Murder on Highway 90

The traffic buzzed by on Highway 90 like a single wasp making its way back to the nest.  These days, not many people find a reason to drive the narrow strip of asphalt connecting Alpine to Del Rio.  Inside the station, I counted the cash in the register while Warren told me about his afternoon selling thirteen gallons of gas.  I slid the cash drawer shut, and Warren clapped me on the back.  “Everything balance?”  I nodded.  It’s hard to steal from the register when you only do two transactions.  He signed out.  “She’s all yours.”  He turned his back on me and drove off without looking back.

I tuned the AM radio to a Mexican baseball game and started counting blue cars.

*    *    *

After three innings, los Tecolotes were down by three.  I stood up and stretched my back.  The bones popped like the last few kernels in the bag of popcorn.  I stepped out of the booth and looked east toward Del Rio.  Then I looked west toward Alpine.  The sulfur lights blocked out any stars, and the black west Texas night swallowed whatever other light there might be.  I heard the red Cavalier before I could see its headlights.  They stopped and bought twenty-three dollars of gas, then continued east.  I settled back into the cracked leather recliner and listened to los Tecolotes fall further behind in the fourth.

*    *    *

Two innings later, after the number five hitter put los Tecolotes up four to three with a grand slam, I stepped out of the booth to see what I could see.  Nothing but asphalt and scrub brush in the fifty yards of light, and nothing but blackness past that.  The Spanish commentators were the only noise.

*    *    *

In the top of the ninth, los Sultanes scored three to pull ahead six to five.  I leaned forward in my recliner in the bottom of the ninth.  A close game with a good finish, maybe.  Number Five was on deck when a dark green Camaro pulled in to Pump 2.  I cursed under my breath and turned down the radio.  Passenger walked around to the pump.  Driver got out and smoked a cigarette.  I listened while the clean-up hitter faintly struck out, then I myself struck out for some companionship.

“Evenin’.”  I admired the Camaro’s vintage styling.  Not many people these days pushed the engine block through the hood.  “What’s that---an ’88?”

Driver dragged on his cigarette and glanced at Passenger filling up the tank.  “Nah.  ’87.”

“Oh wow.  You know, I haven’t seen an ’87 since . . . oh prob’ly since 1987.”  I smiled, but he didn’t laugh.  “Wasn’t a popular year out here, I guess.”  I bent to my haunches to look at the wheels.  “These original?”

“Nah.  Lost two in an accident a few years back.”  I listened to him blow smoke from his lungs.  “Bought those at the junk yard off another ’87.”  Passenger locked the pump in place and stepped toward the trunk.

I straightened up.  “Name’s Willie.  Where you guys headed?”  I stuck out my hand to Driver.

Driver looked at my hand and sucked his cigarette.  He kept his free hand in his back pocket.  “Del Rio for now.  Does 90 go all the way down to Brownsville?”  He threw the butt away and pulled the pack out of his shirt pocket.

“What’s in Brownsville?”  I offered him my lighter.  Passenger screeched open the trunk.  I flinched.  “That’s not something I usually hear out here.  Let me tell you . . . the silence of West Texas . . . it’s not golden.”  I smiled with half my mouth, but Driver just watched me from behind the red glow of his cigarette.

“That so?”  He blew blue smoke toward the sulfur lights.

I flicked a glance toward the back of the Camaro, but all I could see was the trunk lid.  I shuffled my feet, kicked a piece of gravel away.  Passenger was making some kind of noise back there, but I couldn’t tell what he was doing.  “Yeah.  Pretty quiet out here.  There’s nothing up here, and,” I nodded my head south, “nothing down there.  Nearest real town is about fifty miles away.  I guess that’s why y’all stopped here, huh?  Needed some gas and didn’t know when you could get it again?”

“Somethin like that.”  

The bell dinged when their tank was full.  I read $26.84 on the pump and told him so.  “Cash or credit?” I asked, turning back toward my booth.

I didn’t hear Passenger’s boots run across the old gravel pavement.  I didn’t hear the tire iron cut through the dry night air.  I didn’t feel anything but a quick snap right between my shoulders.  I didn’t see the ground rush up to me, and I didn’t feel my forehead crack in two against the pavement.  But I did hear the tire iron ring on the pavement.  I did hear Passenger’s door slam and the Camaro’s V8 roar to life.  I did smell the gas spilling all over the driveway.  I struggled to turn my head so I could see.  I most definitely saw a fresh cigarette butt---the tip still glowing red---arc through the air toward the growing yellow puddle.

And that’s all I remember.