Shepherd

TEN

Talking to Martha had always been easy. Being on the road meant meeting people, sometimes the crazies and other times the ones who seem to make one of those rare connections that can happen in an instant. You talk, you share a coffee at a motel, and you drive on in different directions. Life was like that on the road.

Martha was one of the crazies. The first time they'd met, Shep had been changing the wheel on his rig by some North Carolina freeway, being covered in dust as the trucks raced by. He hadn't seen the ATV pull up behind him or the woman climb out of the cab. She came towards him and the first he knew about it was the blow across his shoulders that hit him like a baseball bat.

"What the fuck are you doing, lady?" he'd said, leaping to his feet. She'd hit him again before he managed to snatch the handbag from her mid-swing.

"Is this your rig, sweetie?" she croaked.

"Yeah!"

"Well I hate you murdering mother-fuckers!" She tried to hit him with her knurled fists but he grabbed them before she could.

"Murdering? What are you talking about you crazy bitch?"

"There's darlin' piggies in that truck! Headin' for the slaughter!"

"You damned idiot!" he roared. "It says 'Bork Haulage' – the 'b' has worn off!"

She'd stared up at the side of his trailer and squinted at the faded paint.

"So it does!" she declared. Then she got back in her ATV and vanished. After that, he'd seen her around and they'd never forgotten her mistake.

Right then the teapot had gone cold and the day was moving along. Outside there'd been no other traffic on the road and there was an eerie kind of quiet all over the place. Shepherd looked across at the old woman who was staring down into the bottom of her cup.

"It's really ending, isn't it?" she almost whispered and he struggled to hear her even in the silence.

"I'm afraid so."

She shook her head and her gray hair floated with the dust motes in the slanting sunshine that cut through the windows

"I never thought it would happen, Shepherd. I thought I'd die in some nursing home over near Disney Land with my littles around me, seeing me go. Now they're all gone."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"It's nothin'."

"It's something, Martha and you'll just tell me what it is right now."

She smiled and looked up at him. Her eyes were watery and filled with tears.

"N.C. It's... gone."

"Gone?"

"They blew it up. I got out with the first evacuees. The place was still burning three days later when our plane took off for Colorado. Raleigh... My family... All gone..."

Instinctively he placed his hand on top of hers and felt how cold it was in spite of the warmth of the day.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It ain't your fault, is it? Fuckin' government did it to us. They took everything from us. After all we've been through, after all this country fought for, this is how it ends. Like a fart in a crowd. Gone. Poof."

"It's not over yet, you know," he said.

"It is for me. I'm the last one and now I'll die alone out here."

"You'll do no such thing. You're coming with me."

She looked at him and shook her head again.

"That's mighty kind of you but I-"