Flight of Death - Richard Hoyt Page 0,1

a woman on the eastbound side peering into the engine of a Volvo with its hood up. The Volvo was parked just off the entrance. She threw up her hands in an aw-fuck gesture and braced herself against the wind. Her pumped-up nylon windbreaker made her look like an astronaut with blowing hair.

Two big rigs whooshed ka-fooo! ka-fooo! by her on their way to Pendleton, Baker, Boise, and points east.

I eased up on the accelerator and glanced back as her silhouette, a shroud in the darkness, strode to the Volvo’s trunk in two long, pissed-off strides. Then I was under the overpass and she was gone, long legs and, blowing hair and all.

Ah, well, I thought: One flew east; one flew west. I still had Donna Cowapoo to imagine.

I eased into the slow lane thinking the Volvo lady would be okay. With a wind like this, there’d be no problem for a woman in distress. Somebody would stop. Besides, it was several miles to the next exit where I could turn around.

My radio was on the blink, so I didn’t have anything to do except drive in silence and grit my teeth when the door rattled and think about the stranded woman. Just as well the radio didn’t work; it seemed like a nut-a-minute time in the news, a parade of screwballs who preyed on vulnerable women.

What if some asshole got to her?

Crap! I put the accelerator on the floor. A gust of wind caught me from the side; I held on to the steering wheel with both hands as the bus almost jumped into the other lane. The rattle of the sliding side door, worn just a microscopic tad from its original German perfection, came in short, annoying bursts, ra-ba-ba-ba-ba, ra-ba-ba-ba-ba, followed by wonderful spaces of blessed silence.

Through the din I could hear the hum of the eighteen-year-old rebuilt engine, as reassuring as a heartbeat. A Volkswagen engine was mortal in a way that the newer, high-tech engines were not. There was no shield of cooling water to mask the rattle and clatter of its innards. A Volkswagen engine forced you to listen to those pistons whipping up and down and share their joys and agonies.

After almost destroying my engine in my imagination if not in fact, it was my bet that when I got back there she would be gone, back in The Dalles eating prime rib with a handsome neurosurgeon who had stopped by in his Mercedes.

Her Volvo was still there, but where was she?

I parked my bus behind the Volvo and got out; I pulled my hat over my ears and walked up to take a look. Shit oh dear, it was cold. And that wind. Foo! I wondered how people lived in a place like this and had to laugh because I grew up here.

She was still there, sitting with her arms crossed, apparently resigned to being stuck. She had beautiful auburn hair.

I tapped on the window, and she looked up with green eyes, grateful, yet cautious as she should be. She was a good-looking woman. The top of the window came down an inch, but she kept the door locked.

“I was figuring you might need a little help,” I said.

She shivered. “Fuckers wouldn’t stop. Wind like this. What’s wrong with people? My God!”

“They don’t like the cold, I suppose, and there’s always the possibility that some crazed man will attack them with a machete or an Uzi.”

She looked up at me, then back at my bus, then up at me again, obviously concluding I was okay. Just to make sure, watching me, she said, “What’ve you got in that thing, ropes and donkeys? Is that why you came back? Looking for a victim?”

I shook my head earnestly. “No, ma’am. Whips and German shepherds,” I said, trying to be as droll as I could manage. “They’re hip dogs, really. I got ’em all specially trained for women I pick up on the highway.”

I paused. She grinned. “Oh, well then, no problem. Where in the hell have you been, anyway?”

I liked her. Maybe Willie was right. Chief Dumbshit he called me. “Nag, nag, nag,” I said. “I had to find a place to turn around. Thought I’d ruin my engine, but it held up. What happened to your noble hunk of metal? I thought Volvos were supposed to run forever.”

“No idea. The damn thing started making weird noises so I thought I better turn around and head back to The Dalles rather than chance not making