Crimson Highway

by David Wickenhauser

  Time to shift. He let off on the accelerator pedal and, as he had seen James do countless times, grabbed the gearshift knob and tried to move it into what he knew should be the fourth-gear position. The racket was horrendous, the screeching and grinding sounded like a train derailment. This thing was never going into fourth gear that way. It was nothing like when James did it.

  Hugh pressed on the brake pedal and, pressed on the clutch, and as the truck came to a stop, he looked sheepishly over at James.

  James had his hand on the twenty-dollar bill ready to put it back in his pocket. “You want to try again? Or do you give up?” James asked.

  “I’ll try again,” Hugh answered.

  “Good man. I’ll give you another hint. Watch your tach gauge. When the RPMs get between 1300 and 1400, start putting pressure on the gear shift knob in the direction that you want it to go for fourth gear. As soon as you feel some give in the shift lever, let off the accelerator pedal, and you should be able to ease the gearshift into fourth gear. Got it?”

  Hugh nodded.

  “By the way, I’m taking off points because you forgot to set the parking brake when we stopped here. We’re on level ground now, but on any kind of slope you could have been in big trouble.”

  He picked up the twenty-dollar bill from off the dash, put it back in his pocket, and replaced it with a ten.

  “Ready?”

  Hugh nodded again.

  He repeated his steps to get the truck moving again. This time he carefully watched the tach gauge. As the RPMs climbed to the range that James told him about, he began to put pressure on the shift knob. Sure enough, he could feel a slight give just as the needle passed the 1350 mark. He let off the accelerator pedal, completed the move toward the fourth gear position, and was absolutely astounded when it slid smoothly into gear without screeching or grinding.

  He had no time for congratulating himself, however, because as he again pressed on the accelerator pedal, he could see the tach needle rising rapidly again, and he knew he had to get ready for fifth gear.

  That gear was straight down from fourth, so he began putting downward pressure on the shift knob, all the while watching the tach gauge. Again, he felt a slight give in the gear shift knob and, again, he caught it at just the right RPMs, letting off the accelerator and slipping it easily into fifth gear.

  It was only then that Hugh thought to look up to see where they were. He figured he still had room to get it into sixth gear before running out of parking lot.

  Here we go, he thought to himself, as he wound up the RPMs and got ready for sixth gear. This was a tricky one, he knew from watching James. He knew that sixth gear was all the way back over into the first gear position, and that James did something different with the gear shift knob to get it there.

  At what he figured were the right RPMs, Hugh pushed the shift lever out of fifth but, try as he might, he could not get it into sixth gear. All he got for his effort was more of the train wreck that he had caused earlier.

  He finally gave up and brought the truck to a stop—this time remembering to put the gear shift in neutral, and to pull the parking brake knob.

  “Why on earth is that so difficult?” Hugh asked. “I’ve driven stick before. It isn’t anything like this.”

  “The main reason is because, unlike cars and other manual shift vehicles, a big-rig truck does not have synchromesh transmission,” James answered, as he folded the ten-dollar bill back into his pocket.

  “As I said before, in order to shift smoothly you have to find that perfect sweet spot where RPMs and road speed match. And, that range is only a couple of hundred RPMs wide … right there in that 1200 to 1400 range, depending on conditions.

  “But, the thing to remember in particular about going from fifth to sixth gear is to flip up the range switch,” James said, reaching over and demonstrating for Hugh.

  Hugh nodded that he understood. “You had a bit of cash riding on this,” he said.

  “No problem. I knew my twenty dollars was safe,” James said. “You did better than most, but nobody can shift one of these things first try. It’s just too darn tricky.”

  “So what’s the purpose of all this? To humiliate me? To teach me a lesson? Revenge for me calling you ‘old man’?” Hugh asked.

  “A couple of reasons,” James said. “I wanted to know if you had the desire to try to do it.”

  “What was the other reason?”

  “I wanted to see if you had the coordination to do it. I figured you would. Like I said, you are a capable young man. But, there are those who just never get it. So, it’s not worth the time and effort to try to train them.”

  “So, I passed the test? You’re going to train me?” Hugh asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Great! When do we start?”

  “We just did,” James answered. “Welcome aboard.”

  “Just remember what I said earlier today. ‘Murder and mayhem,’ like what we experienced, doesn’t happen every day. If you want to drive truck thinking that’s what it’s all about, you need to rethink it. OK?” James said.

  “OK! Let’s do it!”

  Chapter Ten

  Present Day

  Hugh had gotten so wrapped up in his story he had forgotten who he was talking to, and he hoped that Jenny hadn’t caught the part at the very end where he mentioned what James had said about murder and mayhem at the truck stop.

  He was dead wrong.

  “Murder and mayhem?” Jenny asked. “You’ve heard more stories than the one I told you about with my father?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of a few incidences,” Hugh replied, hoping Jenny wouldn’t pursue it any further.

  She let him off the hook. “So, did you go on to train with James and get your license? Dumb question. Obviously, huh.”

  “Yeah, we had a fun, wild ride for a couple of months,” Hugh said. “It was a great time, and there are lots of stories to tell about those days. Remind me to tell you about the first jug experience I had with James. And, there’s the hot seat swap we did on my very first day as a hitchhiker in his truck.”

  “Hot seat swap? What’s that?” she asked.

  “Be thankful you’ll never have to find out,” Hugh answered, laughing.

  “Your James sounds like an interesting character. I’d like to hear more about him, and maybe even meet him some day.”

  Hugh’s spirit did a flip-flop at that last statement. He was not considering, nor did he want to consider, that there was a “some day” in their future. He was simply too much of a loner truck driver to think about a relationship. He’d already been there, done that, and it didn’t work out.

  And then Jenny’s next question was like a nail in his coffin.

  “Hugh, do you have a wife or a girl back home?”

  She was moving way too fast for him. But, he knew he had to answer her question.

  “There is no ‘back home,’” he said. “And no wife or girl.”

  “Where do you live, then?” she asked.

  “Here.”

  “Here? You mean, in Nevada?”

  “No. Here,” he said waving his hand at the sleeper compartment behind them. “As in, here, in my truck.”

  “You’re kidding!” she exclaimed. “You mean you’ve been living in this truck for the past fifteen years?”

  “Well, not exactly in this truck,” he answered. “I get a new one every few years.”

  “Don’t you take any days off?” she inquired, incredulously.

  “Sure, I take a home time of a few days every four weeks or so. I usually spend it at a resort, or some other kind of tourist destination type of place,” he said. “Las Vegas is always good. Cheap hotel rooms, great food buffets. A couple of times a year, I visit my parents’ place, to say hi.”

  She just stared at him.

  “Look, you need to understand,” he said, starting to get heated at her probing questions. “I love to drive. I don’t have a family of my own, and nowhere I feel I need to put d
own roots. The lifestyle suits me. And, I’m putting up enough savings and investments that I’ll be able to retire at a fairly young age.”

  “Then, what will you do?” she asked, continuing to probe.

  “I’m going to buy a motor home, and travel full time,” he replied, not even remotely aware of the irony of his answer.

  It didn’t escape Jenny’s notice, however. “Travel full time?! You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” she shouted at him.

  And then Hugh burst out laughing when he realized how this must look to her—a truck driver retiring to travel full time. Hugh’s laugh was contagious, and Jenny soon found herself laughing.

  “Seriously,” he explained, once the laughter had died down. “I just like to drive. I like to be in different places. I don’t like being tied down.”

  “Apparently,” she replied, pouring on the sarcasm.

  Their conversation had been so absorbing, and the company—amazingly—so enjoyable, he had driven them right into lunch time.

  “We’re coming up on Elko pretty soon,” Hugh said. “Would you be ready for some lunch?”

  “Sure.”

  Hugh took an exit off the highway, picked one of the popular chain travel plazas, and signaled to turn in. As he did so, he glanced over at Jenny and saw her tense up. Her body language and facial expression were all about fight or flight.

  ”Look, Jenny. I don’t blame you for being nervous because of what has happened at truck stops before,” Hugh told her. “But, relax. OK? I’m not going to leave you. And I really believe there is little chance your uncle or his buds will be here. But, if they are, I’ll protect you. You do believe I can protect you, don’t you?”

  She nodded at him, uncoiling a little bit from her tenseness.

  Lunch was uneventful, and Hugh pulled back onto the highway out of Elko, steering the truck due west. The big diesel engine effortlessly ate up the miles as they rolled through the typical eastern Nevada desert topography.

  There were only a couple of things of interest on this stretch—one of them being the community of Battle Mountain. Every time Hugh passed through that area, the military base of the same name in the Dale Brown military-techno thriller novels came to mind.

  He wondered, absently, how that author came up with the locations for his novels, and if there really was a secret, high-tech, underground military base beneath the little Battle Mountain airport. He could see the airport off to his left as he passed by it, about four miles outside of own.

  Given the seemingly unlimited financial resources of the federal government, and the vast, empty desert around him, he could believe that such a thing might exist.

  As usual, Jenny was the first to break the silence. She must have been reading Hugh’s mind. “Battle Mountain. That’s an interesting name for a town way out here,” she remarked.

  Hugh told her what he had just been thinking about the supposed military establishment there.

  “Have you read any of the Dale Brown novels?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t read a whole lot, and especially not those kinds of books,” she said.

  Hugh told her that he had the opportunity quite a few years ago to meet Dale Brown. It was at the open house of a large air museum in Central California. The author was there to help promote the air museum because they had on display a fighter-bomber, the FB-111, like the one that Brown had flown in when he was in the Air Force.

  Hugh knew that Brown’s Air Force experience was where that author had begun to germinate the ideas that he had for writing his famous series of military novels.

  He told Jenny that Brown had autographed a hardback edition of one of his novels for Hugh.

  “Come to think of it,” Hugh said, “I have no idea where that book is. I might have donated it to a library or a book sale. Comes with living on the road. You can’t carry very many non-essential things around with you.”

  Hugh could tell that Jenny didn’t really want to talk about books, or Dale Brown, or even Battle Mountain.

  “What’s on your mind, Jenny?” Hugh asked, thinking that they might as well deal with the elephant in the room before very much more time has passed.

  Jenny got right to it. “I was all ready to really hate you, you being a truck driver and all, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that you are a really decent guy. A nice guy, even.”

  “Why, thanks, little lady,” Hugh said in a poor impression of John Wayne. It’s hard to swagger in the driver’s seat of a big-rig truck.

  “I mean, I really took a chance doing that thing for my uncle. You know?” she said.

  “No, what?”

  “Well, you know, there was always the chance you could have been like one of the guys who murdered my Dad, and beat up my uncle and his friends. Maybe even one of the actual two guys. It was a slim chance, sure, but it was there. Those guys are probably still out there somewhere. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, sure,” was all that Hugh could think of to say. He desperately wanted out of this conversation as quickly as possible.

  “But, you are truly a nice guy, someone that a woman could appreciate. And, Hugh, you do happen to be a very nice-looking guy, too,” she said.

  He saw the opening he had hoped for to turn the conversation away from himself, and toward her. So, he took a brave turn and admitted to Jenny that she was, indeed, very attractive too.

  Then he said, “And, I’m sure that you’ve got your own history—boyfriends, maybe even a husband or two.” That last part was meant to sound like a joke.

  Jenny remained silent for a long time, alternating between looking out the window and turning her gaze on Hugh.

  Hugh gave her all the time she needed.

  And, finally, she spoke. “No.”

  “No husband?”

  “No.”

  “No boyfriend.”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “No.”

  “You mean, you never …?”

  “No!” she virtually shouted, clearly embarrassed, interrupting what she was afraid he was going to ask.

  Hugh needed time to process that information. This conversation was getting way too personal for him. That threshold thing again.

  Then, an act of nature, or God, just shortly before Winnemucca, saved him from going further down that road, figuratively speaking—but literally, too, it turned out.

  They found themselves suddenly engulfed in a blinding cloud of dust, one of the huge dust storms that spring up almost instantly in this part of the country.

  Hugh was blind, literally blind, to anything beyond his windshield. He prayed silently that he would be able to stop in time before slamming into the rear of the vehicle in front of him—and, just as importantly, that any vehicles behind him would stop before slamming into the rear of his trailer.

  He reflexively hit his four-ways, the emergency flashers, and hoped they would be bright enough in this blinding dust cloud to indicate his truck’s position.

  He applied “stab” braking—pumping the brakes just enough to bring the truck to a quick stop, but just short of locking up all the wheels, which would cause the trailer to jackknife. Modern trailers have an ABS system built-in, so that helps a lot in situations like this.

  All this happened in a couple of seconds. But, Hugh knew from experience that a couple of seconds is all it takes to make the difference between a safe stop, and one that results in a grinding collision.

  They got lucky this time, and came to a stop inches from the rear of a tractor-trailer rig that had stopped right in front of them.

  But Hugh knew it wasn’t over yet. “Brace for it!” he warned Jenny, as he pressed himself into his seat, anticipating getting slammed from the rear.

  But, nothing happened, and Hugh was relieved to find themselves safely in line with the other vehicles waiting for the dust storm to pass.

  “I’ve read about these dust storms,” he told Jenny once he knew the danger of getting rammed
from behind had passed. “Right here in this location, in fact, not too long ago, there was a forty-car pileup. And it took all day to clear up. We got lucky this time.”

  Then, somewhere far behind them, he heard the sound of squealing tires, the screech of metal violently impacting other metal, and the tinkling of breaking glass.

  “Well, I guess somebody else wasn’t so lucky,” he said soberly.

  Almost as quickly as the dust cloud had come upon them, it began to clear. He glanced back in his rear views, and saw that the occupants of the collided vehicles were out of their cars, and all were OK.

  “Remind me to tell you of a real bad accident I saw one time,” he said. “It really shook me up. I had to pull over to the side of the road to compose myself and pray.”

  Traffic started moving again, so they continued on west.

  Chapter Eleven

  The dust storm was behind them and, he hoped, the rest of that conversation as well. Hugh was just happy to be making tracks again.

  He’d have to think about Jenny later, when he had a clearer head to process everything that they had talked about today. He couldn’t imagine that the complicated, complex creature whom he had picked up on the side of the road down near Tonopah, seemingly such a long time ago, could get even more complex. But, she continued to surprise him.

  “Hugh?” he heard from the passenger seat.

  “Yes, dear?” he resurrected their old joke, hoping to keep it light.

  “Can we stop somewhere, where I can buy a few things. I’d like to take another shower, and …”

  “Didn’t you get what you needed the last time?” Hugh demanded, somewhat insensitively.

  “Uh, no. I mean … I didn’t know … I forgot. Girl things.” she stammered with embarrassment, close to tears, her face turning red.

  Instantly contrite, Hugh softened, and said, “Just so happens that Fernley has a Walmart that is very trucker friendly, with a large, graveled lot just for trucks. We’ll be there in a little over an hour. We can stop there if you like.”