Luning, Nevada
Luning, Nevada replayed its noisy spool of memories, rewound to when parades of dusty trucks rolled in. They were loaded down with magnesium from nearby mines. Ton after ton of the white silver mineral hauled in, loaded onto westbound trains and sent off for...
East of Santa Maria, California
East of Santa Maria, California, where the Santa Lucia Mountains fade into the Carrizo Plain, her parents had the little adobe ranch house built. Her father bought the plot from a rancher he played gin rummy with at the Lakeside Golf Club in Burbank. It wasn’t much...
Byers, Colorado
Byers, Colorado sealed his fate. The wind was more crafty than cruel. It threw a whipsaw flurry of unforeseen punches. He knew they were coming and when he looked up at the sky, he may as well have been looking into the eyes of a welterweight. He saw nothing but...
Rancho Cucamonga, California
Rancho Cucamonga, California slumped on the slightly poisoned fringe of the marine layer. The text instructed her to be at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at six thirty. She was to leave her phone in the car and wear a UCLA sweatshirt. She appreciated the caution. She...
The Creosote Bush
Creosote Bush, greasewood, chaparral, she considered the names more or less interchangeable. Chaparral rolled off a more romantic ring. Greasewood wasn’t a particularly antiseptic moniker. So as far as she was concerned, those nondescript plants she soared past...
Kane Springs Road
Kane Springs Road was where he wound up. Delamar Powerline Road turned out to be a boulevard of bellicose RVs so he circled back. That’s how he had come to perceive RV people, which he realized was unfair. But too often he found the fancier the RV, the more arrogant...
Delamar Powerline Road
Delamar Powerline Road looked promising so he followed it into the Delamar Mountains Wilderness. He hoped to find a good spot to spend the night. If it was an especially good spot, he would stay longer. The trick was to pick someplace that wasn’t so attractive...
Folsom, California
Folsom, California struck her as a strange place for an outlet mall. But there it was, the Folsom Premium Outlets, where she found black jeans and tall black boots to go with her green velvet jacket. She would wear these to the funeral. She had briefly considered a...
The Delamar Mountains Wilderness
The Delamar Mountains Wilderness reminded him of his uncle in Spokane. He figured his uncle would have felt at home in these mountains. Just off Kane Springs Road, he pulled over and got out of the truck. He unfolded his faded red beach chair and pulled a bottle of...
Caliente, Nevada
Caliente, Nevada couldn’t help itself. The town never stopped shining, never retreated from the nameless forces that made it glisten. Light glimmered like the silvery tint of brass on an old trombone. Late one afternoon, when the town flickered in the day’s final...
Toppin Creek
Toppin Creek ripples like a nightgown through Malheur County in southeast Oregon. He still hadn’t come up with a satisfactory answer. When his friends back in Twin Falls asked him why he went to work as a lobbyist, he could never strike the tone of levity he was...
Williams, Arizona
Williams, Arizona turned out to be a good town for what could have been a bad accident. They were all nice to him, sympathetic and helpful. Right away they got him a tow truck. He remembered when he’d first started driving, some of the other drivers had warned him...
Clark County, Nevada
Clark County, Nevada never slept much and lately, neither did she. She was just outside Vegas, at a table by the dusty front window at the Love’s Truck Stop. Outside, warm wind rustled the fluorescent darkness. Inside, the big room rattled with brittle noise. She...
Peach Springs, Arizona
Peach Springs, Arizona dried up and roasted down to dust in the endless sun. That’s what happened when they opened Interstate 40 and bypassed the town. Veins collapsed along Route 66. America’s mother road was silenced. The Orlando Motel, the Cavern Inn and the...
Waitsburg, Washington
Waitsburg, Washington had no reason to feel crestfallen. It wasn’t as if the parade wouldn’t return. The Eagle Scouts up on the float would be back next year. At the head of the parade, America’s oldest pickup truck trembled along, an International Harvester model...
The Beverly Hills Hotel
The Beverly Hills Hotel was sold out so she drove to the Hotel Bel-Air. It was time to splurge, at least for a few days. An officious desk clerk incapable of making eye contact gave her a hard time about an early check-in. Too exhausted to press her case, still...
Huevos Rancheros
Huevos Rancheros made for a fine breakfast out on the patio at the Hotel Bel-Air. They brought Reserve, New Mexico to mind. She would get back there after a few days. She was not prepared to feel like a fugitive. Although the clarities of good and evil had blurred,...
Connell, Washington
Connell, Washington clattered and clanked like a supermarket shopping cart with a broken front wheel. She drove straight through. Myths were on her mind. Myths struck her as easier to find here in the west than back east. She thought about what he’d said. How every...
