WILD RIDE Read Free Page A

belongings into a small red suitcase I
found in the trunk.  The car could lie there and rust for the next hundred
years for all I cared.  I would never come back for it.
    And so I sat in the shade and waited for a ride,
sipping on water and occasionally whiskey, watching the path of the sun across
the blue-white sky.  I might have sat there twenty minutes, or less, when I saw
the first tiny glimmer of sunlight on chrome along the horizon.  Placing my
small bag behind me, I stuck out my thumb and hoped for the best.  I’d never
hitch-hiked before, since I’d never had anywhere to go until now, but it wasn’t
difficult.  And a second car followed a mile or so behind the first, I could
now see.  A red one.  If the first car didn’t stop, hopefully the second one
would.
    The first car, an older-model white Pontiac sedan,
slowed.  The driver was a man, probably about thirty.  His look matched his
car: cheap and borderline nasty.  He rolled down his window as he pulled to a
stop and removed his sunglasses to get a better look at me.  My pulse fired up
with the warning bells ringing behind my psyche, but I couldn’t afford to be
overly choosy.  I was as desperate as desperate gets.
    “Howdy, there, sweetheart.  You lookin’ for a ride?” 
He was staring at my breasts and his eyes dipped to the tops of my thighs,
where the high hem of my dress covered me sheerly.  Maybe this outfit choice
wasn’t so ideal, after all.  He smiled but it came across as more of a
lecherous sneer.  Don’t get in that car , some internal voice was
screaming at me.
    Genuine alarm iced through my veins, cooling me a
degree.  “Actually,” I heard myself say, “I’m waiting for someone.  My
boyfriend.  I called him and he’s on his way.”
    The man looked at my face, as though reading my lie. 
“Aw, come on.  Don’t be like that.  I’ll drive you back that way, if you want. 
Until we see him.  We can flag him down.  You need to get out of that hot sun. 
It’s all nice and air conditioned in here.  Come on.”
    The second car approached, slowing as it passed.  A red
convertible Mustang with the top down.  Two men wearing cowboy hats and aviator
sunglasses were looking at me, assessing the scene.  It might have been the
car, or the fight-or-flight instinct, or a combination of both, but I snatched
up my bag and ran towards the Mustang.  “There he is!  Thanks!” I yelled to the
Pontiac driver as I waved my hand, hoping frantically that the cowboys would
tune in to my desperation.  Who even knew?  They might be far worse than the
first driver, but all I had to guide me was my own beating heart, and what I
wanted more than anything at that moment was to get into that convertible and
drive at top speeds in a southward direction, leaving Cal, Oklahoma and Mr.
Pontiac in the dust.
    The Mustang, thank God, slowed and I ran up to the
driver’s side, breathing heavily.  In an unthinking gesture, I placed my hand
on the door, as though to keep them there.  “Excuse me, but I’m having some car
trouble and I need a ride to the next town, if you don’t mind,” I said.  As I
stood there, waiting for their answer, I could see that they were exceptionally
good-looking men.  Amazingly good-looking men, in fact.  Strapping and
wholesome, somehow, like they’d spent their lives running around football
fields or swimming in pristine, glittering swimming pools.  The driver was
dark-haired, the bigger of the two, and the passenger was blond; sun-lightened,
straw-colored flicks stuck out from under his well-worn black cowboy hat.
    The blond man smiled widely, revealing a flash of white
teeth.  “Sure thing, sugar,” he said in a strong Texas drawl.  “We don’t mind
at all, do we, Nate?  The more the merrier.”
    Nate, the dark-haired driver, didn’t reply.  His eyes, barely
visible through his reflective sunglasses, assessed my face, my hair, my
dress.  Then he gave the slightest nod, dipping his chin in