UP a TREE by Richard M. Brock

Author:Richard M. Brock [Brock, Richard M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adirondacks, adult, Adventure, American West, coming of age, cross dog blues, Huckleberry Finn, Humor, mark twain, New York City, Rocky Mountains, San Francisco, teen, Tom Sawyer, Wyoming, YA
ISBN: 9780991132058
Publisher: Bogie Road Publishing Ltd.
Published: 2021-02-02T07:00:00+00:00

26 Outlaws on the Loose

No Direction Home, was spray-painted in black paint on the wall outside the truck stop we parked at. There was a lot of other stuff on that wall, too. Nothing I remember, though. But I do remember that: No Direction Home.

“Ain’t that something?” Nicole said, smoking a cigarette and fiddling with her jacket. We were waiting for Quinn to get done in the bathroom.

I was staring at the wall and those letters. “It sure is,” I said, thinking she was talking about the No Direction Home written on the wall. But she was staring off the other way, talking about the sunrise, and she was standing still, her one hand shoved into the pocket of her Carhartt jacket and the other up to her face with her two little fingers and her thumb just touching her chin and the other two fingers holding a burning cigarette to her lips like she forgot it was there. The smoke from her cigarette and steam from her breath were both drifting up in front of her eyes as she stared off at that sunrise, not blinking or thinking or anything. She was kind of pretty then, I guess, under all that tough. She just looked like a lonely little girl in big clothes, and she stayed there, looking out at the sunrise for a while, till Quinn came out of the crapper. She was a good lady—Nicole. And that sunrise was real nice, too.

Nicole said later that day, that when you’re on the road or just in life in general, you have to stop and appreciate the special moments, because they only happen that way once, and if you stop to enjoy them, they can keep you going through other rough stuff. She was talking about things like that sunrise, I think. You could see everything from there: the trucks waking up at the giant truck stop plopped there in the middle of the endless nothing, and the diner all lit up with signs, serving pancakes the size of your head, and behind it all the most never-ending wild west you’ve ever seen, all starting to light up in rolling grass fields and black shadows like you could just ride a horse out into it forever. That was what she was talking about, I think—Nicole. And she was right.

When Quinn came out of the bathroom, he took a look, too, and we walked back toward Nicole’s truck.

“How much further to your delivery?” Quinn asked as we were walking.

“It’s still a ways. We should be there this afternoon.”

“You said there’s mountains that way?”

“You’ll love them.”

As we were walking, I noticed the giant Timber Value logo on an eighteen-wheeler parked a few rows down from Nicole’s truck.

I nudged Quinn. “You see that?”

Quinn looked and nodded. “They’re everywhere,” he said.

“What are you two pointing at,” Nicole said. She was smiling, but when she looked where we were pointing, she suddenly turned white.

I thought it was the Timber Value truck she got scared by, and it seemed odd because you see them everywhere.

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