Crimson Highway by David Wickenhauser (i can read with my eyes shut txt) 📕

They’d already been on the road for a little over four hours. So, depending on how long it would take at their pickup, he might be able to stop for the night somewhere on I-5 after Bakersfield. From there, it would be an easy half-day’s drive up to his Tracy delivery.

Assuming nothing crazy happens between here and there. No guarantees of that, these days. But, he kept that thought to himself.

He told Jenny the plan as they tidied up after lunch. Then they saddled up for their departure from this impromptu lunchtime stopping place.

They made their way down 395, slowing to twenty-five miles an hour as they drove through each of the several small towns that straddle the highway south of Bishop.

Then Hugh told Jenny they were nearing their destination.

“What is it about this place that you said I was going to find interesting?” she asked Hugh.

Hugh’s answer was to tell her to take a close look at the water bottle that she had kept out from lunch, and that she had been sipping from.

“Yeah, OK?” she said, quizzically, seeing the mountain scene printed on the label.

“That’s where we’re going,” he answered her.

“Up in the mountains? To where they bottle this spring water?” she asked, looking around at the bleak desert terrain that they were driving through.

“Not exactly. That’s what is interesting,” Hugh replied. “You’ll see.”

Shortly after, a group of large buildings loomed before them. The complex stood starkly alone in the vast expanse of empty desert. Hugh pulled into a driveway to this complex, drove to the staging area to park, then shut down.

“We’re here,” he announced.

Jenny looked around at the stark bleakness of the place. “This looks nothing like ‘mountain spring water,’” she said. All she could see were white alkali flats, with very little real vegetation.

“Yep. I know. It was a surprise to me the first time I came here. Apparently, they bring it down from the mountains somehow, or pump it from a spring-fed aquifer underground,” Hugh said. “All I know is that this is one of the plants where they bottle that water,” he added, pointing to Jenny’s water bottle.

“The cool thing about this place is that they give free bottles of water to truck drivers. We’ll pick up a couple gallons here before we leave.”

Hugh exited the truck and went into the office to arrange for his pickup.

When he came back, he told Jenny, “Our door won’t be available for a couple of hours. So, we’ll just have to hunker down here for awhile. It means we probably won’t make it past Bakersfield today. We’ll spend the night there at our company’s drop yard.”

“What will we do here until it’s time to get our load?” she asked.

“Personally, I’m going to take a nap,” Hugh said. “Truck driving is a lot like being in the military. You sleep when you can, because you never know when you’re going to be up for an extended time.”

With that, Hugh climbed into his bunk, and closed his eyes to rest.

Jenny stayed in her passenger seat, and thumbed through the few magazines that Hugh had in the door pocket—mostly trucker’s publications.

Hugh had fallen asleep, but woke up quickly at the sound of pounding on his driver-side door. Hugh opened his door, and a plant worker told him his door was ready for him to back into.

Then the plant worker spied Jenny, did a double-take, and then stood there blatantly staring at her. Hugh had to laugh to himself. He was beginning to realize that Jenny’s appearance had that affect on men.

Hugh backed into his assigned dock door. A few minutes later they could feel the whole truck and trailer shaking and lurching as the forklift drove in and out of the trailer loading up pallets totaling 45,000 pounds of bottled water.

“This will definitely be a heavy load,” he said.

Hugh then went to the office, and signed for the load.

Once back on the road, Hugh told Jenny that that went pretty well. They’d make a straight shot to Bakersfield, and then park for the night.

“Frankly, I’ll be real happy to end this day without any more incidents,” he said. “That last one was a doozey,” he added, rubbing his neck and throat where the attacker had tried to choke him.

Hugh cut off of Highway 395 at Highway 14 as a shortcut to Highway 58. He knew that anything’s better than going through Kramer Junction.

“You might recognize some of this,” he told Jenny as they approached the Red Rock Canyon area.

“I’ve never been here before,” she said.

“Maybe not. But think in your mind’s eye to some of the old Westerns you might have watched. This is where they filmed a whole bunch of them.”

“Yeah. I see what you mean,” she said, looking around. Then she said, “You really do know a lot about all these places around here.”

“A truck driver hasn’t got much more to do than sit, watch, and think,” he explained to her. “Some people might think it would be extremely boring. But, I don’t think it is. There’s always something new and different popping up at you. Just look at how exciting the past few days have been.”

 Hugh saw the exit for a rest area coming up, and signaled to take it.

“I just need to pop in here and clean up my knife,” he said. “You can use the facility if you need to.”

As Hugh stood at the sink, lathering his blooded knife with soap, a tourist at the next sink saw what he was doing.

“Looks like you stuck a pig with that thing,” he remarked.

“Yeah, that’s pretty close to what happened,” Hugh told him, laughing.

He met Jenny back at the truck, and they got back onto the highway. They were headed