Lost in Rooville by Ray Blackston

Author:Ray Blackston [Ray Blackston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781441238955
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

20

The windshield was so coated in orange dust that I could not see a face. And for reasons I couldn’t figure, the driver stopped some thirty paces away from me, idling on red earth, as if trying to determine if I were trustworthy.

In an effort of greeting, I had walked out into the field next to my HELP! note. Soon I identified the make of vehicle as a Montero and deduced that two heads lingered behind the dust and glass. The truck had a winch bolted to the front. I heard music playing, but still they came no closer. And who could blame them for hesitating? If I came upon a flaming SUV on the outskirts of an Australian desert, my tendency would be to proceed with caution.

The Montero rolled forward and paused again. The music stopped. Then, in a moment that will forever stun me, my newly married ex–Spanish teacher, Neil Rucker, thrust his head and shoulder-length locks out the driver’s window. In his right hand he held up a harmonica, and before he said a word he brought it to his mouth and blew the first notes of the Rocky theme.

Neil then pulled the instrument from his lips and yelled, “Jarvis!”

I turned my palms up in a gesture of ‘who did you expect?’ “It’s me, bro.”

Well tanned and enthusiastic, he leaned farther out the window. “Man, you’re so grimy we didn’t recognize you. We thought for a second that you were a bandit trying to trick us.”

For a moment we just stared at one another through the heat and glare, trying to make sense of it all. I smiled at the thought of committing an unpardonable sin—interrupting a honeymoon.

I turned to my right to look at Allie, who was still propped against the sandstone, on the other side of the burning Toyota. She waved slowly at Neil with one hand, shooed a trace of smoke away from her face with the other. She looked at him and made the drinking motion. With both hands.

“What happened, you two?” Neil continued, shooting twin glances of confusion at the two of us. “But no matter, we’ll get you out of here and . . . then I can go back to enjoying my wife.”

I grinned first with envy, then with embarrassment.

Neil ducked back inside behind the wheel and turned off the engine to the Montero. And just when I expected to see the raven hair, pale complexion, and pierced eyebrow of his bride, Alexis, appear from the passenger window, out popped the head of Steve Cole.

“Found ya, bro!” he shouted.

I blinked, stared, blinked again. I was too famished to think, too dehydrated to fight hallucinations, but no way would I confuse cute, slender Alexis with Steve’s square jaw and crew cut. I stepped forward and placed my hands on their dusty black hood, a prop to support my bewilderment. “But where are . . . where is your wife, Neil? And where is Darcy, Steve?”

Neil jumped from the front seat and came around the hood and hugged me hard.

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