbowed Tom, “We just went over a pass, we’re somewhere in the rockies. I thought this guy said he was gonna get us down the road a piece, we must’ve covered at least 150 miles by now…not that I’m bitching about it, but I could use a piss and a bite to eat.” Tom thought of his stomach for the first time, Cat’s words making him aware. He was starving, and he too had to pee. An image of the fish they’d eaten at noon popped into his mind and his mouth salivated. “What do we have left?” He asked Cat. They dug into their bags and came up with a can of vienna sausages and a plastic sandwich bag with the crumbled remains of a half dozen soda crackers. They split the food in silence, happy to temporarily fight off the hunger pangs. Cat lit a cigarette and they settled in against the header again, and watched the moon race through the treetops with them. “This dude has to stop at some point to get fuel,” said Tom, “unless he already did that while we were sleeping.” Cat took a drag from the cigarette that he held cupped in his hand against the wind. “He might have, I guess, but I don’t think I’d have slept through a stop.” With each syllable that Cat spoke, Tom could see cigarette smoke escape and illuminate for a second in the moonlight. “Me either, I’m sure I’d have gotten up. So if he ever stops this bastard maybe we can grab a little food…”

As they neared the bottom of the pass, more and more lights became visible, each of them lighting steep, shingled roofs, and the shining tops of cars and trucks parked in driveways. Within a few miles the traffic picked up dramatically, and the temperature also climbed noticeably. They climbed out of their bags and stowed them, but left the extra layers of clothing on. Finally they were in a town, and it felt odd to Tom, he hadn’t been under so much artificial light since Billings, and with Gina…a hundred years before. Both sides of the wide avenue they traveled were lined with peach toned street lights, moths bumping and whirling around them. The truck slowed, and in the process, the individual bumps of tread of the tires could be heard wearing along the blacktop. The truck pulled off the road and up to a pump that was bathed in blue fluorescent light that flickered so that it almost felt like it was the eye that was faulty and not the light. Tom and Cat stood and climbed over the tailgate. While the driver came around the front of the truck and took out the gas nozzle. He was a man about six feet tall, lean, wearing wranglers, hammered, once upon a time shiny cowboy boots, a red t-shirt that said Coca-Cola, and a battered straw cowboy hat, the sides of which were purposely curled up, and tight. He was deeply tanned, clean shaven, and had a big grin, “That’s a sombitch of a haul now, sure is, sure is. You fellas gonna call her quits here, or you gonna head on with us?” Tom realized he hadn’t seen the other half of us, yet. “Where we at now?” Asked Cat. The man smiled, he held the lever of the gas nozzle pressed all the way down, and Tom could see his fingers were cracked, and the cracks filled with dirt, clean dirt, work dirt. “You’re in Butte Montana, it ain’t the end of the world, but by God you can see her from there,” he laughed at his own saying. Cat laughed too, then asked him, “Where you heading to?” The man, who Tom couldn’t tell the age of, hooked a thumb over his shoulder to the west. “Taking these here cycles over to my brother in law’s place in Missoula. That’s gonna be another 2 hours or so. You fellas are welcome to hop back in if you want. Tom and Cat looked at each other, and the unspoken communication they’d developed was obvious. Cat turned back to the man, who might have been 35, or 55, “We’ll ride along if that’s alright? We need to use the john and grab a few things from the store if you can wait that long. The man nodded, “I ain’t in any big hurry, take your time.”

They relieved themselves in the restroom, then quickly passed through the store. They bought tuna, kippered snacks, a box of cream of wheat, crackers, two cans of peanuts and another half dozen items. Against one wall was a hot table, and under the glass were fried burritos, sandwiches wrapped in foil, and corndogs. They each grabbed three corn dogs, and poured large cups of coffee. Tom paid for everything because he wasn’t sure how much money Cat had left, and Cat didn’t argue. After the transaction was complete, Tom asked the cashier, “What time is it?” The cashier, who was a tall hunched fellow, who’s clothing hung on him like a scarecrow, raised a wrist and looked at a digital watch, “11:39…”

The man had pulled the truck forward, and it was angled so that they could easily merge onto the road. Tom and Cat climbed in, and found their places at the front of the trailer as the truck chugged into motion.

They ate the hot corndogs and sipped coffee, and felt as if a king’s banquet had fallen into their laps. Their moods were high, they were moving again, covering ground, their bellies were full, and they had a sense of accomplishment, they weren’t slogging along in the rain, they were getting somewhere, finally.

Cat lit his customary after meal smoke, then settled down at an angle, his back directly in a corner, Tom did the same in the other corner. They worked their way through Butte, and here and there they could hear music coming from open doors of bars, and could hear fleeting voices and laughter coming from those establishments as they passed by. Tom thought hard for a moment, what day is it? Maybe it’s Friday…or Saturday… He wondered if Gina was working. He pictured her behind the bar, working the patrons and pouring beer and mixed drinks. He wished he was there, he’d sit quietly at the end of the bar and see if she noticed him, see if there really was a spark, because his time with her had been such a short encounter that he was beginning to doubt if he was recalling it correctly.

The highway whined under the tires, and with every second that passed Tom felt a sense of reaching some ultimate goal, as if there would be some sort of sign that told him, this is it, you’ve reached the spot. He knew no such place existed, but he also knew he’d know the goal had been met when he got to it. Cat sat up a little and positioned himself higher against the trailer wall. “It’s amazing what can seem like a gourmet meal when a person is hungry. I was thinking about that when I was eating those corn dogs. Shit, I’ve eaten some slop over the years that wasn’t fit for a hog, but when you’re hungry, really, really hungry, any old thing seems delicious. I remember the last time I passed this way a few years back. I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and I hadn’t eaten in a couple days. I was sitting on a park bench down by the river there in Missoula and another traveler plopped down next to me. He had a little paper bag filled with pieces of bread, no crust, just the soft middle part. He looked me up and down and could tell I was hungry…you can always tell when a man is hungry. He says, ‘For a buck you can buy a whole bag of these pieces at a restaurant a couple blocks back, they call them bread guts.’ I just shook my head because I was on a terrible dry streak, and I didn’t even have a goddamn buck. The guy quit eating for a few seconds and eyed me up and down, then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a greasy dollar and handed it to me. I ate those bread guts and they may as well have been lobster, I’m not even shitting you. That was the best I’ve ever eaten.”

The highway was quiet by the time they wound their way through the steep canyons that lined the road as they traveled west. They passed over the same river a half dozen times on the way, and each time they did, the river was a bit wider, and had more current, moonlight dazzling on the crests of every little wave. The temperature gradually increased so that by the time they passed through the last big canyon into the Missoula valley they were able to shed one layer of clothing. The man drove to the far west side of the town, then turned to the south and drove another half mile before pulling into a big all night service station. They looked over the top of the trailer wall, and Tom watched the man crank his window down then stick a hand out with the thumb up like a hitchhiker. They climbed out, their butts numb, and legs stiff from sitting, and walked up to his window. “This here’s the end of the line boys, hope I helped you along the trail a little.” They thanked him profusely and he drove away, turning onto the road and disappearing to the south. It was very clear, very calm, and the moon gave off enough light so that the night didn’t seem impenetrably dark. Cat said, “Well, shit…we’re here…”