by Nancy Cupp
In the living room at Patty’s desk, Curt noticed the crumpled attempts at writing a letter. As he read, tears streamed down. His face contorted in pain. Looking on, Pamela saw what he read.
Softly she said, “She did love you, she was trying to find a way to apologize.” Curt could only nod. The two of them stood there for a few minutes, holding each other.
When they’d recovered, Curt brought in the boxes, and they started the difficult chore of putting Patty’s life in a box. Packing the bookcase, Curt noticed one book pulled out a tiny bit more than the others. The volume was John Muir’s, The Yosemite. He pulled out the book, and it fell open where a letter was tucked inside. It was stamped and ready to mail, addressed to him. He stood there for a moment, lightly running his finger over the familiar handwriting on the envelope.
“Hey Pam,” he called to her, “come here a minute.”
“What did you find?”
“Look,” he said holding the letter out for her to see.
“It’s addressed to you, open it.”
He turned it over in his hands several times, “I can’t right now,” and he put it in his pocket.
They loaded boxes into Curt’s pickup. The furniture and appliances were property of the park service so everything else fit in Curt’s truck. After one last walk around, they sat in the truck.
“So where are we taking this?”
“I’ll rent a storage space—in Merced maybe? Then—I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to get a truck or something and bring it to Mom and Dad’s place. They have room in the garage. I’ll have to sort through it eventually, but I can’t do it now.”
“Are you up to driving a rental truck all the way to Ohio?”
“No, but I don’t know what else to do. Daddy isn’t healthy enough to drive that far, and there isn’t anyone else. I hate to just throw the stuff in a dumpster somewhere. I guess I could donate it or something, but I just can’t face doing that yet.” Pam’s voice started to strain again and she wiped a tear from her eye.
“Pam, I understand. I can’t seem to move forward with anything either. My work setting up the foundation is nearly complete. I can attend to it from anywhere with a computer. How about if we just leave the stuff loaded in my truck, and you and I drive it back to Ohio together.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. You helped me so much all ready.”
“You don’t need to ask—I’m offering.”
Pam sat quietly for a minute. Then she looked at Curt and smiled, nodding, “Thank you,” she whispered.
☙
After dinner at the hotel, Curt and Pam took a walk to the base of Yosemite Falls. They sat on a bench in a quiet area without many tourists. The drumming of water falling on rocks was a comforting sound. Curt drew the letter from Patty out of his pocket and opened it.
They looked at the familiar handwriting, “It’s dated the day before she died,” said Pamela.
Curt read the letter out loud.
Dear Curt,
I love you. I’m sorry we disagree about the Native community taking control of their own land and resources.
As you know, Yosemite is very important to me. I want it to be here forever, just like it is now. If the Ahwahnechee lived here for four thousand years, and managed it all that time, then they know what’s best for it now.
I don’t care about money. I only care about you and Yosemite.
I found out something about the robbery last year. They have stuff hidden in a cave. There was a guy talking to Paul about selling it. I’m going to give the info to the cops. He doesn’t know I heard them talking.
I wanted you to know in case something happens. I photocopied a map Paul had. It’s in a file in the office marked ‘Caves with NA History.’ I wrote what they said on the back.
All My Love,
Patty
Curt sat with the letter in his lap. Tears dripped on the page. Pam was stunned, but she was the first to speak. “Patty was playing detective—it got her killed.”
“If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my father’s money, we wouldn’t have broken up. I would’ve been there—I could’ve stopped her from getting caught up in this thing,” Curt croaked through his tears.
“Curt, she was just a little girl with big dreams. She thought she could save the world, but she wasn’t big enough to do it by herself.”
“I could’ve helped her,” Curt cried.
“It turned out Patty did catch the bad guys—and she helped the community too. The stolen things are recovered, and the criminals behind bars. The school has funding, thanks to you, without exploiting what she loved.”
“She was an amazing woman,” said Curt, “I miss her so much.”
42
Joyce and Margret
Joyce was fighting traffic on the George Washington Bridge in New York City. It was five o’clock on a Friday afternoon and everyone was trying to get out of town. She’d made good time through New Jersey. Things were going well, until the lanes merged, squeezing traffic into dark crumbling tunnels that dove under the busy city. Joyce’s left leg cramped from holding the clutch as traffic inched along.
Joyce pressed the answer button on her headset when she heard the tune signaling a call from her driver manager. “Hi John, What’s up?”
“I have a load that gets you back to Minnesota for your home time.”
“Great! So do I go straight there by way of Florida, and Memphis, Tennessee?”
“Aw, now my feelings are hurt! I wouldn’t make you do that.”
“Unless the freight was good down that way.”
“Well, yeah—but I have a good deal lined up for you, it picks up twenty miles from where you deliver, and gives you four days to get to Minnesota.”
Joyce maneuvered her rig to the right, squeezing in front of a Kenworth, “Yeah, what do I have to do, drive in reverse all the way?”
“As you know, the company needs to recruit new drivers, so we’re going to try training our own.”
“John, as you know, I’m a solo driver—I don’t drive teams,” said Joyce, threading the big-rig through the toll booth, inches from her mirrors.
“This isn’t like team driving. You’d just be training, while the student drives the truck. It’ll give you a break from driving for a while”
“Doesn’t sound too relaxing to me.”
“Oh these students already have their CDL. They just need a little time on the road. You’d just show ‘em how it works at the shipper and stuff.”
“Where would I put a student in this truck?”
“You have a top bunk. I didn’t tell you the best part—you get paid an extra hundred dollars every week the student is with you, and you get paid for all the miles the truck covers. So if you drive too, you’d be making a bunch of extra cash!”
A sports car darted out of a blind spot, into a tiny space between her front bumper and the car in front. Joyce stomped on the brakes just in time. She exhaled, frustrated, “Okay, I’ll think about it. I’m in heavy traffic—gotta go.” She hit disconnect on her phone.
☙
A week later, Joyce waited for her student in Minnesota. She watched a woman struggle with a huge duffle bag as she crossed the parking lot. This must be my student, she thought. What have I gotten myself into?
The stocky woman looked up at Joyce. Pushing her glasses back into place, she said, “Are you Joyce? They told me to look for truck 532407.”
“That would be me. Go around to the other side, and you can hand your gear up to me.” Joyce reached out the passenger door to grab the duffle bag. “Wow—this is heavy.”
“I packed a few books,” said the woman, withdrawing the book she had tucked under her arm.
Joyce caught the title, Truck Driving for Beginners. Oh great, she learned it out of a book. Joyce extended her hand when the student was seated. “I’m Joyce Hart, and this is Lucille,” she said, indicating the truck.
“The truck has a name—I like that.”
“Yeah,
it gets kind of lonely,” said Joyce. “I spend a lot of time with her, so she ought to have a name.”
“I’m Margret Malone—I can hardly wait for this adventure to begin.”
“Yeah me too,” said Joyce.
Thank You for Reading!
I hope you enjoyed the journey. Please accept my thank you gift, Blaize.
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Meet Blaize from the Louisiana Bayou. She is a beautiful young woman, the daughter of a fisherman who depends on the swamp to feed his large family.
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About the Author
Nancy Cupp lives in Minnesota with a neurotic dog and maniacal cat. She spends her winters writing, glad she’s retired from truck driving.
“Writing has always been something I’ve wanted to do, but never made time for. Many stories and characters have been bouncing around in my head for years, just waiting for me to write them down.”
Summers are filled with early morning editing sessions, lots of coffee, and yard work. Nancy likes to run, but has yet to recover the marathon fitness of her pre-trucking years.
Nancy spent a summer working as a volunteer in Yosemite National Park. She hiked the trails and learned about the park’s history while helping at the museum, cultural center, and nature center.
Contact the author, leave a message, or learn more at:
[email protected]
http://www.nancycupp.wordpress.com
More Books by Nancy Cupp
Driving in Traffick, part two of the Margret Malone series. Join Margret Malone as she learns to drive an eighteen wheeler with Joyce Hart.
Training for a new career in truck driving, Margret discovers a world of crime and danger she didn't know existed.
Margret goes missing along with a semi-truck and a million dollars worth of freight. She is thought to be a thief by some, while others fear she may be a victim. A lack of any kind of evidence stalls investigation efforts, until…
Dropped into the middle of a sex trafficking scheme, she struggles to maintain her moral integrity while being held along with two other women. In a plan to free herself and the others, she finds herself actually working with her captor.
Find out why she hauls dangerous freight across the country in a truck she barely knows how to drive. Is she avoiding authorities, or leading them to something bigger?
Driving in Traffic is the action packed, over the road adventure you’ve been waiting for.
Coming Soon:
Part three of the Margret Malone series. In this yet to be named book learn how Blaize, from the free novella above, becomes a key character.
A new series for the young teen crowd: Stuck on the Merry Go Round, a teen novel about a girl from New York City, transplanted to a small town in the midwest. Join Anna as she negotiates a new world of horses, hay rides, and friends, as she learns about her single mom’s teen years. Will she unravel the missing half of her early years? Watch for Stuck on the Merry Go Round.
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[1] Muir, John. “Quotations from John Muir” The John Muir Exhibit, Sierra Club, 1994, 23 Feb. 2017
[2] Muir, John. “Quotations from John Muir” The John Muir Exhibit, Sierra Club, 1994, 23 Feb. 2017