Ledman Pickup

Thirteen

Sometime around eleven Leonora began to wonder what she was doing. She'd been up all night, cleaning her apartment of all things, before rushing off to the bus station and climbing aboard the first bus headed north, which happened to be to Denver. On her lap was a carefully written note, in her own best handwriting, listing the connections she would have to make in order to arrive in Green Bay by Sunday. It looked to be reasonable, but she had no memory of writing it, or even collecting that information. She didn't know anyone in Wisconsin nor had she ever had any interest in going there. She stared out the window at the passing scenery, which was gorgeous, northwest New Mexico, and wondered briefly if someone had slipped her some really powerful acid, or if this all was actually happening. She felt something warm in her overalls pocket and reached in and pulled out the small black plastic device. As she held it in her hand and wondered what the hell it was, she felt herself relax, and begin to understand. The thing knew what they were doing and why. It was all going to become clear soon enough.

"There's no hurry," she told herself. "We have the end in mind so the rest is simple steps. First things first and one thing at a time. We can get off the bus if we like. We can hitch a ride if we want. There is always more than one way to skin a cat." Not that she minded the bus ride. She'd always enjoyed long rides like this, ever since she was a kid and her dad, a Colonel in the Army, had driven them everywhere in his Jeep Rollover; weeks out in the woods camping, criss-crossing the country many times as they headed from one base to another, one time vacationing on an island in the middle of a lake where the owner would never even know they had been there. Colonel Wells believed in living off the land no matter whose it was. He had taught his only child to hunt, to track, to survive in the wild, and ever since his court-martial and subsequent life sentence she'd been comfortable on her own, never worrying, never in doubt. Hadn't she made it this far? And what had the world ever offered to her? Shitty jobs, lousy partners, dirty apartments, laundromats with broken machines and sidewalks with more cracks than you could even shake a stick at, or something like that. She had the feeling, riding along in the back of the bus, that she had more memories than ever before, and they filled her time and her mind like a movie she had once seen long ago and since forgotten, but loved.

Colonel Arsine Wells was a proud man who had taken his daughter from the mother who would not have raised her right in any case, and taught her everything a young girl needs to know, from herbal remedies of every kind to advanced kitchen chemistry, from counting cards to lifting wallets, and all of it taught patiently and with humor. He was the one who let her drive the getaway car. He was the one who skinned the squirrels she impaled with her very own Bowie knife. He had always told her that every job needs a plan, that every plan must include its own expected results, and that success or failure was never a matter of luck but of execution. Do a job right, he said, and you'll never have to worry. She wasn't certain she'd completely understood. After all, she'd been only fourteen when they locked him away, and after a couple of years of stealing for Aunt Cindy she'd struck out on her own. Her rules were simple. Never worry, and never get caught.

It looked like clear sailing now. She had all that cash she'd been hoarding up for a while and it was all tucked away safely in her boots along with daddy's knife. She was feeling a bit light-headed, the result of not having gotten high in more than sixteen hours. She didn't feel like doing that anymore. She wanted to scout out the world. How could she explain it? There had to be more. She felt as if there was something she'd been missing, and she didn't know what it was, or how to find it, or where to look, but she was going to track it down, like the Colonel tracked that bear that time, which wasn't such a good idea as it turned out in the end, but the hunt was invigorating. It was exciting. It was life. She wanted to seek that kind of energy once again.

She did get off outside of Trinidad, Colorado in the middle of the afternoon, and didn't get back on that bus. She watched it pull away from a picnic table where she was nursing an orange soda and a ham and cheese sandwich. The highway rest stop was busy that morning. She could tell she'd have no trouble picking up a ride in any direction she chose to go. The note had her heading for Nebraska and Iowa but there were lots of ways to get there. In the meantime, the mountain air felt great, and she didn't have a care in the world. She could leave it all up to chance. 'Every number is my lucky number now', she thought with a smile.