Stranded (2 page)

More minutes trickled by. Koop prowled restlessly from one end of the motor home to the other, occasionally jumping up on something to peer outside. Abilene tapped a toe on the carpet and fingers on the dinette. She looked at the battery-operated clock over the door. Another car screeched around us, and I wondered apprehensively if we’d be safer standing out there in the snow under the trees.

“Does depending on the Lord mean sitting around twiddling your thumbs until he does something?” Abilene demanded suddenly.

“Sometimes it does mean waiting. Sometimes it means listening for his guidance about what he wants us to do—”

Abilene jumped up. “Good. Because what I hear is that I should get out there and flag someone down. We need
help
.”

“That could be dangerous!”

“This isn’t?” she retorted when a truck roared by us close enough to vibrate the motor home into an oversized version of shake, rattle, and roll. Before I could say more she ran to a closet, grabbed something, and slammed out the door.

The rate of snow falling had let up, I realized thankfully as I peered out a window.
Lord, keep her safe out there!
Visibility was up to maybe a hundred feet now.

And Abilene was definitely visible. What she’d grabbed was a bright red towel, and she jumped up and down and flapped it as if practicing for matador tryouts. In spite of Abilene’s energetic waves, the first three vehicles ignored her, but finally a motor home slid to a stop behind us.

Abilene dashed around to their door. Several minutes of conversation ensued. Then the motor home, one of those big, expensive diesel pushers, went on, and Abilene returned.

“Their cell phone wouldn’t work either,” she reported. “But they’ll send help back from the next town.”

“Good.”

She leaned over to shake the snow out of her short blond hair. “I suppose we owe God thanks for making them stop.”

I was surprised and gratified by this comment, even though it did sound a bit grudging. Though I suspected she might be thinking,
Why didn’t God just send a tow truck instead of going the long way around?
I waited a moment, hoping she’d offer the thanks herself, but when she remained silent I did it. One step at a time.

“Now,” she added in a grimmer tone when I was done, “all we have to do is survive traffic until help arrives.”

I made coffee. I can’t say I was serenely unworried about being squashed by a truck or rear-ended by an SUV before rescue arrived, but I was out of panic mode. And a couple of minutes later two guys in a beat-up green pickup stopped. Unasked, they set out warning flares in front and back of the motor home and then stood out in the snow directing traffic around us. I was amazed. No more ear-shattering screeches or bone-rattling near misses. Abilene took them coffee and cookies.

The two guys stayed until the tow truck arrived, although I never did get to thank them myself. One minute they were there, the next they were gone.

Can angels come disguised as two scruffy guys in beat-up boots and baseball caps turned backward, both scarfing down peanut butter cookies as if they were new and improved manna? Could be.

The tow truck driver was fiftyish, uncommunicative and unsmiling but efficient. He did not ask what our problem was, but he did peer underneath the motor home. A grunt apparently meant the motor home was at least in towable condition. Within minutes he had the motor home’s front end hoisted in the air, like a big, dead fish dangling on a hook. We rode in the cab of the truck with him, me in the middle, Koop in the kitty carrier on Abilene’s lap.

I made a couple of attempts at conversation. Printing on the side of the tow truck said “Hello Trucking, Luke Martin, Owner,” so I said, “You’re Luke?”

“Nope.”

“Then you are . . . ?”

“Paul Newman.”

“Like the movie star? The one married to Joanne Woodward?”

“I’ve heard of that guy,” he said darkly. “Don’t seem fair, these movie people grabbin’ real folks’ names to use.”

So far as I knew, movie star Paul Newman’s name was his own, but this did not seem like an overly productive line of conversation, so I switched subjects. “Have you lived in the area long, Mr. Newman?”

“Yep.”

“Where are you taking us?”

“Nick’s Garage.”

“In Hello?”

“Yep.”

Apparently his own name was the only subject on which Paul Newman got beyond one- or two-word answers. I’d run into taciturn types before. They always made me want to say something such as, “Have you stopped making moonshine in your backyard?” Try a yep or nope on that one. Instead I shushed myself and asked politely, “Is Nick a good mechanic?”

“Yep.”

With that glowing recommendation, how could we go wrong?

We passed through a couple of heavy snow flurries, but the storm clouds had lifted to expose snow-clad mountaintops and a few splotches of blue sky by the time we dipped into the narrow valley where the town lay. Nick’s Garage was on the north side of town, so we didn’t get to see the main part of Hello before Paul Newman dragged the motor home into a big yard enclosed by a solid wooden fence. Doors yawned open on a metal shop building, doors I was relieved to see were large enough to accommodate the motor home.

The place wasn’t spotless, but it looked as good as most such establishments. Junk engines and other dismembered vehicle parts lay off to one side of the shop, near them a red pickup with the silvery figure of a bucking Brahma bull mounted on the hood. Oil and grease spots decorated the puddled ground between patches of snow. A newer Dodge Durango was up on a hoist inside the shop. A couple of guys were working under it.

No one came out to meet us. Apparently Nick was accustomed to nonworking lumps of machinery being dumped in his yard. Paul Newman unfastened the motor home, accepted my money, and departed.

Abilene, Koop in his cat carrier, and I went in through an office door. Inside was a cluttered counter and cash register, a row of red vinyl chairs, a coffee maker, and shelves of car parts and supplies. An older man with bifocals, thinning gray hair, and a plaid shirt crisscrossed by green suspenders stood at the window, regarding our motor home with interest. A vintage
Newsweek
magazine lay open on a chair.

“Looks like you got troubles.”

“I’m afraid so. But the tow truck driver told us Nick was a fine mechanic. Are you Nick?”

“No, Nick’s out there working on my Durango. Been having brake troubles, but it should still be under warranty. Unless they squeak out from under some way. You know how those big car outfits are. Get your money, and then it’s bye-bye, sucker. You folks from . . .” He leaned closer to the window and adjusted his bifocals to peer at our license plate. “Arkansas?”

I sometimes wished we could have a license plate that read “None of your business where we’re from.” Since that wasn’t possible, and I did use a mail-forwarding address in Arkansas, I said, “More or less.”

He turned to study us instead of the motor home. “Just the two of you traveling alone?”

“Us and Koop here.” I motioned to the cat carrier Abilene had set on a chair. Koop’s one good eye peered out suspiciously.

“Snowbirds headed south for the winter?”

“We don’t seem to be going anywhere at the moment.” As usual, I didn’t want to leave a trail of information about where we were headed just in case anyone came inquiring. In the interest of avoiding further questions I added the same question I’d asked the tow truck driver. “Have you lived around here long?”

“Oh, yeah. I was the police chief in Hello for over twenty-five years.” His voice held pride. “Name’s Ben Simpson. Retired now.” He stuck out a hand, and Abilene and I both shook it. He gave me a questioning look, obviously expecting our names in return. He didn’t seem to take offense when I didn’t oblige, however, and continued cheerfully. “I’ve got some friends who spend winters at an RV park down at Apache Junction, out near the Superstition Mountains in Arizona. You ever been there? I can get you the name of the place if you’d like. Good rates and a nice pool, they say.”

“We haven’t been to Arizona before, but we’ve heard about a place called Snowbird’s Retreat down near Tucson—”

I broke off as I realized what I’d just done. Told him where we were headed. He’d probably been a very good police chief, I decided grumpily. With that garrulous, disarming manner he’d likely had the crooks spilling their secrets before they realized what they were doing. And he was probably more shrewd than his somewhat hayseedy surface appearance suggested.

Nick himself came in through the shop door, a young, tall and skinny, red-haired guy in grease-stained coveralls with his name embroidered in red on a pocket. I explained what I could about our breakdown noises and the oil light. “We’re hoping you can take a look at it before too long . . . ?”

The retired police chief gave a generous wave. “Go ahead and have a look at their rig. I’m in no rush on those brakes. Help these good folks get on their way to Arizona before they get snowed in here.”

“Thank you.” I felt guilty about my unkind attitude toward Ben Simpson’s curiosity, though I didn’t appreciate his spreading the word that we were headed to Arizona. I grudgingly offered a smidgen of further information. “We’re hoping to make it as far as Gallup today.” And desert warmth and sunshine by tomorrow.

All Nick said was, “We’ll get right on it, then,” but something about his reserved tone made me suspect Gallup was not on our itinerary for today. Those noises I’d described had told him something.

Okay, a day or two’s delay here in the snow wouldn’t hurt us. Desert sunshine would still be there when we arrived.

The three of us stood at the window and watched while a younger, dark-haired guy got behind the wheel of the motor home to steer it while Nick used the red truck with its oversized bumper to push it into the shop.

I decided to forestall more personal questions from Ben while we waited by asking my own. “So, tell us about Hello. For one thing, how did it get its name?”

“Good question.” He looked pleased that I’d asked. “No one really knows. That’s why there’s this contest every summer. It’s called ‘Why Hello?’ and everyone submits these stories, three hundred words or less, about how the town maybe got its name. I won one year,” he added modestly. “Got an oil change here at Nick’s and a fancy dinner at the Café Russo, and a free carpet cleaning. Really tickled Edna.” He missed a beat in his garrulous chatter. “But she’s up there in High Cemetery now.”

Abilene had been prowling the small room restlessly, and now she touched my arm lightly. “Do you think we have time for me to walk around and take a look at the town?”

I was afraid she might have time to do a census count on Hello, but all I said was, “Sure. If you see a grocery store, get some plastic wrap, would you? We’re almost out. How’s your tooth?”

Her tongue probed a molar on the right side. “Not bad.”

Ben Simpson peered at Abilene’s jaw with interest. A man who was never bored, I guessed, and a little nosy about everything. I shouldn’t be critical of his curiosity, however, I reminded myself. My own “mutant curiosity gene,” as a friend once called it, was always primed for action.

“We got a great dentist here in Hello,” Ben said. “Dr. Li. But his place is too far to walk. He’s out on the other side of town, out there in the Safeway shopping center.”

Abilene zipped up her jacket and headed out the door. My next question to Ben wasn’t just to keep him from asking questions. I was really curious.

“High Cemetery, that’s its name?”

“No. It’s all the Hello City Cemetery, but, as you can see”—he waved toward town—“we’re kind of jammed in a narrow valley here. So when the cemetery started getting full, they started another section up higher on the hillside. So now we have Low Cemetery and High Cemetery.”

“Nothing to do with, ummm, social status then?”

“Well, most people would rather be buried in High Cemetery, all right. Low Cemetery has a lot of old miners and crooks who shot or stabbed each other back when this was a booming mining town. Some ladies of the night too. Though everyone knows some of the early-on respectable wives started out as ladies of the night.”

I picked out one bit of information from that oversupply. “Hello isn’t a booming mining town now?”

“There’s still a little mining going on, but it’s mostly gold panners workin’ the creeks in the summer. Everyone thought something big was going to happen out at the Lucky Queen. Would of been a real shot in the arm for Hello. But it’s probably not going to happen now, with ol’ Hiram dead. Tourists and antique shops and bed and breakfasts are about all that keep Hello going now. We don’t even have any big ski area right close by to bring people in.”

“Any RV parks?”

“Two over on the south side. But only one’s open this time of year. Lots busier in the summer here. You oughta come back then. Or if you want to stay for a while now you could see the Roaring ’20s Revue. The Ladies Historical Society puts it on every winter, and it’s pretty lively. I played the police chief in a skit last year. That guy who towed you in, Paul Newman, is usually the master of ceremonies.”

With uncommunicative Paul as master of ceremonies, the Revue sounded about as lively as a sales pitch for funeral insurance.

Ben Simpson looked me over with a critical eye. “Paul’s wife is in the chorus line. You might make it into the chorus line too if you hang around.”

I was startled. Me, in a chorus line? “Aren’t the chorus-line ladies somewhat . . . ummm . . . younger?” To say nothing of taller and more shapely.

“Some are even older.” He tilted his head as he inspected me further. “You’re kinda short, but they might put you on the end.”

“It sounds like a lovely little town.” I felt rather bowled over by all the information, especially this assessment of my qualifications for chorus-line membership. It was, at the moment, more than enough to fill even my usually bottomless abyss of curiosity. And even more especially since what I really wanted to know about was the status of the motor home.

“Yes, it is. A lovely little town.” A meaningful pause and a sideways glance. “Mostly.”