Chapter 5
The Flying J at Sundance, right off the highway, was a little more crowded than he expected, considering the weather and the holiday season. But after he pumped his gas, he went inside to look around the little convenience store for a phone charger.
As expected, the store had electric razors, postcards with jack-a-lopes on them, and all the starchy snacks a fellow could ask for. But no chargers. He grabbed a cheese and tuna sandwich from the rack, a cold iced coffee from the cooler, and headed up to the counter.
He paid with his credit card, as usual, grabbing the receipt to shove into his pocket, when he realized that the cashier, a young lady with tightly pulled back hair and too much makeup, was looking at him carefully as she handed his card back to him.
"What?" he asked shortly.
"You're Clayton Nash, right?" she asked. "Headed down to Orchard, Colorado?"
"Yes," he said, not wanting to ask how she knew where he was going. "So?"
She turned to the guy behind her, who was a little older. His name tag said Ralph, and beneath that it said Manager.
"This is the guy," the girl said to Ralph.
Clayton rose on his toes a little bit. With all that had been going on, it was possible that the theft of the knife and the sheath might have come straight back to him, as though he was the thief.
But he was even more confused when Ralph the Manager smiled at him, reached beneath the counter, and pulled out a bubble package.
It contained a charger, including an adaptor, in case he had no outlet in his car, a corkscrew cord for the adaptor, as well as the thin cord that would hook up to his cell phone.
"This is our last one, Mr. Nash," said Ralph.
"What?" asked Clayton, completely confused.
"We just got a phone call from Kyle Tobin. He bought it over the phone and paid for it with his credit card. Wanted to make sure you had one. Said you should consider it a gift from him to you, on account of it's nearly Christmas."
"Oh, man," said Clayton.
Now he felt bad about being so brusque with Kyle over the phone and practically hanging up on him.
The charger was going to save him. He would be free to call Uncle Bill when the time came, and he could, perhaps, call Kyle to tell him thank you.
And, if Kyle wanted to go on and on about whatever, then maybe Clayton would let him.
After all, he had miles of snowy driving to get through, and sometimes the radio wasn't enough.
"Go on, take it," said Ralph. "It's paid for."
"Thank you," said Clayton. He had manners when he remembered to use them.
He went out to the car, threw away bits of trash from the passenger side where it usually collected, and connected his phone to the charger, and plugged it in.
He walked around the car, checked the tires, and scraped off triangle shaped bits of ice that had coated the taillights and headlights on the passenger side.
He used the scraper to make the windows as clean and frost-free as they could possibly be.
Then, blowing on his cupped hands, he got into the car.
The engine hummed softly when he turned on the ignition, and he was ready to go.
From Sundance, he had two, maybe three, hours to Lusk.
From there, it was at least a four-hour drive to Orchard.
After that, he could head down to the interstate and get a motel there because, as he glanced at the clock, he realized he would not be arriving anywhere until after ten o'clock.
Having driven into what was developing into whiteout conditions, he'd be in no shape to get home to Harlin, let alone make it down to Parker.
But he'd made a promise to Kyle to be there to get Shawn's Christmas gift, and so by whatever means, he was going to make it.
So when it came time to take the turnoff south from Sundance, rather than east or west, he took it, his breath held, his heart pounding, though he didn't want to admit it to himself.
Highway 585 was bordered by good sized pine trees, at least as he went by the Black Hills area, and that helped to shield the snow a good deal.
But when he had to take a right on Highway 85, the trees dropped away and the land turned flat, and that was where it began to get rugged.
The snow was blowing sideways right over the top of the road, hiding the edges.
At least there was some daylight to see by, and having gone this way before, he knew the road somewhat.
The sky was full of white and he passed nobody going the other way, and for two hours, he was on his own. Just him and the road and the snow.
Just as he approached the outer edges of the small town of Lusk, he reached for the phone, thinking he'd call Kyle to tell him thank you for the charger. It was then that the phone rang.
Clayton saw it was Kyle based on the phone number, so clicked the Answer button as fast as he could.
"Hello, Kyle, listen, I wanted to thank you—"
"You should not be driving in this storm," said Kyle firmly, interrupting Clayton. "I've checked the weather reports in your area, and it's going to get very bad before it gets better. The temperatures are going to drop down to zero and the snow is going to increase."
"I've driven in worse," said Clayton. "I actually drive in this kind of weather all the time, thank you very much."
"And why the hell would you do that?" asked Kyle.
Clayton tightened both hands on the wheel to slow down for the exit. He needed to pee, and it wasn't good to get road weary, especially not in a storm like this one.
"I drive an eighteen wheeler most days," said Clayton. "I took a few days off so I'm in my car, but I know how to handle myself on the road. In all kinds of weather," he added for emphasis.
"That doesn't mean you should be driving in this," said Kyle. "You should get a hotel in the next town. Where are you?"
"I'm pulling into Lusk for a quick break, and then I'm on the road again."
Clayton turned on his blinkers and felt the wheels slide as he went around the curve of the exit.
His windshield wipers were going full speed, but as the car slowed, the snowflakes also seemed to slow, doing an exquisite dance in the falling light, sparkling in the tall street lights that led the way to the gas station.
"Have I mentioned that the storm is going to get bad before it gets better?" asked Kyle, sounding wise.
"Yes, you most certainly did, but if I stop here for the night, I'll get stuck here for days," said Clayton, doing his best to be patient. "The snow can get very deep in this part of Wyoming, however, the further south I go, the less bad the storm is likely to be."
"So you're going to keep driving," said Kyle. "That's so mountain man rugged but so very stupid."
"Hey, your precious mountain men could survive through the winter doing all kinds of rugged things," said Clayton, laughing a bit.
"Well, sure, but they weren't going seventy miles an hour in a blizzard."
"Fifty," said Clayton. "I'm clocking in at fifty miles an hour at most, which is why this is taking so long. If this had been a sunny day, I'd already be in Colorado, with Orchard only an hour or two away, instead of four."
"Which means you won't be here until late," said Kyle, and it was obvious that he was at the computer, looking at the weather report, for he added, "It'll get very bad at the state line, with the temperatures dropping to zero and the wind chill factor will take it colder than that.
A foot of snow is expected, and maybe up to three feet in that area. "
"State line is near Cheyenne," said Clayton. He could see the map in his mind's eye, and calculated the distance. "That's only an hour of really bad driving. Check Grover. What is it going to do there?"
"Not so cold there, and a little less snow," said Kyle, reporting back with a minimum of fuss. "Which means it's going to be more than one hour of bad driving, from the looks of it. But don't worry, I'll be with you the entire way."
"I don't need babysitting," said Clayton as he pulled into a gas station, half laughing at the thought of this guy he didn't even know thinking he had the responsibility of looking after a seasoned truck driver.
"Yes, you do," said Kyle, and it sounded like he was laughing to himself as well. "You need to be babysat, and I'm going to do it. To make up for my earlier sins."
"Fine, fine," said Clayton, realizing that he did not object very much to the idea of being kept company, even if Kyle tended to over-explain everything. "Listen, I'm at Lusk, at the gas station, so I'm going to put gas in the tank—"
"To keep the gas line from freezing," said Kyle.
"Right, and because it's not good to drive for hours and hours without a break."
"So very sensible," said Kyle. "But you still need to be babysat."
"Yes, sir," said Clayton with a mental salute. "All right, I'm hanging up now."
He clicked the Hang Up button, turned off the engine, and watched the snowflakes falling outside his window. They drifted down hard and fast, past the edge of the overhead canopy. Along the wall of the building, where the convenience store was, the snow had drifted into long, white triangles.
If this had been any other drive, he'd stop in Lusk for sure, stay the night in a cheap motel, and see what the weather was like in the morning. But he had miles to go and promises to keep, and he meant to keep them.
Besides, in his mind's eye, he could picture Kyle standing in the doorway of his ranch house with a view of the South Platte, looking out through the falling snow, waiting for a man he'd never met to arrive.
While what Kyle looked like was an indistinct blur, Clayton could imagine he'd have an expression of worry, at the very least. And that thought added to Clayton's feeling about this whole thing, that he was letting people down left and right, even though he was willing to drive into the worst blizzard the plains had ever known to make it right.
He got out into the freezing cold, filled up his car with gas, scraped the windows, and went inside to pee. As he washed his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror.
It was one of those polished tin affairs, and only showed the edges of his face, his wild, long-distance-drive hair, blonde like his sister Sarah's, and the scruff of beard growth on his chin.
The glimmer of blue eyes. But the mirror reflected no real distinct lines, so he couldn't see his own expression.
Still, as he washed his face with cold water, he had to laugh.
Kyle considered him mountain man rugged but still in need of babysitting.
And that, for some reason, warmed his heart a little, adding to the sensation that what he was trying to do, what he was going after, had meaning.
And that while Sarah, Luke, and Shawn were rooting for him, maybe Kyle was, too.
Time would tell. For now, Clayton needed to get back in that car, turn on the engine, and ruggedly, mountain man style, make his way through four hours of snowy driving in blizzard whiteout conditions, and all for a Christmas gift for his favorite and only nephew.
When he made it, he'd have a story to tell that Uncle Bill would be proud of.