The Kenworth growled like a rabid dog, but it pulled the eighty ton trailer up the grade with ease.  Paul Smith grabbed the gears.  This mountain held no challenge for him, and he dared it to give him guff.  He had more important things to worry about.

"Hey, babe!  How ya doin' back there?"  He glanced in the rear-view mirror, but the form beneath the covers lay quiet.  His lady slept deep. 

The radio kept him company, the music and voices droned without end.  He listened, but tuned most of it out.  His opinion didn't matter, and he kept his thoughts to himself.  Even in the countless cafes and truck-stops, he'd learned long ago to be polite, yet keep most at arms length.  In today's world, you couldn't trust anyone.  Not even a waitress. 


Night crept through the mist, and Smith would soon be forced to stop.  A trucker's worst enemies were fatigue and the DOT.  He could not afford to fight either.  The GPS told him it would be another thirty miles to the next rest stop. Some hot Joe and a couple of pills would get him there; that, and the midnight radio.

"Hang in there, doll ... we'll be stoppin' soon.  Better wake up.  You're missin' the scenery."  He chuckled and felt the pain of a full bladder.  An empty beer bottle solved that problem--another trick of the trade.  You didn't stop every five minutes for a piss break and make any time. 

"Hey, babydoll! Wake up.  You're supposed to keep old Pauly company!"  He needed to hear her voice.  He needed to pull over and get her up.  But it was only a few more miles.  Throbbing in his loin started to annoy and distract.  Not good. He turned the radio back on.  More of the same old same old, but he cranked it up so Miss Dolly could wake the dead.  

Darkness enveloped the truck.  Smith's headlights flashed across a dirt road and the airbrakes hissed as he slowed the rig. The mountain sighed and heaved her breast.  She knew.  From many times before, the mountain had received her children taken at each other's hands, and she waited with open arms.  Her breezes swept around the boulders and the cliffs, and warned the elk to be on the ready.  He would be employed to carry the soul for safe keeping, and he listened carefully.  Alert and ready, he stood, a regal statue, ever vigilant and watchful.  Soft needled pines wept tears as they bent to accept their new charge and they whispered to the girl that they would shelter her.  That she would be safe at last.  

Lily Lindstrom called for her mother only once as the cold air of the mountain tried to revive her ravaged body ...  as it tried to clear her mind.  But damage beyond repair sank its teeth into her very soul, and she floated down.  Down to sleep.  To finally rest.  She'd begged to go home, and now the mountain unlocked the door.

~~~~~~~

Atop the overhang, the man stood, now flaccid.  Done.  This one had been no different ... no better than any of the others. He'd tried to make this girl love him.  He'd given her everything, but  she'd hated him through it all, and he'd finally given up.  His anger ebbed, yet did not subside as he spat raw guilt out into the wind.