HE FORGETS NOT HIS OWN by Edward L. Woodyard

He Forgets Not His Own Part Two

Scott drove for another hour and a half while Kevin slept and Maya napped. Maya and Scott had worked together several years ago on an opera benefit, she doing the graphic design and he the intaglio printing. Yesterday morning, he had persuaded her that because of an on-going national transportation strike, the only way that she was going to get to her new job in time was to drive across country.

The snow had subsided into occasional flurries once the Bimmer had navigated around the detour and returned to I-80. The car crossed into Nebraska just as hunger woke Maya who tapped an app on her cell phone to find a sandwich shop in the area. Both she and Scott had agreed to avoid fast food drive-ins and chain restaurants whenever possible. Maya asked Kevin if a sandwich shop was okay with him. Wherever anyone wanted to eat was fine with Kevin; he wasn't particular, just grateful.

Scott wanted to keep driving through the night because of the deadline to get Maya to New York. He preferred to eat on the road since he wanted to get as far into Iowa as he could by dawn. He figured it would be another ten hours of driving in order to cross the Mississippi by mid-morning. He'd let Maya and Kevin sleep if they wanted.

Maya called a sandwich shop in Kimball, Nebraska to pick up an order to go, but the one person on duty told Maya that she would have to come into the store and order in person, telling her, "The sandwiches would be all that much fresher that way."

Scott pulled off the interstate to find the sandwich shop but first stopped at a service station by the exit. Kevin jumped out, pumped the gas and wouldn't let Scott pay, despite his insistence. Maya sensed that Scott was uncomfortable with allowing someone to be kind to him, that he somehow felt he didn't deserve it.

Scott had been cordial but not particularly talkative during the trip, convincing Maya that he was in pain and turmoil about something. She decided to keep her thoughts to herself for the time being. She was thankful that Scott had rescued her while she sat on the 101 Freeway with her luggage and no flights out of SFO. She was also realizing that maybe she could help him in some way that might reveal itself as they continued to drive together. She had learned from trips taken to Mexico during college that people have a tendency to expose themselves to others behind the wheel of a vehicle, especially over several days dedicated to constant driving.

Scott used his GPS to find the franchise sandwich shop in central Kimball. It was three short blocks off of I-80. As Scott drove into the two-story, two-block downtown of Kimball, the snow flurries stopped. It wasn't even six o'clock and the town was deserted, not a rusted pickup or cowboy hat in sight. Scott slant-parked directly in front of the sandwich shop. After the three of them got out of the Bimmer, they noticed that it felt warmer and dustier in the flatlands than in the mountains.

"You can smell the alfalfa," said Kevin. "Musta been a late harvest."

Scott noticed four grain elevators hovering over the town to the north, then did some yoga stretches against the car; they were ones Wendy had taught him in order to keep him loose and relaxed, especially after sitting for so long.

As they entered the shop, Scott noticed that the counterman's nametag read Dalton and guessed he was a local high school student. He wore a blue striped cowboy shirt highlighted with red roses, complete with snap-flap patch pockets; his blue jeans sported a thick leather belt with an oversized rectangular brass buckle of three mountain peaks. After Dalton welcomed them and took their order for three Italian specials, Scott and Maya hurried to the bathrooms at the rear of the shop. Dalton put on disposable plastic gloves to make their sandwiches.

Kevin asked where everyone was in town, to which Dalton said that it was the night of the annual turkey shoot at the firehouse. "There's where you'll find most people tonight. You don't get to shoot a turkey, just win a frozen kind if your aim is true. I see you got one of them city cars. Don't see many of them cars here except like yourselves getting off the interstate. Most here don't counter to them since they be way useless for hauling hay."