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

waiting for a shower, so he pointed in the direction of the shower rooms. “Don’t forget to wash your hair!” he yelled to her as she walked in the direction he had pointed.

“Yes, Mom!” she tossed sarcastically over her shoulder, embarrassed and angry that everyone in the travel plaza could hear him.

He watched her open the door to the shower room and go inside.

Satisfied that she would be awhile in the shower, Hugh quickly took care of some business of his own in the men’s restroom. When he came out, he bought a bag of chips and a soft drink. On his way out of the travel plaza he checked to make sure she hadn’t come out of the shower already.

There was no sign of her, so he quickly walked back to the truck, unlocked the door, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been spotted by her, he pulled out of the truck stop and back onto the highway headed north. His conscience panged a bit at what he had just done, but he rationalized that at least he hadn’t left her at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

He figured she could easily get a ride with someone else at this truck stop, especially once she was showered up, and wasn’t smelling so bad. He guessed that she would clean up fairly nicely. Despite her numerous issues, she was a darn pretty girl. Might be to someone’s liking, Hugh mused, sorry for the guy who'd be unlucky enough to pick her up.

He noticed that her unpleasant scent lingered in the cab of the truck. He cracked open both windows a couple of inches to start some airflow that would carry the smell away. He certainly didn’t want to bed down for the night with that stale odor remaining.

He began singing a tune that had just popped into his head at the relief of getting rid of that obnoxious girl. “Ding dong! The witch is gone. The wicked witch. The wicked witch! Ding dong! The wicked witch is gone.” He didn’t know the rest of the words, so he continued to just hum the tune.

Then Hugh decided to give James a call. After all these years, he and James were still good friends. They talked several times a week.

Putting on his cordless headset, he pushed the call button, and then spoke into the microphone in response to the canned command to do so. “Call James,” he ordered.

He heard a series of tones as the phone obediently dialed the number for his friend from his contacts list. This is certainly different from the early days of trying to communicate while driving truck.

“What’s up, kid?” James answered, recognizing Hugh’s number on his caller ID.

“Hey, old man. Haven’t talked to you in awhile. Anything going on?”

“No. Same ol’, same ol’. How about you?”

“Had a pretty interesting day today. I picked up a hitchhiker.”

“No kidding? Was she hot?”

Hugh laughed at that. It was a standing joke between James and Hugh that all hitchhikers should be female and pretty. The thing is that neither of them had made a practice of picking up hitchhikers. Notwithstanding that Hugh had met James that way, they could together add up on one hand the number of people they had given rides to in their entire driving careers that now spanned a combined forty-five years.

“You know what? Actually she was pretty hot,” Hugh answered. “But, oh wow, what a bitch. She had an attitude that wouldn’t quit. Plus, she was several days, or weeks, out from her last shower and having a clean change of clothes. I couldn’t wait to get rid of her.”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m on 93, just out of Ely, headed for Burley.”

“Leave her at that truck stop there?”

“Yeah. She’ll be OK. It was strange, though. I picked her up between Tonopah and Ely on 6, out there in the middle of nowhere. She never did say what she was doing there, or where she was going.”

“You’re probably better off without her. She could’a been trouble.”

"Don't I know it," Hugh said, and then asked, “Hey, I was wondering something, You remember that truck rollover I told you about on 395 just north of Susanville?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“I mentioned it to Jenny. That’s her name. She seemed to have an inordinate amount of interest in the details about that accident.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It got me curious. Did you ever hear anything more about what happened? What caused the wreck?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” James replied. “They were talking about it in the driver’s lounge of that truck stop south of Redding.”

“What were they saying?”

“They said it was an attempted hijacking. A couple of guys by the side of the road. One faked an injury, and the truck driver stopped to help. They jumped him, and attempted to force him to drive them to Susanville where a couple more guys were supposed to join them and help hijack the truck.”

“Wow! Déjà vu,” Hugh said, remembering his and James' hijacking experience.

“Yeah. But the driver fought back, causing the truck to swerve off the road. After the truck slid to a stop on its side, the two hijackers ran away. You know the rest.”

“Yes, I was there shortly after.”

“And, here’s what’s interesting,” James said. “They would have got nothing for their efforts. The poor truck driver was hauling a load of pallets. That’s it. Just pallets.”

“Interesting. So, there wasn’t a young girl involved in that?”

“If there was, nobody said anything about it. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“Listen, Hugh, be careful out there. Word around the drivers’ lounges is that there is a rash of hijackings going on right now in our part of the country.”

When his long-time mentor called him “Hugh” instead