LoneStar
What the hell did Gunner mean by Tank's tank? The question flickered through my mind, but I set it aside and kept my eyes on the road. Our long column rolled on north along California Highway 99.
Outside the window, endless farmland unfurled past us, fields and orchards ranked along the irrigation canals. To the east, the faint silhouette of the Sierra Nevada hung across the sky like a folding screen.
It was a landscape so still, so vast and peaceful, that it almost felt callous — as if nothing in the world had gone wrong at all.
We hadn't been past the weathered sign marking the Selma city limits for long when Gunner's voice came over the radio.
Mike leaned forward in the passenger seat and nodded toward the windshield.
"There it is. I can see it."
"Mike, call the column to a halt."
Up ahead, Gunner's F-550 flicked on its turn signal and bled off speed, and the vehicles behind it moved as one. Our column peeled off onto the long asphalt shoulder and came to a halt in orderly fashion, one rig after another. It was a fairly wide turnout — a rest area with little more than portable toilets and a few trash cans.
Jake, already down from the helicopter, waved and came toward us. We exchanged a warm greeting, and we decided to take a short rest there at the turnout.
Jake and Cody topped off the helicopter with the aviation fuel we'd hauled in on the five-ton, while everyone else settled for a late lunch of cup noodles and whatever else they had stashed in their cabs. Gunner and Carlos joined Dave and Damon in my trailer.
I was sipping the hot broth off my cup noodles when I turned to Gunner, who was working through an energy bar and a coffee beside me.
"That thing you said on the radio about Tank. What was that about?"
Gunner looked over at me and laughed.
"Ah, right. You saw Tank back in Twin Falls, didn't you?"
"I did. Figured the nickname fit him pretty well."
Gunner nodded in agreement.
"That guy used to wrestle, played football too. A tank of a human being, literally. But the real reason he got the name is something else."
He went on.
"First thing he did after he bought that Peterbilt 389 — his meal ticket — was bolt that enormous moose bumper onto it. The other drivers took one look and started razzing him. Said that wasn't a truck, that was a tank. And the name stuck."
A moose bumper was the massive steel guard North American heavy trucks mounted up front to protect the radiator and engine from collisions with wildlife — elk, moose, the kind of animal that could total a rig in a single hit.
"Even a moose bumper is still just a bumper, though. Isn't it more that the guy himself leaves that kind of impression?"
Gunner shook his head.
"No. We just call it a moose bumper because there's no better word for it. You'll know the second you see it. He's running around with something like a bulldozer blade bolted to the front of his truck."
"A bulldozer?"
"Put Tank's moose bumper next to the V-Plow on my rig and mine's going to look downright cute."
"Just how big are we talking?"
"You'll see. Anyway, it works out. If we ever need to punch through something, I'll open the gap and Tank can shove it aside. Hahaha."
"..."
"Oh, and there's a reason he went with the Peterbilt 389 even knowing they were discontinuing the model."
"Yeah?"
"That model… what was it. He said the 389 is the successor to the 379, the one that was Optimus Prime in Transformers. Anyway, that guy likes everything big and tough. Excessively so, haha."
"Well. Makes me look forward to it. And feel a little more solid, too."
In my mind, Tank's sturdy bulk overlapped with the desperate look I'd seen in Bill's eyes. A strange feeling settled over me. After we'd gotten out of Canada, the first people I'd formed any real bond with in a world coming apart would all be standing in the same place. A peculiar kind of excitement ran through me. These were connections that could just as easily have been passing encounters — the kind that fade into faint memory and disappear.
While Gunner and I talked about Bill and Tank, the others topped off their tanks, ran their checks, and got ready to roll again. There was still no word from either of them. That didn't mean we could sit around waiting forever. I didn't figure meeting the two of them was important enough to change the plan.
I was about to send Jake up on a recon sweep so we could get moving when Gunner stopped me.
"Boss, let's wait a little longer."
"How long?"
"Fifteen minutes."
"Alright."
I took the radio and told the others we'd roll in fifteen, and to check anything still pending. For a moment I thought of H-Hour — that stretch of silence fifteen minutes before an attack. I couldn't say why, but five minutes out, fifteen minutes out, it never seemed to matter which branch you were in. There was always that same ease inside the tension.
The wait wasn't long. Just as Gunner had said, Bill's voice came through the CB, riding in on a crackle of static.
I set the radio down and looked at Jake.
"Jake, start a search pattern south along Highway 99. Confirm two heavy trucks running in column, check the area for threats, then bring them in to our position."
"Copy that, Polar Bear."
Gunner added a beat later.
"Jake, one of them's a blue Peterbilt with a weird-looking bumper. You won't miss it."
Jake's helicopter vanished south along Highway 99, and we waited in silence for his call.
I don't know how long it was before his voice came back over the radio, wound tight with excitement.
There was something like awe in his voice. His report made no sense at all, and everyone turned toward the southern road with the same baffled look.
Time stretched, and then at last Jake's helicopter lifted over the horizon. As it came in over the turnout and started its descent, the silhouette of a massive truck followed in its wake.
I knew that truck at a glance. It was the black International LoneStar Bill had climbed into with his injured hand.
But it wasn't the tractor that caught my eye — or anyone else's. It was what came behind it: an enormous black cylinder filling the road, throwing back the sunlight. A tanker trailer. This was nothing like ordinary freight. It was overwhelming, a mobile fuel depot in its own right, with a capacity of at least ten thousand gallons.
"That's…"
Dave muttered it under his breath, and a murmur started up among the others.
"That's a tanker, isn't it? What's he even hauling? Don't tell me—"
Frank narrowed his eyes.
"What else would it be? If that's all diesel, we won't have to worry about fuel for a good while!"
There was a desperate kind of hope in his voice.
Behind Bill's truck, a blue Peterbilt 389 came on with a presence that filled the road. The huge, heavy moose bumper mounted across its nose had the look of a football lineman — the kind of thing that would shove aside whatever stood in front of it.
The two trucks pulled up alongside our column and stopped. Gunner and I went to meet them. The driver's doors swung open, and Bill and Tank dropped to the ground almost at the same time.
"Gunner!"
Bill and Tank came toward him first, grinning wide. They seized each other's forearms the way warriors of ancient Greece might have, then drove their shoulders together in a short, hard collision. Their own greeting, it seemed.
Then Bill came over to me and held out his right hand.
"Polar Bear. Damn good to see you again."
I took his hand and gripped it hard.
"Thanks to you I can even shake hands properly."
"Don't mention it, Bill. Glad you're in one piece."
"Haha. After I finished that run I stopped by the hospital, and the doc took one look and said it was an ace's stitching. Shook his head in amazement."
While Bill was still laughing, Tank came up and held out his hand without a word. I took that rough, solid grip, and he gave a short nod.
"Good to see you again, Chan."
Gunner looked from one of them to the other.
"So what happened? You two been running together?"
Bill hooked a thumb at the black tanker standing behind him and grinned.
"Had something that needed protecting. And if you're gonna guard a tank, who better than Tank himself?"
Gunner snorted at the joke.
"Alright. So what's in that precious tank of yours?"
Bill shrugged, as if the answer were obvious, and tossed it off like it was nothing.
"What else? Diesel."
Color rose in every face around us. I wanted the picture clear.
"So what the hell happened?"
"It's a bit of a story, but the short version goes like this."
Bill let out a long breath and went on.
"So. I rolled out with this load the night before the quake. Then overnight the world turned upside down, and there was no way into L.A. On top of that, the National Guard convoy that had been escorting me turned around and left."
"..."
"No contact with the guy who was supposed to take delivery, no contact with the shipper who sent it. I didn't have any reason to risk my neck guarding the thing, and I sure as hell couldn't just dump it. So I just…"
Gunner picked it up, laughing.
"Hahaha. A little too big to hog all by yourself."
"Yeah. Then I remembered you'd said you were heading south looking for Polar Bear. Figured you might be around here somewhere."
"And Tank?"
"Haha. Luck. He'd just dropped a load in Bakersfield, said he was sitting there trying to figure out what to do."
"Figure out?"
"Civilian freight's done. Tank here nearly got stripped on the road."
I looked from Bill to Tank.
"We're heading east. You coming with us?"
"Already talked it through with Tank. We decided if we found you two, we'd roll together. Hell, for a bachelor trucker, everything that matters is already in the sleeper. Not much else to worry about. Haha."
The moment I finished, Mike stepped in first with a welcome and an open hand, and then Dave, Frank, Jed, and Jake each took their turn.