was no air-conditioning, but at least she was off the hot highway.
“Going far?” he asked.
“To San Francisco,” she said.
“I’m only going twenty-five or thirty miles. You can ride that far and stop off at my place for a while if you care to.”
Was that a proposition? Terrie glanced at his left hand and saw that he was not wearing a wedding band. There was nothing conclusive about this. Lots of married men didn’t. Perhaps he had a wife and six kids and was just being friendly. Either way, she didn’t want to stop this early on her trip.
“No thanks,” she said. “I have a long ways to go.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “I just wanted you to know you were welcome.”
During their brief time together he fished for information as to who she was and why she was hitchhiking. She told him little. He spoke of being a rancher and a horse-shoer. A nice enough man, but she wasn’t going to his place and he wasn’t about to drive her to California. Within the hour she was standing alongside the highway again, suitcases at her side.
Finally, Redding was behind them. At least the scenery was changing. And the air was cleaner. They were now driving in the mountains. Off to the right was a snow-covered peak.
Jimmy supposed it could have been worse. They did have another six-pack of beer. And Jay did seem ready to get down to business and head north for a while. Perhaps they would drive through the night. If offered, he would take his turn behind the wheel.
“That’s Mount Shasta with the snow on it,” Jay said.
Although Jimmy had never been this far north in California, he didn’t feel the need for a tour guide. He didn’t give a damn about the name of any mountain.
Jay popped the top on a beer can and looked over at his companion. “What I want to do is take a bank. You ever wanted to rob a bank?”
“Hell no!” Jimmy said. “I ain’t no criminal. I don’t want nothing to do with robbing no bank. The FBI gets after you then. You get caught, you’re sent up until you’re too old to think about chasing after women or anything else.”
“We won’t get caught. Long as you’re with me you don’t have to worry about that. Think it over, John. How many people are there these days who have the guts to rob a bank?”
Son of a bitch thinks he’s Jesse James, Jimmy thought. And damn! Jesse died young. From a bullet. A bullet to the back.
The highway was lined with youth thumbing their way to California.
Late model cars whizzed by. One with a cool air-conditioner would be nice. A woman in a blue Buick slowed, seemed to change her mind, and sped away.
An old green Ford slowed, sputtered and coughed. It came to a stop just beyond Terrie. There wasn’t a chance that it would have an air-conditioner. When you hitchhike, you can’t always be choosy.
She wrestled her bags into the back seat and climbed in beside the driver. He was an old man with stained teeth and bad odor whom she judged to be crowding seventy.
The Ford polluted the air with a cloud of black smoke as he tromped the accelerator and pulled back onto the highway. His cracked voice said, “Going my way?”
Terrie, hands clasped together on her lap, nodded.
They rode in silence for some five minutes. Then he said, “Cat got your tongue? People who ride together oughta talk together.”
Terrie stared out the window at the low mountains. “What do you want to talk about?”
“About you. You’re a right pretty woman. Anybody ever tell you that?”
“Once or twice.”
Another moment of silence and then he said, “Thing is, I believe that people oughta do for each other. I’m hauling you in the direction you want to go. That being so, you oughta do something for me.”
“Like what?”
“I think you already know what. My wife, she won’t do for me so you know what I need. I could drive us off on some side road or we could stop and get us a motel for an hour or two. Won’t cost you nothing either way. Side road or motel, you take your pick.”
“No!” Terrie cried out.
Her emphatic reply startled him. He jerked his head towards her. “You don’t have to treat me that way,” he said. “I know you people ain’t got no morals and that you crawl into bed with one another all the time. How come you’re so different when it comes to me?”
Terrie hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings but she was not going to bed with him. Some girls would probably put out for any ride they could catch but she would never go that far.
“It’s my time of the month,” she said.
He eyed her for a moment, trying to determine whether or not she was telling the truth. Well, at least it gave him an opportunity to save face. “All you had to do was say so,” he said. “I live at Myrtle Creek. You can ride that far if you want. I ain’t goin’ no farther.”
He didn’t go no farther. Not with Terrie, anyway.
She stood alongside 1-5 near Myrtle Creek. Would the next ride take her into San Francisco or at least as far as Sacramento? It was uncertain. The afternoon sun was well along on its journey when the black Mustang stopped. Two nice looking young guys were inside. Instead of nasty old men. Two of her peers were offering a helping hand.
“Thanks,” she said, as she joined her suitcases in the back seat. “How far you going?”
The driver turned and flashed a smile. He had dark curly hair and a kind face. “Eventually to Redding,” he said.
Terrie smiled. “Eventually?”
The young man in the passenger seat turned sideways and said, “We know some people in Medford. We’re gonna stop there and have a swim and then go on tomorrow. Why not join us?”
Terrie hesitated. “I need to go on,” she said.
“Where are we at?” Jimmy asked.
Jay had stopped at a filling station to check the oil and put in a can of STP. He climbed back inside the car where Jimmy was eating a Butterfinger candy bar he’d purchased from a vending machine. “Yreka,” Jay said. “We’ll wait a while to gas up. How we doing on beer?”
Jimmy wondered where in the hell Yreka was. “Four left,” he said.
“That’ll last a while. Let’s hit the road.”
The boys had been reluctant to leave her on the highway alone. They seemed to actually care about Terrie’s welfare. They’d had their stop planned at Medford, and she had insisted that she would be all right. And so they had taken her through the town, as far as the Talent Exchange, and wished her a safe journey.
It would soon be dark, not a good time for a woman to be stranded there.
