Second Chances – Part 1

Second Chances
Part I

It’s the middle of July on a lonely back road in central Texas. The sun was beating down hard on yet another 114 degree day. The engine in Ben’s 18 wheeler ran hot enough to cycle the cooling fan frequently even on the flat. The air conditioning was running full blast and struggled just to keep the cab somewhat comfortable.
‘Another scorcher.’ He thought morbidly as he looked around through the windows. The road was your typical two lane blacktop. The say everything’s bigger in Texas and that was dispelled as myth as soon as he got on the highway heading east. The shoulders were narrow and almost non-existent in places. The lanes too were narrow. In places there was just enough room for two large trucks to pass as both had to practically drive the edge of the pavement. He’d just gone through a small town at 30 mph for the umpteenth time and the speed limit would rise to 55 within a mile of leaving the town limits. He dropped the hammer to ramp up his speed as he approached a hill in the distance. His speed slowly climbed as he predicted his speed to be about 65 just as he got to it. His rig started up the hill and it immediately began to slow as the effect of gravity pulling on 44,000 pounds of boxed beef in his reefer made its presence known. By the time he reached the top, he was only able to hold on to 30. For a brief moment Ben could see for miles around as he topped the hill. The view was spectacular to him as the desert-like landscape stretched as far as he could see. Ben marveled at how isolated he seemed to be yet be only a couple of miles out of town. The sun was setting behind him. The road turned and twisted in front of him, beckoning him on to meet the horizon as if challenging him to beat the sun to it the next morning.
Several more miles passed and the sun’s intensity lessened as it sank lower in the sky. The cab cooled as the A/C didn’t struggle so much to make cold air. Another hill forced its way between him and the horizon. The view kept changing but seemed to stay the same as mile after mile of different sameness and longer shadows passed by the windows.
Ben entered a long curve in the road and as he came round it, he caught a glint off of metal up ahead in the straight. He saw it was a car on just off the road onto the dirt shoulder and a person looking through the trunk. ‘This ain’t any place to have a break-down.’ He thought and slowed his rig immediately. Engine brakes roared and the figure turned to look at him. Then the person waved their arms to flag him down and as he passed the car he could see the diminutive figure of a very petite woman. He pulled over about a hundred feet beyond her car, stopped and slowly reversed direction on the shoulder to shorten the distance between the vehicles. Ben pulled the air brake knobs to set the brakes with the usual loud shoosh of rushing air and a puff of dust from under the rig. He got out and walked back toward the woman and her car.
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Lora was on her way to visit her parents in New Hampshire. She planned the trip out and visited family in Colorado Springs before continuing her trip. Instead of heading east on I-70 out of Denver, she called a close friend in Plainview and told her she wanted to come visit for a day or two if that was ok. Sandy was excited to have Lora come visit as they hadn’t seen each other since she’d moved to Plainview a couple years earlier but wrote often. Lora was thrilled and told Sandy she’d be there the next day.
After her visit with Sandy, Lora went east and wound up on US-70. She figured to catch I-35 North out of Fort Worth to start her northerly direction toward New Hampshire. The road wasn’t as good as it looked on the map. US-70 east of Plainview isn’t that good for a car let alone a big rig. In fact it’s narrow and mostly 55 miles per hour. She passed several big trucks and felt there was barely enough room. She marveled at how desolate the area looked and how isolated she felt from everything. She’d passed through several towns only to find herself back out in the desert-like environment quickly. She hated the desert. So dry, desolate and….brown. Patches of green could be seen but even the greens seemed dull. No trees or rather nothing you would want to call a tree. Just sand and brush and brown.
She’d rounded a long curve when her car started acting up. The little red Mazda’s temp gauge was in the red and she pulled over in the straight about a half mile from the curve. She had to pull off into the dirt to get out of the lane and when she did she heard a loud bang like a big firecracker exploding. Just then the car shuddered horribly and she knew she’d just blown a tire. “Of all the stupid…” she stopped in mid-sentence. She beat her fists on the steering wheel in frustration as the dust settled around the car. She knew she should have gone north to Amarillo and take Interstate 40 East. Her A/C had been running full blast but the hot sun beat down on the thin black convertible top keeping the temperature higher than normal. This coupled with the fact the engine was overheated, with a flat tire in the middle of nowhere didn’t do much for her comfort level. Fortunately the temp gauge began a slow drop so she kept the engine running as she fished out the owner’s manual from the glove compartment to look up how to change a flat tire.
A few minutes later after a fruitless search to find the instructions, Lora got out and opened the trunk.