The Highway Kind

by Patrick Millikin

  Brandon shook his head, puzzled. “That’s what you want?”

  Pingston nodded. “Look, I suppose you’re thinking that if I restored that beast to its former glory, I could make a lot of money on it and you’re right. I’ve seen where some of ’em sell for seventy thousand or more in cherry condition. But I don’t give a crap about that. I want to fix it up and get it running. This one is too damned beat up to ever amount to much.”

  “Then why do you want it?”

  “It means something to me,” Pingston said. “That was the truck I drove every damned day I worked on this ranch. Twelve years, Brandon. I know that truck as intimately as I do Peggy.”

  Peggy smirked at that. Brandon thought that odd.

  Pingston said, “I know when to downshift going up a vertical hill, how to power through six-foot drifts, how to use that winch to pull myself up the side of a damned cliff. If I ever go elk hunting again, that’s the vehicle I want to take.

  “Plus,” Pingston said with a wink, “it’s the truck I borrowed to go to town when your old man sent me up the river. I like the idea of that old bastard rolling in his grave knowing I’m riding around in high style in the Power Wagon he owned all his life. It gives me a small measure of satisfaction, if you know what I mean.”

  Marissa said, “If we give you the truck, will you all go away?”

  “That was rude,” Peggy said. She folded her thick arms over her bosom.

  Brandon said, “I should discuss this with my brothers and sister, you know. We all have a say in how the assets are divided up.”

  That’s when Wade stepped forward and said, “We don’t have the time.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon saw Marissa tense up and move back.

  Brandon said, “If I give it to you, how are you going to get it out of here? I doubt it’ll start after all these years. I don’t even know if it still has a motor in it—or tires. And I don’t even know if it’s in the shed out there.”

  “Oh, we brung a tow rope in the Jeep,” Pingston assured him.

  Brandon hoped that the Power Wagon was not only in the shed but also in good enough shape for them to take it away that night. He was still basking in the relief he’d felt at the words I want that ’48 Power Wagon.

  Even if it didn’t make any sense. Four people to retrieve a truck? In the snow? At night?

  “If it’s there, it’s yours,” he said to Pingston.

  Wade grinned and said, “Let’s go check it out.”

  “I’m going too,” Tater said.

  “No,” Pingston said sharply. “You stay here with your mother and Marissa.”

  And Brandon felt the fear creep back inside.

  “Why don’t you all come with me?” Brandon asked.

  “No,” Pingston said sharply. “Peggy don’t need to stand around outside in this weather while we mess around with an old truck.”

  But Brandon heard, I want my son to stay in here and keep an eye on Marissa so she doesn’t try anything.

  When he looked over at his wife, Marissa nodded to him and mouthed, Go.

  It took a while for Brandon to locate a set of keys in the old man’s desk that might open the old shed. While he searched, Wade kept a close eye on him from the door. More than once, Brandon caught Wade glancing toward the gun cabinet.

  “Okay,” Brandon said when he found a ring of ancient keys. “I can’t guarantee anything but one of these might work.” None of them were marked or labeled.

  “We’ll follow you,” Wade said, closing in behind Brandon as he left the room.

  Brandon pulled on the ranch coat and looked over his shoulder at Marissa. “Back in a minute,” he said.

  She nodded but her mouth was set tight as if holding in a sob.

  Pingston and Wade followed Brandon outside into the snow. It was coming down harder now and the flakes had grown in size and volume.

  He led them away from the house toward a massive corrugated-metal shed where the old man kept his working ranch equipment as well as the hulks of old tractors and pickups that no longer ran. The pole light that had once illuminated the ranch yard had long ago burned out, so Brandon had to peer through the snowfall to find the outline of the shed against the snow.

  “I told Wade I wasn’t sure if I have the right key,” Brandon said in Pingston’s direction.

  Pingston didn’t reply.

  The shed had a side door but it was clogged with years of weeds that were waist-high, so he figured it hadn’t been used in a while. Brandon walked through the snow to the big double garage doors that were closed tight. A rusty chain had been looped through the handles and secured with a padlock.

  Brandon bent over and tried one key after another in the lock.

  “I need some light,” he said. “Did either of you bring a flashlight?”

  Instead of answering, Wade extended a lighter in his hand and flicked it on. The flame lit up the old padlock in orange.

  The next-to-last key on the ring slid in, and Brandon turned it. Nothing.

  “Jerk on it,” Pingston said.

  Brandon did and it opened. Tiny flakes of rust fell away from the lock into the snow below it. He closed his eyes with relief. Wade reached over his shoulder and pulled the chain free.

  “Okay, step aside,” Pingston said, reaching forward with both of his hands and grasping the door handles. He groaned as he parted them. The old door mechanism groaned as well.

  “Give me a hand here,” Pingston said to Wade. The two men wedged themselves into the two-foot opening and each put a shoulder to opposite doors. With a sound like rolling thunder, the doors opened wide.

  Brandon watched Pingston walk into the shed and disappear in the dark. A wall of icy air pushed out from the open doors. It was colder inside the shed than outside, Brandon thought. Then a single match fired up in the corner and he saw Pingston’s finger toggle a light switch. Above them, two of four bare bulbs came on.

  “See, I remembered where the lights were after all this time,” Pingston said.

  “Good for you,” Wade said without enthusiasm. “You figured out how to operate a light switch.”

  The shed layout was familiar to Brandon and much of it was the same as it had been. Some of the equipment was so old it looked almost medieval in the gloom. Thrashers, tractors, one-ton flatbed trucks without wheels, a square-nosed bulldozer, a faded wooden sheep wagon as old as Wyoming itself, a lifetime of battered pickups. And there, backed against the far sheet-metal wall, was the toothy front grille and split-window windshield of the ’48 Power Wagon. It sat high and still on knobby tires, its glass clouded with age, the two headlamps mounted on the high wide fenders looking in the low light like dead eyes.

  “Son of a bitch,” Pingston said. “There it is.”

  Wade blew out a sigh of relief.

  “How you doin’, old girl?” Pingston said to the truck. He approached it and stroked the dust-covered hood. “It looks like the old man backed it in after they arrested me and it hasn’t been moved since,” he said.

  Brandon put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. He said, “Then I guess my work is done here.”

  “Not so fast,” Wade said, stepping over and placing his hand on Brandon’s shoulder. Then to Pingston: “Check it out.”

  Check out what?

  Pingston nodded and opened the front door of the Power Wagon and leaned inside. Brandon was surprised how obedient Pingston had been to the command. Then he realized Wade was actually the one in charge, not Pingston.

  “What’s he looking for? The keys?” Brandon asked.

  “Shut up.”

  Brandon pursed his lips and waited. He could see Pingston crawl further into the cab and could hear the clinks of metal on metal.

  After a long few moments, Pingston pushed himself out and looked to Wade. Pingston’s face was drained of color.

  “It’s not there,” he said in a weak voice. “The tools are on the floorboard but the toolbox is gone. The old man must have found it.�
��

  Wade closed his eyes and worked his jaw. Brandon felt Wade’s hand clamp harder on his shoulder. Then Wade stepped back quickly and kicked Brandon’s legs out from under him. He fell hard, half in and half out of the shed.

  When Brandon looked up, Wade was crouching over him with a large-caliber snub-nosed pistol in his hand. The muzzle pressed into his forehead.

  “Where is it?” Wade asked.

  “Where is what?” Brandon said. “I don’t have a clue what you’re looking for.”

  “Where. Is. It?” Wade’s eyes were bulging and his teeth were clenched.

  “Honest to God,” Brandon said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t been in this shed for years. I wasn’t even sure the Power Wagon was here. I have no idea where the keys are.”

  He tried to rise up on his elbows but the pressure of the muzzle held him down.

  “Fuck the keys,” Wade said. He barked at Pingston, “Look again.”

  Pingston practically hurled himself into the cab of the truck. His cowboy boots stuck out and flutter-kicked like he was swimming.

  “Don’t lie to me or I’ll kill you and your wife,” Wade said and Brandon didn’t doubt it. “Where is it?”

  Brandon took a trembling breath. He said, “This is my first day back on this place. I have no idea what you’re asking me. I’ve not been in this shed. You saw how rusty that lock was, Wade. It hasn’t been opened in a long time.”

  Something registered behind Wade’s eyes. The pressure of the muzzle eased but he didn’t move the gun.

  “My old man was in this shed since I was here last. Hell, Dwayne Pingston was in this shed after I left. I don’t know what you’re looking for. I’m an accountant, for God’s sake.”

  Wade appeared to be making his mind up about something. Then his features contorted into a snarl and he withdrew the revolver and hit Brandon in the face with the butt of it. Brandon heard his nose break and felt the hot rush of blood down his cheeks and into his mouth. Wade struck again and Brandon stopped trying to get up.

  Wade got off him and Brandon tried to roll to his side but he couldn’t move his arms or legs. He was blacking out, but he fought it. For some reason he thought about the fact that the only violence he had ever encountered in his life was here on this ranch. And Marissa was back in the house...

  His head flopped so he was facing into the shed. Through a red gauzy curtain, he watched Wade stride toward the Power Wagon with the gun at his side.

  And he heard Wade say to Pingston, “You stupid, miserable old son of a bitch. I knew I should have never believed you about anything. You kept me on the hook for years so I’d watch your back inside.”

  Pingston said, “Wade! Put that down.”

  Pop. Pop.

  Brandon didn’t want to wake up, and each time he got close, he faded back. He dreamed of freezing to death because he was.

  He groaned and rolled to his side and his head swooned. He threw up on the sleeve of the old man’s ranch coat and it steamed in the early-morning light. His limbs were stiff with cold and it hurt to move them. His face throbbed and he didn’t know why. When he touched the area above his right ear he could feel a crusty wound that he couldn’t recall receiving.

  But he was alive.

  He gathered his knees under him and pushed himself clumsily to his feet. When a wave of dizziness hit him, he reached out and grabbed the end of the open shed door so he wouldn’t fall again.

  It took a minute for him to realize where he was and recall what had happened. He staggered toward the Power Wagon, toward the pair of boots that hung out of the open truck door.

  Dwayne Pingston was dead and stiff with a bullet hole in his cheek and another in the palm of his hand. No doubt he’d raised it at the last second before Wade pulled the trigger.

  Brandon turned and lurched toward the open shed door.

  The morning sun was streaming through the east wall of willows, creating gold jail bars across the snow.

  The Jeep was gone but Tater’s body lay facedown near the tracks. Peggy was splayed out on her back on the front porch, her floral dress hiked up over blue-white thighs. Both had been shot to death.

  “Marissa!”

  He stepped over Peggy’s body like he’d once stepped over the old man. The front door was unlocked and his eyes were wide open and he was breathing fast when he went inside.

  His movement and the warmth of the house made his nose bleed again, and it felt like someone was applying a blowtorch to his temple. He could hear his blood pattering on the linoleum.

  “Marissa!”

  “Oh my God, Brandon, you’re alive!” she cried. “I’m in here.”

  She was in the old man’s den.

  When he filled the door frame and leaned on it to stay up, she looked up from behind the desk and her face contorted.

  “You’re hurt,” she said. “You look awful.”

  He didn’t want to nod.

  Five tiny hairless mice, so new their eyes were still shut, wriggled in a pile of paper scraps on the desk in front of her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Checking on my babies.”

  It was incomprehensible to him. “What happened?”

  She shook her head slowly and said, “When I heard the shots outside I ran upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom. All I could think of was that you were gone and that I’d be raising this boy by myself.

  “I heard Tater yell and run out, then Peggy followed him. There were more shots and then I heard a car drive away. I didn’t unlock my door and come out until an hour ago. I went outside and saw you lying in the snow and I thought you were gone like the others.”

  Brandon said, “And the first thing you did after you saw me was check on the mice?”

  “They’re helpless,” she explained. Then he noticed her eyes were unfocused and he determined she was likely in shock. She’d succumbed to her maternal instincts because she didn’t know what else to do. His other questions would have to wait. He hoped their baby had no repercussions from her terror and tension throughout the night.

  “I’ll get the car,” he said.

  “Can I bring the babies?”

  He started to object but thought better of it.

  “Sure.”

  As he turned he heard her say, “There’s a towel in the bathroom for your face.”

  Brandon was shocked at the appearance of the person who looked back at him in the mirror. He had two black eyes, an enormous nose, and his face was crusted with black dried blood. A long tear cut through the skin above his right ear and continued through his scalp.

  Wade, he thought. Wade had stood over him after he’d shot Pingston and fired what he’d thought was a kill shot to his head. He’d missed, though, and the bullet had creased his skull.

  He looked like he should be dead.

  When Brandon went outside he saw that Wade had left them a present: all four tires on their minivan were slashed and flat and there was a bullet hole in the grille and a large pool of radiator fluid in the snow.

  When he shook his head, it ached.

  Then he turned toward the shed.

  When he went inside, long-forgotten memories rushed back of observing the old man, Pingston, and various other ranch hands working on equipment, repairing vehicles, and changing out filters, hoses, belts, and oil and other fluids. The old man thought it was a waste of time and money to take his equipment into town for repair so he did it all himself. Those were the days when a man could actually fix his own car. And as the men worked, Brandon would hand them the tools they requested.

  It had been another world, but one Brandon eased back into. A world where a man was expected to know how a motor worked and how to fix it if necessary.

  The battery in the Power Wagon was long dead so he borrowed the battery from his minivan and installed it. The air compressor in the shed sounded like an unmuffled jet engine, but it sufficed to inflate the tires. He filled the Dodge’s gas tank from
a five-gallon can he found in the corner. Then, recalling a technique the ranch hands had used on especially cold mornings, he took the air filter off the motor and primed the carburetor with a splash of fuel.

  Like they were for all ranch vehicles, the keys had been left in the ignition. He opened the choke to full and turned the key and was astonished that the truck roared to life.

  The Power Wagon reminded Brandon of a grizzly bear that had emerged from its den. It shook and moaned and seemed to stretch. The shed filled with acrid blue smoke. Pingston had been right when he’d inferred that the old truck was indestructible.

  When Brandon eased it out through the doors, he saw Marissa standing open-mouthed on the front porch.

  It was a rough ride and Brandon couldn’t goose it past thirty-five miles an hour. Blooms of black smoke emerged from the tailpipe. The heater blew dust on their legs when he turned it on. The cab was so high that the ground outside seemed too far down. He felt like a child behind the massive steering wheel.

  He’d forgotten what it was like to drive a vehicle without power steering or power brakes. He didn’t so much drive it as point it down the road and hold on tight to the steering wheel so the vibration wouldn’t shake his teeth loose.

  On the way into Big Piney, he glanced over at Marissa, who was holding the box of mice in her lap.

  “When did you go into the shed?” he asked. He had to raise his voice over the sound of the motor to be heard.

  “Yesterday, after I found the nest of mice.”

  “How did you get in? The doors were locked.”

  “The side door wasn’t locked. The one with all the weeds? That was open and I went right in.”

  He nodded and thought about it.

  She said, “Are you accusing me of something, Brandon? Your tone is mean.”