Free Random Acts of Kindness by Lisa Verge Higgins

where it bounced once, twice, the pieces scattering just as a pickup truck zoomed by and crushed it under its wheels.
    Nicole gave her a nod. “Nice curve.”

Chapter Six
    Rapid City, South Dakota
    C laire flexed her bare toes on the glove compartment while the fan flirted with the hem of her skirt. Outside the car window, the grasslands of the high plains waved like the glossy fur of some wild animal. She cracked the window and let the hot wind tug her hair, experiencing the same light-headed elation that she’d once felt motoring through the Thai landscape, past dry paddies of golden rice, into towns with stucco houses dripping with bougainvillea.
    Claire scooped up another handful of cheddar cheese popcorn and closed her eyes in mindful gratitude. After their dispute in Cheyenne about visiting Sydney, Claire had doubted her ability to convince Nicole to take a detour all the way to South Dakota. But this morning, after feeding bison at a ranch ten miles outside Cheyenne, Nicole had agreed—abruptly and with no explanation—to veer 250 miles off her mapped route.
    In Claire’s mind, her friend’s Karmic change of heart proved the old wisdom that every good journey was a creature of its own making, a bronco that would buck against all efforts to rein it in.
    “Hey, navigator.” Nicole nudged Claire with her knee. “There’s a turn coming up, and I suspect my GPS isn’t programmed to find archaeological digs. Do you have Maya’s directions?”
    Claire leaned over and dug under an empty bag of jalapeño chips and two discarded water bottles. She pulled up a few slips of hotel stationery and feathered through them. “Here they are. You need to find the sign for the—”
    “—the Fort Pierre National Grassland. We just passed it.” Nicole turned the fan down to lessen the white noise in the car. “Read ahead to the part about the turnoff to River Runt Dam.”
    Claire guided Nicole over ever-narrowing roads while the tires kicked up gypsum to ping against the undercarriage. Around a bend in an area of shrubby and stunted hillsides, she caught sight of a collection of canvas tents. Among the tents stood a large canopy with the side walls tied back, open to the elements.
    “Unless that’s some sort of revival meeting,” Claire said, “I think we’ve found Maya’s dig.”
    Nicole pulled the car to a stop by a cluster of mud-splattered pickup trucks, a dented Volvo, and a food truck belching blue-gray smoke. Claire glanced out through the haze of the upper windshield and caught sight of a shadow wheeling in the sky. “Jenna, you might want to be careful with Lucky out here. From on high, he’ll look like a really tasty groundhog.”
    Claire stretched out of the car. She switched out the cheesy pink cowboy hat she’d bought in Cheyenne for another she’d purchased at a rest stop just over the South Dakota border. This one was a wide-brimmed Stetson made out of felted bison fur that cost her about a month’s worth of egg money. For a good twenty minutes, she’d debated whether she should buy it, petting the soft brim, mentally calculating. Cancer patients whose stats ran low for five-year-survival rates didn’t have much use for 401(k)s, but still, the old penny-pinching habits died hard.
    Jenna clutched Lucky close as she fell into step beside Claire. “Okay, can I admit that Maya always made me nervous?”
    Claire gave her a look. “Hon, everyone makes—”
    “Yeah, I know, I know, but Maya’s different. Once, in biology class, she brought in the boiled bones of a raccoon.”
    “I got one better. In Global Studies, she used to tell stories about her mom in Peru digging up mummified children.”
    Jenna gave a shudder that Lucky echoed. “I never knew if Maya was going to grow up to be a Nobel laureate or a serial killer.”
    Claire scanned the half-dozen people kneeling in the dirt under the canopy. One khaki hat popped up as the three of them stepped into the shade. Maya Wheeler, who’d appeared