Free Hotshots by Judith Van Gieson

road was straight as an arrow. You could blame it on the bars at either end, the two lanes in between and the lack of a concrete wall median. Someone coming from one of the bars with a blood-alcohol level high enough to make a buffalo comatose fell asleep or passed out and plowed across the highway into the oncoming lane. And it was never just one person in the target vehicle. It was always a family, three or even four generations turned into roadkill by drink.
    I looked at the clock on the wall: eight-thirty. “Nobody will be out yet.”
    â€œThey’ll be coming home after drinking all night,” the Kid said.
    â€œI’ll drive if you want.”
    â€œIt’s my truck, Chiquita. You’re sick.”
    â€œI’m not that sick.”
    â€œI drive. Just tell me why you want to do this.” Maybe he thought I was under the irrational influence of sniffing smoke, but I had my reasons.
    â€œRamona Franklin grew up on the reservation near Farmington. She must drive 44 on her way back and forth to Albuquerque. I thought driving the road might help me understand her.” It’s my belief that you should never judge a woman until you’ve driven a mile in her vehicle on her roads. This wouldn’t be Ramona’s vehicle, but hers was also likely to be a truck. This was pickup country. “Do you remember what Gordon House said after the accident that killed the Cravens family?” The House case was one of New Mexico’s most notorious traffic fatalities. On Christmas Eve three little girls and their mother were wiped out.
    â€œWhat?” the Kid asked.
    â€œThat a trial wouldn’t accomplish anything. That it should be settled the Navajo way. That he ought to get together with the family and talk it out.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œThat’s what Ramona said to me. She wants to talk to the Barker family, but Nancy Barker won’t talk to her. She saved my life; I’m wondering if rescuing me makes up in her mind for the loss of Joni Barker’s life.” That was the tip of the mountain, but there were layers upon layers underneath.
    â€œWas Ramona to blame for Joni Barker’s death?”
    â€œSome people think she could have prevented it, some people think she couldn’t. The question for me is what Ramona thinks.”
    It was getting too complex for the Kid. Easier to put the pedal to the metal and drive the road. “All right,” he said. “Vamos.”
    South of the Bloomfield oil fields I began coughing and didn’t stop until we reached a trading post where I bought myself some cough drops. Route 44 is a great road for old trucks, and the Kid is a connoisseur. He pointed them out to me as he drove. “That’s a ’49 Chevy,” he said. “That one’s a ’62 Ford.”
    â€œSixty-two isn’t that old,” I said.
    Trucks last forever in the dry New Mexico air and there’s no inspection to ground you for a broken tailpipe or lack of turn signals. The older trucks have a rounded shape that’s a pleasure to look at—adobe on wheels. It would be a pleasure to own one, too, if you didn’t have to rely on it to take you one hundred miles to work or the store.
    We went through a lot more empty space and passed a lot more old trucks before we reached Cuba. I hadn’t been getting any adrenaline buzz from Route 44 or from wondering if any of those great old trucks had my name on them. Maybe I’d been adrenalined out. The Kid listened to Los Lobos and the Gipsy Kings, kept his mind on the road, and didn’t talk much, leaving my mind free to think about Ramona Franklin. It must have been a big step for her to leave the reservation and move to Albuquerque, worrying, maybe, about whether the car would make it or not. It had to be a giant step to become the only Indian woman on a hotshot crew. The money was good. It would buy a reliable car, a comfortable place to live, toys and clothes