The Old Man's Bargain
The moment Gunner said there was a way, every eye in the trailer locked onto him.
"What is it? If you've got a way, don't sit there winding us up—spit it out!"
Frank pressed him hard. Gunner hesitated a beat, then spoke in a low voice.
"Drop another two hundred and fifty miles south of here, and there's an illegal fuel depot."
"Illegal?"
Mike leaned in, urging him on.
"Come on, this isn't the time to split hairs over that. Give us the details."
Gunner set his glass down and went on.
"I stumbled on it years back, hunting cheap diesel on a long haul. The old man who runs it is named Cyrus. Mean as a rattlesnake—but the fuel itself was the real thing."
He tapped a finger on the map.
"Only catch is, it's about forty-five miles off the interstate, way out in the middle of nowhere. Disguised as a rundown farm. Problem is... I can't swear the old bastard's still in business with the world falling apart like this."
Dave cut in.
"That's way too much of a gamble. My uncle's farm has a proper fuel depot—the kind tanker trucks come out and fill. And I called him from the last truck stop. He's already topped the tanks. We just have to get there."
I looked at him and laid my worry out again.
"Dave."
"Yeah."
"That's exactly why we plan for when it doesn't go according to plan. Think about when we first crossed the border."
"Ah, hell. Fine, Chan."
I turned back to Gunner.
"Couldn't we get close and ask around on the CB? Other truckers might know."
"Nobody's going to answer that."
Gunner shook his head and kept going.
"It's always been illegal. Buying from him, too. Only people in the know go looking for it, and they keep it quiet. Talking about it on an open channel is as good as taboo."
A hush settled over the trailer.
"Whether he's skimming tax-free diesel or just dodging the IRS, I couldn't tell you. What I do know is the stuff he sells never went through legitimate channels."
A strange tension crept back through the trailer. On any ordinary day, it would have been a dangerous proposal. Right now, it was the only hopeful sound left to us.
I made the call.
"We've got nothing to lose. Let's try it."
Gunner's eyes tightened with unease.
"If it's a bust, we'll have dumped nearly a hundred miles of precious fuel on the pavement for nothing. So we all go as far as the turnoff, and I'll scout it alone and come back."
It was a reasonable offer, and everyone was ready to take it—until I spoke, my face set.
"No. We go together."
"What do you mean?"
Gunner frowned at me. I put my finger on the map.
"Look at this. That's dead country—no cell coverage at all. If we're forty-five miles apart out there and something goes wrong, there's no way to respond."
"Even so, shouldn't we be conserving fuel? Just in case?"
I looked from one friend to the next.
"Say one of us is that far out, alone, and doesn't come back at the appointed time. Then what?"
No one answered.
"What options would the rest of us even have?"
The question hung there. For a moment, nobody spoke.
"Sitting around waiting, or charging in blind without knowing the location or the situation—either way, you're just manufacturing a mess that's dangerous and unclear."
Still silence.
"In a world like this, sticking together as a group might be the only way to keep the unexpected from killing us. Fuel or no fuel, we go in together."
The hardness in my voice left Gunner with nothing to argue. Mike set his glass down.
"Boss made the call. That's the end of it."
It was a gamble, plain and simple. What we stood to lose was a little fuel and a little time. If it paid off, we would have the lifeline that could carry us all the way to California.
The pot's big and the ante's small.
That was how we closed the day. The next morning, the moment the sky began to pale, we fell into the day's routine without fail. After a restless night on unfamiliar ground, the familiar ritual of morning was enough to gather up our frayed nerves and set them right.
When every last check was done, our little fleet pointed south again, toward a fuel station none of us had ever seen.
Today's goal was the truck stop just short of Cyrus's farm on the outskirts of Elko, after we crossed the Nevada line. Two hundred and fifty miles of long, uncertain road.
Around noon we pulled off at a big truck stop just past Salt Lake City and took a short rest. The scene there was bleaker than anything we had rolled through yet. Hundreds of vehicles were coiled in front of the pumps like a vast snake, and a sign was posted at the entrance.
DIESEL NEARLY DEPLETED
The store still had goods on the shelves, but anything that counted as food or a daily necessity—canned goods, pasta, the like—had already been stripped bare. As if we had all agreed on it without a word, we started loading our carts with whatever our eyes landed on, whether we needed it or not.
Frank watched Dave sweep an entire box of gum off the display and needled him.
"Hey, Dave. What the hell are you buying that for? It's not like you can fill your stomach with gum."
"Beats me."
Dave shrugged.
"Just... someday even junk like this is gonna be treated like treasure, don't you think?"
I listened to that, then set a box of soap into my own cart. The smallest luxury that stood between mere survival and remaining human.
The diner was still open, and we were grateful for it. We got lunch down and climbed back onto the highway.
A few more hours of running brought us at last to the final staging point before tomorrow's gamble: a small truck stop in Wells, Nevada. We would spend our last night here, with a fork in the road waiting at dawn.
The Wells stop was even more desolate than the last. As expected, the fuel station had been shut for a long time. Cardboard signs hung on the pumps, the letters huge.
EMPTY
We went straight to the store, and what we found there was disappointment enough. The shelves looked looted, stripped to the bone. On the dusty racks, a few bags of candy long past their expiration date were all that remained, rolling about on their sides.
Then something in the corner of the store caught my eye: old newspapers stacked in a mountain. I called Dave over.
"Dave, come here and help me get these into the truck."
"Newspapers? What are you going to do with those?"
He looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
"These are useful as hell. Fine kindling. Crumple them inside your clothes and they make decent insulation. And if things get truly ugly... they work as toilet paper."
"Toilet paper?"
Dave's face wrinkled. I grinned.
"Yeah. Crumple it up until it's soft, and it works pretty well. Haha."
Fortunately the diner was still serving. We put down a tasteless stew for dinner and took turns heading for the showers. Standing under the hot water, I thought again that this might be the last gift of civilization I would ever enjoy.
From tomorrow on, we would be stepping into truly unknown country. It was the first time we had ever set a destination without solid information to go on.
Success or failure. There was no middle ground.
The next morning, the moment the sun cleared the horizon, our little fleet rolled again toward the unknown station.
We had been running south along I-80 for a good while when Gunner's voice came over the radio.
I keyed the mic.
The moment we left the interstate, the country went barren. A two-lane rural road, pavement in poor shape.
This is going to drink fuel.
On both sides of the road, sagebrush and dry dust stretched away without end. Now and then an abandoned farmhouse or a stretch of rusted barbed wire rose out of the waste, and each one made the land look more forsaken than the last.
We had been running like that for a little over an hour when, far ahead, the silhouette of a weathered farmhouse came into view—standing alone and precarious in the middle of a vast plain.
Hell. A man could drop dead out here and the world would never know.
Up ahead, Gunner and Mike eased off and brought their trucks to a stop. I watched them climb down. As soon as they were on the ground, a man walked out from the farmhouse porch. Even at a distance he was the picture of a western American: a battered cowboy hat, a plaid shirt under a pair of overalls, and a shotgun in the crook of his arm as if it had grown there.
On Gunner's radio call, I pulled onto the shoulder at the mouth of the farm. Dave and Frank rolled in behind me and stopped in turn. Then two men who looked like farmhands came out of the house and took positions on either side of the owner, hanging back just far enough to cover him. They had a shotgun and a rifle in their hands as well.
I could see Gunner gesturing at the man who looked like the owner, as if they were haggling. I waited on the radio, tight in the chest.
I pulled my pistol, tucked it deep into the back of my belt, and climbed down from the truck. Wolf jumped down after me.
As I started forward, Frank and Dave moved to follow. I stopped them with a hand.
"Too many of us and we'll look like a threat. Wait here."
I walked up to Gunner. He leaned in, his face sour, and muttered under his breath.
"Ah, damn it. He says he won't sell. Won't even talk to us."
I took a step toward the owner.
"Listen. If it's not cash you need, just say the word. We can work a deal."
"What the hell else would I need besides diesel? Get off my land."
He barked it. Then his eyes ran over the massive trucks standing behind me, and over Wolf waiting quietly at my side, and his look turned suspicious.
"Hold on... you the Polar Bear they been yammering about on the CB?"
I hesitated a second, then nodded.
"That's me."
The owner looked from my face to Gunner, then out to Mike standing in the distance. Something complicated moved in his eyes. He seemed to sink into a long thought, and then, as if he had made up his mind, he spoke.
"Alright. Then we got a deal."
He shifted the shotgun in the crook of his arm.
"I'll get straight to it."
I waited, not following.
"What are you talking about?"
I asked it, thrown. For the first time, a shadow crossed the owner's face.
"There's a crew that runs this county. Call themselves the Coyotes. They'll be coming to take this place inside of three days."
"How can you be so sure of that?"
Gunner's voice went sharp. The owner gave a bitter smile.
"One of them Coyotes used to be a friend of my boy's. Snuck out here last night to warn me. Said a raid's coming, told me to leave the land I love and run while I still could..."
No one spoke.
"Can't do it. If they're gonna take it from me anyway, I'll put as many of 'em in the dirt as I can before I go."
Kill, and die doing it.
The stubborn old man's meaning was plain enough. He would die before he ran.