Crimson Highway

by David Wickenhauser

  Then Hugh’s attention was diverted to what was happening on the passenger side of the truck. Jenny clung tenaciously to the mirror mount on the outside of the now-speeding truck, and was screaming for him to stop and let her in.

  That it was a pitted, bumpy road was not helping in her desperate attempt to stay with the truck.

  Hugh quickly brought the truck to a stop, and opened the passenger door so Jenny could climb in. Everything was happening so fast, and he was in so much pain, he couldn’t even think right now whether he was glad, or not, to see her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hugh continued on the road in the direction he had been going when he had shaken off the hijacker, and had stopped to let Jenny in. He wasn’t sure where he was headed; he just wanted to get out of there.

  He ignored Jenny for now. He was extremely angry regarding her complicity in what had just happened, and he didn’t trust himself to say anything to her about it right now.

  Jenny, sensing his detachment, just sat quietly in the passenger seat.

  Hugh saw a highway ahead and pulled over onto the right shoulder of the road. He had to make a couple of phone calls.

  The first call was to the Nevada Highway Patrol to report his kidnapping, and the attempted hijacking of his truck. He used his phone’s search app to locate the number, and then tapped the screen to dial.

  Before the call went through, however, he tapped the icon to hang up.

  “Where are we, anyway?” Hugh asked Jenny.

  “I’m not sure, exactly,” she answered. “But, I recognized the Fernley exits when we passed them. Then we pulled off the highway maybe twenty-five minutes later.”

  With that information in hand, Hugh redialed the Nevada Highway Patrol number.

  Hugh got through immediately to the desk sergeant, who said that they had an APB out on him and his truck. The NHP had been bombarded by calls from the pharmaceutical company, the security escort company, and Hugh’s company. Apparently, all had become alarmed when Hugh’s truck had gone off route and had failed to make its delivery.

  Also, when the escorts, Manny and Joe, had finally freed themselves after being bound and gagged, and hidden in the woods behind the rest area, their phone call had triggered a state-wide alert.

  It took awhile for Hugh to explain to the desk sergeant the circumstances of the kidnapping and hijacking. And, he tried his best to describe how the NHP officers might find where the final scene of the aborted hijacking had taken place.

  He told the sergeant that his load was secure, with the locks and seals intact.

  The desk sergeant advised Hugh to remain where he was, so that an officer could come by to take a report.

  Hugh’s second call was to his dispatcher. The dispatcher was extremely relieved to hear from Hugh, and immediately asked him why his satellite transponder was not making contact with company headquarters. They had lost his signal, which had triggered the huge search for the truck.

  “Hold one,” Hugh told her, then stepped outside to look up at the transponder mounted on the roof of his tractor. The hijackers had apparently fashioned a metal shield, and had placed it over the transponder to block the signal.

  Probably Jenny told them about the Qualcomm system, he thought. That’s one more thing to deal with her about.

  He climbed up, and knocked the shield away.

  Back in the truck, he told the dispatcher, “OK, it should be working now.”

  Within a few minutes, his Qualcomm began chirping like crazy. A whole lot of backlogged messages began flooding in inquiring why Hugh had gone off-route—especially with such a high-value load.

  The dispatcher then transferred him immediately to the safety office. Hugh explained, once again, what had happened, that he was OK, and that the load was secure.

  He then requested to be transferred back to the dispatcher.

  “I want you to schedule me a load to Boise after I make my delivery in Reno, and then I’m taking home time,” he told the dispatcher.

  “How much home time do you want?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I’m taking an indefinite leave, I’ll let you know when I am ready to come back,” he answered.

  “Please hold. I need to check with the fleet manager to make sure that is OK for you to do,” she said.

  “You can check. But, I’m taking an indefinite leave whether he approves of it or not,” Hugh told her sharply, his temper beginning to rise, which caused his head to begin throbbing painfully again.

  She came back on the line, and told Hugh he’d have his Boise load assignment by the time he finished with his Reno delivery.

  “And my leave?” he asked.

  “That too,” she answered. “Take all the time you need. The fleet manager was in talking to the safety officer, and he understands why you need the time off. Sorry about what happened to you.”

  “Thanks,” Hugh said, then hung up.

  He turned to Jenny.

  “OK. We don’t have much time. I need to know what to tell the highway patrol officer about you, why you are in my truck, and what part you played in this mess,” Hugh stated brusquely.

  “Hugh, I’ll explain everything. I … ” Jenny began to explain, Hugh’s anger scaring her.

  Hugh interrupted her. “No, no, no. I don’t want to hear your sad story of treachery and deceit against me. We’re definitely going to talk about that later. All I need right now is the lie that we are going to tell the officer that will keep you out of jail.”

  Jenny gulped, and just stared wide-eyed at Hugh.

  “You don’t get it. Do you? You are an accessory to kidnapping, hijacking and—guess what else?—murder.” He emphasized that final word, drawing it out as if it had a string of “r”s and not just the two.

  Jenny stared at Hugh, her face beginning to pale.

  “That’s right, a man was killed back there committing a crime that you were a part of, an accessory to. You could go to a women’s prison, and stay there until you are old and gray. They’d love to see a sweet, innocent, young thing like you come in there. Leastwise, you’d be sweet and innocent for a little while, anyway. If you’re lucky, you’d become some bull dyke’s little wife. Otherwise, you’d get used up pretty badly by all the others in there.”

  Judging by the look of growing horror on Jenny’s face, Hugh knew he was pouring it on a little too thick. He wasn’t actually sure that she could be charged as an accessory in her accomplice’s death. But, right now, he just didn’t care. He was fed up with this whole thing.

  “Right now, all we need to do is keep you from being arrested,” Hugh said.

  When it appeared that Jenny would not be able to help him any, Hugh formulated his own story.

  “OK. You’ve been riding with me the whole time. After all, your things are still in my truck. When they kidnapped me, you hid in the upper bunk. You’re good at that, remember? Then you didn’t come out again until I had taken the truck back, and had shaken off the hijacker. And, we don’t know who the hijackers were. The cops will be able to get their IDs from the guys when they pick them up. The less we’re involved in this the better. OK?”

  Jenny nodded.

  “Repeat what I just said,” Hugh demanded. “We’ve got to tell the same story here.”

  With a shaking voice, Jenny repeated the sequence as Hugh had told it to her. She didn’t get it exactly the same, just the gist of it. But, that was good, as witnesses seldom ever had the same exact story to tell. In fact, when the details matched exactly it’s a tip-off to police that they were telling a rehearsed story.

  They saw the highway patrol officer pull up just as she was finishing.

  “OK. We’re on,” he said, and motioned for Jenny to get down from the truck, and meet him at the patrol car.

  The officer introduced himself as Officer Sturtevant. In appearance, he could have been a twin to the Idaho State Patrol officer who had pulled Hugh over just a few days ago. He was polite, and efficient, and took thorough notes as Hugh to
ld him what had transpired—or, at least, the version that Hugh had wanted him to know.

  Then Officer Sturtevant turned to Jenny, who cringed at his gaze.

  Come on, Jenny. Try not to look so guilty, Hugh thought.

  “And who might you be?” the officer asked her.

  Jenny showed him her ID, and then related the story that she and Hugh had rehearsed. Hugh hoped that the officer wouldn’t ask her any questions.

  “So, can you give a description of any of the hijackers?” the officer asked Jenny.

  Hugh cringed inwardly. He wasn’t at all sure that Jenny could freelance questions like that.

  “No, officer. I was hiding in the upper bunk the whole time,” she answered.

  Hugh relaxed a bit.

  Officer Sturtevant then went around to the back of the trailer to examine the locks on the trailer doors. He noted for the record that the locks had held, and that the load was secure.

  They walked back to the front of the truck. “OK, you two. You’re free to go. I know you’ve got this load to deliver—they’re expecting you, so go straight there. I’ve got your cell phone number in case I need to ask any more questions,” the officer said.

  Then he caught sight of the bloody window where Hugh had told him one of the attackers had met his gruesome death. “That’s the one?” he asked.

  Hugh nodded. “Yeah, I’m real sorry it had to end that way for that guy, but I already told you they were planning to kill me. At that point, it was him or me.”

  The officer then drove away, leaving Hugh and Jenny alone again.

  They climbed up into the truck, and Hugh cranked the engine. “I’ve got to get this load delivered and, hopefully, a new assignment to Boise,” he told her.

  “Hugh, I … ” Jenny started to say.

  “Jenny, I don’t want to hear it right now,” Hugh snapped at her with more than a little bit of temper. “I’ve had more than enough of your back-stabbing, your breaking promises, and your duplicitous behavior.”

  Jenny shrank into her seat under this onslaught.

  “Do you realize you damn near got me killed?” he shouted with more than a little heat in his voice.

  “I saved your life … again,” she meekly replied.

  Hugh remembered the hand that had slipped in under the cover that had cut his bindings. He should have figured that it had been Jenny who had done that.

  “Yes, that you did,” he replied. “But, I still don’t want to talk to you right now. I need to think about what to do about you.”

  They covered the rest of the distance to Reno in silence. It was a silence that definitely would not have been classified as comfortable.

  Hugh made his delivery to much fanfare from the folks in the receiving department. Word of his kidnapping and hijacking had preceded Hugh, of course, and they were happy that he was OK, and that the load was safe and secure.

  After dropping his load, Hugh parked in the customer’s parking lot to wait for his next assignment.

  It wasn’t long in coming: Bobtail over to the freight company’s Reno yard, and hook up to a trailer being relayed to their Boise yard. The load was ready now, and the delivery was for any time tomorrow.

  Easy, Hugh thought. He'd just pick this load up, and head on out on 80. Maybe stop for the night in Fernley before making the drive to Boise tomorrow. He started the truck, and bobtailed over to the yard.

  The trailer was waiting for him, as he was told it would be. He hooked up, entered his macros, and then pulled out of the yard.

  Neither he nor Jenny had said a word this whole time. And, that was fine with Hugh. He just did not feel like talking to her, or about their situation, right now.

  Hugh pulled into a chain travel plaza just off the highway in Fernley. He wanted to avoid the Walmart there. The pleasant time that they had spent there before going on to see the wild horses, and parking at the small truck stop where Jenny had made him that fabulous meal, didn’t fit well with the mood that he was in right now.

  Still without talking, Hugh made them a couple of lunchmeat sandwiches. Jenny sat in her seat, and Hugh sat on his bunk. The silence was growing unbearably uncomfortable, and the tension between them was reaching the breaking point.

  “You can do what you want. I’m turning in,” Hugh said as he put on a pair of headphones to listen to music on his smart phone. Jenny started to reply, but Hugh turned over in his bunk and turned his back on her, putting a finale on their day.

  He could sense when Jenny climbed up into her top bunk. After awhile, he removed his headphones, and he could hear her crying softly to herself.

  Hugh was moved by her emotion. Nevertheless, he could not bring himself to respond to her. He knew that she had been through a lot, what with finding out that he was her dad’s killer, and everything she had been through because of her uncle. But he just wasn’t ready yet to console her. He wasn’t sure he would ever feel that way about her again.

  With that, and with his throbbing head reminding him of what he had gone through on yet another “routine” day with Jenny, he finally slipped off into sleep.

  He was awakened about an hour later by his ringing phone. It was someone from the Nevada Highway Patrol. They had some news about the guys responsible for Hugh’s kidnapping and hijacking.

  “We found the place you described where they had parked the two cars and your truck,” the NHP officer said. “But it was UTL on the perps.”

  “What?” Hugh asked, still groggy from sleep.

  “There was nobody there—unable to locate. One of the cars was overturned in the ditch, like you described. It was the escort company car, so it couldn’t lead us to your perps. And we found some bloody spots—one where somebody had obviously bled himself out all over the highway—like you described. But, the other car was gone, and the three guys you had told us about.”

  For crying out loud, those sons of bitches did it again!

  “Obviously, we’ve got an all-points out for them, but this is an awfully big desert. We’ll do the best we can.”

  “Alright. Thanks,” Hugh said, hugely disappointed.

  Hugh drifted off to sleep again, his last thought being to wonder what it must have been like for the other two guys to have to stuff their nearly decapitated buddy into the back seat of the car … or maybe into the trunk.

  He only hoped that this was the last he’d seen of this bunch. Surely, they have had enough by now.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next morning was accompanied by the same uncomfortable silence that had hung over them like an oppressive cloud the night before. Hugh and Jenny went about their morning routines to get the truck ready to roll. To Jenny’s credit, she did her window and mirror-cleaning duties. But there was no coy winking at Hugh this time.

  No surprise there. He definitely didn’t feel like flirting, himself.

  He still felt somewhat woozy and headachy from the “tap” on the back of his head. He was sore all over from being hogtied and confined, and bounced around on the floor of the car. And he was just generally agitated and stressed out from all that had happened over the past few days.

  As he drove out of the truck plaza and got back onto the 80, Hugh wondered why Jenny had bothered to rejoin him after their aborted kidnapping and hijacking. Surely, she must have realized that Hugh wouldn’t be too thrilled to see her after she had set him up to be killed.

  And, they certainly weren’t comfortable with each other right now.

  Hugh was curious about how they had managed to find him so quickly, and set up the hijacking. He knew he’d find out eventually, but he still couldn’t bring himself to talk to the silent, sulking rider sitting in the passenger seat across from him.

  It was a good seven-plus-hour drive to Boise, providing they didn’t stop anywhere between here and there. Hugh planned to drop the load there, spend the night at the company’s drop yard, and then head out first thing in the morning to start his home time at his destination outside of Sandpoint.

&n
bsp; That final leg to Sandpoint would be another seven to eight hours, or so, and it would be on Hugh’s dime, as he wouldn’t be under load. He figured it was worth it, however, because he really needed to take a break.

  Then, something occurred to him.

  “Jenny,” he said abruptly, which caused Jenny to jump, since it was the first time that either had said a word since last night.

  “Jenny, I need to know one thing. Do you have any more surprises for me? Because I’m just about ready to kick your ass out on the side of the highway right now. And, I swear, if you cause me even the smallest bit of trouble, I’ll do just that.”

  Jenny shook her head vigorously. “No, Hugh, I swear, I … ”

  “Save it for later,” he interrupted her.

  Hugh took the 95 at Winnemucca, and the rest of the drive to Boise was a straight shot up that highway. It took them through typical Nevada landscape, mostly desert, which was punctuated by the very occasional patches of those intriguing circular irrigated alfalfa fields.

  They continued on in silence. Then Hugh turned on the satellite radio. He hoped that Jenny didn’t mind country and newgrass music, but he actually could care less if she did. At least it helped fill the empty silence of that oppressive cloud in the cab of the truck.

  This stretch of Highway 95 had no rest stops that accommodated trucks, and no truck stops, so when Hugh’s stomach told him it was time to stop for lunch he kept his eye open for a wide spot on the shoulder to pull over into.

  One came up shortly, so Hugh pulled off of the road, turned off the engine, set the brake, and announced to Jenny, “We’ll stop here to eat.”

  “I’ll get it,” she said. And she jumped up from her seat before Hugh had a chance to undo his seatbelt and get up. She made a couple of lunchmeat sandwiches, grabbed a couple of bags of chips, and took a couple of bottles of water out of the fridge.

  There was still no talking during her meal preparations, but the atmosphere lightened considerably with her activity.

  She served Hugh in his driver’s seat, and then sat on Hugh’s bunk to eat her own meal.