“I’m guessing it’s a high-value load,” Hugh said. “Parts for the Apache helicopters Boeing builds there for the Army.”
As a former combat Marine Hugh was more than passing familiar with the Army’s Apache attack helicopter’s ability to save the lives of soldiers and Marines in the field of combat. The Boeing plant was contracted to turn out the newer model AH-64Es, as well as to upgrade the older D models.
“As far as I’m concerned, every Army rotary pilot who has ever strapped himself into one of those things deserves a medal. I might not be here right now if it hadn’t been for those guys swooping in to even the odds for us.”
“You don’t think because this is a high-value load …?” Jenny started to say.
Hugh cut her off, “No. Don’t worry about that. For one thing, your uncle and his friends are permanently out of the hijacking business. For another thing, I wouldn’t think there is a big market for stolen Apache helicopter parts. They would be difficult, if not impossible, to sell.”
Hugh spent some time tapping on and viewing the map app of his new phone.
“OK, here’s the plan,” he said. “We’ll bed down here for the night outside of Spokane. We’ll make it to Twin Falls tomorrow, and Las Vegas the day after tomorrow. If everything goes well we’ll make our delivery at sixteen hundred the next day at the Mesa plant.”
“That makes for some reasonably easy driving days. No sense in killing ourselves the first time out in a while. We aren’t allowed to deliver early anyway.”
At the truck stop on Interstate 90/Highway 395 south of Spokane, Hugh backed into a spot in the northwest corner that was adjacent to a grassy area. It was a bit of a walk to the facilities, but it afforded maximum quiet and privacy.
Hugh noticed it was right next door to the Freightliner shop where his friend and mentor James had taken Hugh’s truck for repairs after that last altercation with Jenny’s uncle. Hugh had had to take drastic measures, cutting brake airlines, and breaking a side window to regain control of his truck when it was being hijacked.
“How do you want to do this?” Hugh asked Jenny after he shut down, did a quick post-trip and signed off for the day.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we are obviously way beyond how things were when you first came on board as a hitchhiker. I’m talking about meals and other chores.”
“Oh, no problem. If it’s OK with you, I’d like to be in charge of the meals, cooking and such.”
“That’s a relief. I was hoping you’d say that.”
“I bet you were, buster,” Jenny said, laughing.
Hugh and Jenny took care of business in the truck stop restrooms – Hugh finishing first, of course. It took him only a minute to buy a couple of the latest Bluetooth headsets and a dashcam.
He waited outside for Jenny so they could walk back to the truck together.
When they met up, Hugh could see Jenny was lugging a heavy, gallon-sized jug of milk, the opaque kind of jug with a screw-on cap.
“What’s that for? We’ve got plenty of milk already. Good Mann Ranch Jersey cow milk.”
“It’s for this.” Jenny’s hand went inside a plastic bag and came out with a female urinal gadget. It looked like a funnel specifically shaped for the female anatomy.
“We’ve got a his and hers now,” she said.
“You’re so cute,” Hugh said. “But, yes. Good thinking.”
Hugh was always amazed, and grateful, at Jenny’s acceptance of the hardships particular to life on the road as a long-haul trucker. Restrooms were sometimes few and far between, and stopping to look for one when the need arose was sometimes not practical or even possible.
Hugh realized how different, and more attractive, Jenny was than the big-city female reporter with the expensive salon hair and way over-priced, name-brand bag they’d had the misfortune to have to deal with. He couldn’t imagine Charlie being so matter-of-fact about peeing into a jug.
“But you know you could have grabbed one of our empty milk jugs at home,” Hugh said.
“No way. Your dad and brother tease me enough as it is.”
Back at the truck, Jenny took out the bagged lunches Hugh’s mom had prepared for them. While she was setting out their sandwiches, fruit and chips, Hugh sat in the passenger-side front seat people-watching. It was a favorite pastime for Hugh.
Jenny came up behind Hugh, and sidled around to sit on his lap facing him. “Come here you.” She reached up and held Hugh’s face in her hands and kissed him with some intensity.
“What’s that about?” Hugh asked. He was surprised by this sudden affection, but didn’t object to it.
“It’s that we haven’t had any time alone at your family’s place. We’ve been together there, but not together.”
She started to kiss Hugh again.
“Whoa! That isn’t happening!” Hugh shouted.
“What?” Jenny yelled as she drew back from Hugh, who was trying to get up from his seat.
She craned to look out the window at what Hugh was so interested in. Across the lane from them in another line of parked trucks, they could see a man swinging from a truck’s driver’s side mirror mount and trying to kick in the cab’s side window.
The guy managed to craze the tempered glass of the window, and Hugh could see he was within a couple more kicks of breaking through.
“No way, Jose!” Hugh yelled as he launched himself out of the truck, and started running toward the other truck. He saw the attacker had managed to break through the window, and was trying to grapple with the occupant.
“Hugh, no!” Jenny yelled at Hugh’s running figure. “No. Not again!”
But before Hugh could reach the truck where the assault was taking place he heard a shot and saw an accompanying blast of light from the cab. He saw the attacker fall hard and limp to the tarmac.
Hugh put on the brakes and stopped where he was. The last thing he wanted was for the occupant of the cab to think the attacker had an accomplice, and to decide to shoot anything, or anybody, within sight.
Within a moment, the cab’s occupant, presumably the driver, opened his driver’s side door and leaned out to see if the assailant was going to resume his attack.
Seeing the driver had a cell phone in his hand, and not a gun, Hugh bent down to check the attacker’s pulse. A crimson stain spread from a center-mass hole in the guy’s shirt. Then the lights went out in his eyes, and he was gone. The one shot must have been a fatal one.
“What was that all about?” Hugh asked the driver.
“I don’t know. I don’t recognize the guy. I have no idea why he was trying to break into my truck.” He held the phone to his ear, and was telling someone, probably 911, there’s been an attack and a shooting.
Hugh knew Jenny was likely getting worried, so he went back to his truck.
Later that evening, after Hugh and Jenny had eaten their dinners, an investigator with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office knocked on the door of Hugh’s truck to interview him as a witness to the shooting.
Hugh didn’t have much to add to what several other witnesses had observed, and what was obvious from the evidence at the site of the shooting.
The investigator told Hugh the attacker was likely under the influence of a drug. Preliminary guess was meth. The trucker would not be charged with assault for using a gun in self-defense.
“He’s probably got some explaining to do to his fleet manager and safety officer,” Hugh said. “Most carriers have very strict no-firearms policies for drivers.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” the investigator said.
All the excitement over for the night, Hugh and Jenny made another trip to the truck stop restroom before getting ready for their first night alone in his truck since before the events of the final hijacking. It would be their first night alone together since Hugh had proposed to her.
Back at the truck with Jenny, Hugh unlocked the cab door.
“Go ahead and get yourself ready. I’ll putter around outsi
de a bit.”
“OK, thanks.”
When Hugh saw the lights in the cab had been turned off, he climbed into the sleeper to get ready for bed. He appreciated that his mom had washed all his linens, including his and Jenny’s bunk sheets, pillowcases and blankets.
As quietly as he could, with only the truck stop parking area lights for illumination inside the cab, Hugh approached the darkened sleeper berth intending to surprise Jenny in the top bunk with a good-night kiss.
The surprise was all on Hugh, however, as Jenny was not in the top bunk.
He stepped back a step and bent in to see she was in the lower bunk – Hugh’s bed – in the darker shadow against the far side. She had only her hands and face showing as she held the blankets up to her chin.
“Hi?” Jenny said. Her voice was quiet, breathy. Her expression was expectant-looking.
Hugh was momentarily made speechless by this sudden and awkward turn of events. Then it got worse. Or better. Jenny lowered the blanket to just at the rise of her breasts, making sure, Hugh realized, he would notice she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the covers.
Still not saying anything beyond her initial “Hi,” Jenny released the blanket with her left hand, withdrew her arm and patted the bed next to her. That movement opened up more of the blanket, further exposing more of the curve of her left breast.
Seeing all this, the bottom fell out of Hugh’s stomach, and his mind raced with conflicting emotions. Desire … caution … desire … caution … desire … caution.
In the end, after what felt like forever, but was only a second or two, caution won and, still without saying a word, Hugh climbed up into the top bunk and got under the covers.
“Not even to snuggle?” She must have realized Hugh was going to stay in the top bunk.
Hugh knew what snuggling in bed with a naked, beautiful girl would lead to. No question about it. Been there, done that.
The desire was definitely there on his part. But his instinct told him he’d better resist.
“Honey, we’ll talk about it in the morning. OK?”
No reply from Jenny.
Chapter Nine
Hugh woke up first.
Because he had slept in his clothes he had only to drop down to the deck from the top bunk, and he was ready to go. He glanced over at Jenny, and saw she was wearing pajamas.
He exited the cab as quietly as he could and walked over to the truck stop facility to use the restroom and to get a cup of coffee. Some truck stop coffees were better than others. This was a decent cup, and it saved him the trouble of having to brew a cup in the cab.
On the way back to his truck, Hugh thought about what to say to Jenny. He wasn’t sure if he could explain his hesitation. After all, what normal, healthy, virile guy would turn down the kind of invitation from a beautiful girl he had gotten last night?
He was concerned Jenny would think his dismissal of her offer was a rejection of her, that she might believe Hugh thought something was wrong with her.
Hugh realized that if he bungled this coming conversation with Jenny it could have long-term consequences, which would make for some uncomfortable days – and nights – as they were committed to being together in the confines of the truck for the indefinite future.
As Hugh approached his truck he could see Jenny was up. OK. Might as well get it over with.
“Good morning, honey,” Hugh said.
Jenny didn’t react. She looked at him, then looked away.
That’s a good sign. Hugh recalled her sometimes quick temper, and how she might have reacted in a much more unpleasant way.
“Can we talk? I want to explain about last night.”
“No,” Jenny said. “I’m leaving …”
Hugh’s heart sank at hearing that.
Jenny must have seen the expression on Hugh’s face because she continued, “I’m leaving to go to the restroom, so I can’t talk right now. We’ll talk when I get back. OK?”
“Yeah. Good.”
“I’ll be awhile. Can I have your card for shower credits?”
To fill the time while Jenny was out of the truck Hugh dug up the laptop computer his mom had packed into the back of one of the cab’s cabinets.
The laptop’s battery was dead, so Hugh had to plug its charger into a hundred-twenty-volt receptacle. His truck’s sleeper cab was wired for twelve volts and one-twenty volts. The higher voltage receptacles received power from the fifteen-hundred-watt inverter, which was connected to a separate battery dedicated to the sleeper. When the truck’s engine wasn’t running, the battery was kept charged by the APU, which would come on automatically if the battery amperage fell below a certain level.
When the laptop had gotten enough juice from the charger to boot up, Hugh paid for a one-time use of the truck stop’s wi-fi service and logged into his email account. He didn’t expect much, but James might have sent him an email, or he might have an email from one of the few accounts he needed to keep track of, like insurance, medical, investments or his accountant-tax guy.
The most recent emails were two that had arrived from Charlie. One was from yesterday afternoon and the other was just a few minutes earlier this morning.
The gist of the first email was thanking Hugh and Jenny for meeting with her, it was a good interview, blah, blah, blah.
In closing, she said she was almost finished with the article from their interview. It was planned to be published beginning with the earliest edition of tomorrow’s newspaper, the one that gets trucked to out-of-town distributors.
That’s today.
The second email, the one that had arrived a little while ago, was an apology for her aggressive behavior during their interview, and she hoped this hadn’t soured Hugh and Jenny from talking with her again.
She promised if she could meet with them again it would be under less formal circumstances, less stressful, and she would honor their wishes about what they did and did not want to talk about.
He wasn’t sure what he thought about this reporter’s change of attitude between the two emails, and her suggestion she was hoping further interviews might be in her future. He’d have to talk to Jenny about it after they’d had their talk about what happened – or didn’t happen – at bedtime last night.
When Jenny came back from the truck stop facility she looked gorgeous as usual. Hair washed, dried and brushed. Not pretentious. She was a natural beauty who didn’t need to drop a ton of money at a salon to turn heads.
As she climbed up into the cab Hugh saw she was holding an Idaho Times newspaper.
“I saw this in the line of racks outside the entrance. I didn’t take the time to read the article, but we’re in it.”
“Thanks. I got a couple of emails from Charlie. We need to read the article and talk about the emails. But first, we need to talk about last night.”
“You know what? ’m good with it. I understand. I shouldn’t have done that. We can maybe talk about it later when things have cooled down a bit. OK?”
“All right,” Hugh replied. Relieved.
Hugh made Jenny a coffee while she put away her shower things.
“Let’s go ahead and get on the road,” Hugh said. “You can read the article out loud while I drive, and we can discuss it and Charlie’s email.”
Hugh did his pre-trip, which gave Jenny a chance to drink her coffee. Then she hopped down to do her windshield and mirror-cleaning chores.
All that out of the way, they pulled out of the truck stop and got onto 90/395 heading south toward Twin Falls, Idaho.
Jenny had the newspaper and Hugh’s laptop in her lap in the passenger seat of the truck.
She started with the newspaper, turning to the article about them.
It was on the front page of the Features Section, C-1, topped by a photo of Hugh and Jenny together sitting at the table in Charlie’s room at the Carriage House.
“I don’t remember her taking that photo,” Jenny said.
“She must have done it on the sly wi
th her cell phone,” Hugh said. “It’s easy enough to snap a picture with those things without being noticed.”
Jenny skimmed the article to get a sense of what it was about.
When she had finished, she told Hugh, “The headline is, ‘Hero trucker goes above and beyond to subdue hijackers and save Idaho trooper’s life.’ The subhead was ‘Details of harrowing event exclusive to the Times.’“
She read the whole story out loud to Hugh. When she finished, she said, “That’s not bad at all. A lot better than I was expecting.”
“Yeah, it’s straightforward and accurate, which is a bit of a surprise.”
The reporter had quoted what Hugh and Jenny had told her word for word. Then she had built up the piece, filling in blanks with background from the police reports she had acquired.
“Don’t you find that suspicious?” Hugh asked. “I mean. She spent the whole time grilling us for details about your relationship with your uncle and the hijacking gang. The newspaper spent an awful lot of money getting her up there to interview us. Then she goes back and writes what is basically a puff piece about us?”
“I agree. My gut feeling is she’s softening us up because she’s hoping to meet with us again,” Jenny said.
“I think you’re right, Jenny. Now read the emails from her.”
Jenny did, then said, “My impression of the first email is ‘thank you for the interview,’ and she was finished with us. My impression about the second email is she wants to meet with us again.”
“Same here,” Hugh said. “The second email definitely had softer wording this time. Could be she wants only to broaden the article and possibly learn more about trucking.”
Hugh kept the truck pointing south on 90/395. Destination, Twin Falls, where they would park for the night. On to Las Vegas for the next stop. Then to their delivery in Phoenix in two days.
Hugh and Jenny had no way of knowing they weren’t getting the whole story – literally. That’s because the early edition of the newspaper, the one they had read, was the first press run, which went to press about ten the previous evening so it could get shipped to outlying regions like Spokane as a morning paper.
Road Test Page 5