Hitchhikers (Wolf Point #1)

-22-

Lila leads the way. She trots ahead, sniffs the air, and decides which road to turn down. I let her, because it's dark. After weeks of turning on the light in the evenings when I couldn't see, I feel blind, stumbling through the night. I'm tired, too. Nightmares have robbed my sleep all week, and anxiety drained my days. Not even the cool night air, biting through my

(Little Bobby's)

jacket can make me feel alert.

I never paid attention to the dates, not during that whole time I lived with Bobby. The reruns on TV, the repetition of our everyday routine made it feel like a time warp. Time didn't pass there.

It isn't until later, on toward dawn, watching frost form on the roadside grass, that I become aware of how long I stayed at Bobby's. September is gone. Any chance of Indian summer erased. Those warm days when I slept outside with Lila under a lilac bush are gone. I pull my knit hat over my ears and suck my chin into the collar of my jacket.

Winter is beginning already.

Up ahead, Lila turns and passes under a sign that says Route 36 West. West toward home. How does Lila know where to go? I'm so tired I don't care. The sunrise isn't beautiful. It stabs my eyes and makes me squint, and makes me want to fall down and sleep.

A truck with a bed full of chicken coops rolls up.

"You need a ride?"

The man is short a few teeth, but Lila hops into the truck bed, and I follow suit. The chickens cluck their disapproval.

The smell of chicken shit in my nose and my head clanging against the rail, I stumble into sleep.

* * *

I wake in a cold sweat, the words

happy birthday to me

echoing in my head. The truck has come to an abrupt stop, but luckily the toothless wonder driving hasn't come round to check on me yet. I pick myself up, let Lila lick the salt off my face, then we disembark the chicken mobile.

"Thanks for the ride," I manage to say before heading down the road. Unfortunately the sun tells me that we've only been driving about an hour, and the lack of sleep is killing me. It's too bright. My eyes feel gritty and my mouth tastes like dirty socks. I didn't think to pack toothpaste.

There's no place to sleep here. It's another country road, lucky to be paved, stretching as far as I can see into the distance. Fields of wheat blowin' in the wind. The kind of road where trucks whip by, their drivers half asleep. I can smell the road kill already. Not safe to sleep on the side of a road like this. Not safe to sleep in the fields, either: it's near reaping time. Machines cutting down the fields.

An hour north from Kansas might put us in Missouri, or it might put us still in Kansas.

Lila is tireless. She runs ahead, then returns to me, prodding me with her nose, barking if I seem to be sleeping as I walk. "Yeah, yeah," I tell her, shuffling along. I think I must sleep as I walk, as there are periods of time I cannot recall. Or maybe the landscape is that repetitive.

I am ready to collapse in the road when Lila bolts into a group of trees.

"Come back," I say, half-heartedly.

My feet slog along after her. Suddenly in the shade, it feels like darkness has descended. Nighttime, time for sleep.

Lila has found me a nice bed in a pile of leaves from the neighboring farm's yard. I collapse and we twine ourselves around one another and sleep away the day.