sound of a voice from the other side of the truck, hastily scampered out from under it, bumping his head on the frame. Across the undercarriage, he caught a glimpse of the legs and bare feet of a woman standing on the other side. Brushing the dust from his coveralls, he stood, facing her. She was young, only about nineteen. Somewhat embarrassed by the sudden interruption, he stared red-faced at the girl on the other side. She wore a freshly picked blossom in her hair on the right side of her face. Her wholesome good looks captured his attention. She was the very picture of innocence. She wore a faded, thin dress, threadbare—almost transparent from being washed so many times. Her light brown, tangled hair fell over her eyes, and was often brushed aside by a soiled hand. She was quite charming, and wore no makeup on her slightly dirty face. Well suntanned, Dorian deduced that she spent most of her time outdoors.
Dorian was conscious of his own clothes and wondered how strange he must appear to her. He wore reflective silvery-white coveralls with a zipper down the front. Excellent for protection from the elements, they were spotless and perfectly creased, as if he had just removed them from a drawer.
“Does it belong to you?” Dorian asked. “I’ve never seen one of these old machines before.”
“Old? It’s all Pa can afford. Times are hard, ya know.”
They both walked to the front of the truck. She daintily patted the blossom in her hair, and straightened the tresses on the back of her neck, then brushed at the front of her dress with open palms, but the fabric’s stains of age were not removable.
“I’m Billie,” she said, tossing her head a bit to the side. She smiled. “Where’d you come from?”
“Well... uh,” Dorian stammered. “Oh. Allow me to introduce myself. You see, I’m from…uh… Dorian, my name is Dorian. I’ve had a mechanical breakdown. Do you live nearby?”
“Jes’ across the way. This here is our property,” Billie said, as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, waving her hands expansively.
“All this is your property?” Dorian was incredulous.
“Yeah, all 240 acres, includin’ what you’re standin’ on.”
“Is there a town nearby?”
“Yeah, ’bout ten miles down the state highway.”
“I need to be on my way as soon as possible. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get a ruby, would you?”
“I ain’t got no rubies. What you want that for?”
“I…uh…need it to make repairs,” Dorian said, trying to find a plausible explanation for his unusual situation.
“Your car broke down, huh? Well, I got news for ya, it ain’t goin’ to help. There ain’t no ruby in there.”
She laughed, but sensed he was uncomfortable, and wondered what he was trying to hide, or what truth he was avoiding.
“It’s just that…”
He stopped abruptly. He did not know how to present his case to her. Two things stood in the way. The first; do not violate the Principal Mandate: don’t interact with anyone, unless it is unavoidable, and in any case, disclose nothing about the nature of his mission. Secondly, and more to the point, who would believe such a story in the first place? He would very likely never gain trust in those whose help he so desperately needed. Dorian found himself in an unforgiving situation; he needed help, but could not reveal the exact circumstances of what had happened to anyone. With a little patience, and without being a nuisance, perhaps he could be clever enough to get what he needed. Dorian turned and looked at the truck again.
“This is great,” he said. “I never dreamed I’d actually ever see one—a real motor carriage.”
She tiptoed very seductively closer to him. “Motor carriage? A car, you mean. Grandpa used to say that.”
“An internal combustion engine,” he said. “Does it actually run on liquid hydrocarbons?”
Billie chuckled to herself and shook her head. “No, silly. It runs on gasoline.”
She paused to study him for a moment, head tilted slightly, smiling at him. “How come you ain’t wearin’ no hat?”
“I don’t know. It never occurred to me that I needed one.”
“I’ll give you a lift to town.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, pondering her trusting and generous offer. Then he answered, “Would you do that?”
“Shore, hop in.”
Billie had parked the truck on a slight grade so it could be rolled to a start by popping the clutch with the ignition switch on, in case the battery or starter should fail. She did not like to use the crank, which could result in a sore arm from an unpleasant kick-back.
Billie circled the truck and entered on the driver’s side. She noticed that Dorian was having a hard time getting the door open on the other side. He tugged at the handle, not doing it properly, as if he had never opened the door of a car or truck before.
“It’s not stuck,” she said, watching him with evident delight.
After a few seconds, she reached across the seat and opened the door from the inside. It swung open with a squeal. The original cushion of the truck seat had completely rotted away exposing rusted metal springs. A tattered blanket thrown over the exposed springs was all there was to sit on. With most of the floorboard missing, Dorian placed his feet carefully as he crawled into the vehicle and sat down. Curious, he studied Billie’s every move as she operated the strange machine. She depressed the clutch pedal with her bare left foot, and pushed the floor-mounted starter pedal with her right, while holding down the accelerator pedal. The truck rattled and shook, then settled into a chattering roar. Through the hole in the floorboard, Dorian saw the flash and flame of the exhaust. He could see the fire from the exhaust pipe as blue smoke rose from behind the engine. She put the shift lever into gear, and they drove away in a plume of dust. The narrow-tired vehicle bounced across the field, rocking and rolling along a dirt lane with a grassy center.
After a short distance, they turned out of the meadow onto a gravel road of brown creek rock that crunched under the tires. The road curved and twisted, winding through the ever darkening tall trees. The farther they went, the more bizarre and enclosing the vegetation became. Although it was still daylight, the underbrush and the enclosed canopy of the trees blacked out most of the light of day. The gravel road ended at a paved blacktop, and Billie turned left onto the road, heading south, accelerating the old truck to a moderate speed.
Dorian leaned on the door, surveying the miles of pastures, dense patches of lofty forest and sunless valleys, separated by stretches of gray fences. He watched the landscape roll past his window, glad to feel the cool air on his face. Along the road, they passed several farm houses, each with their own characteristic form of decay, each an eyesore in varying states of paint and disrepair, ravaged by the heavy hand of time. It was as if they had never been new, and had always been decrepit.
Dorian was in awe of the countryside—its variety, its contours. He surveyed the majesty of the Ozark wilderness and looked out over the wooded hills and high bluffs, a magnificent wild panorama of ridges and valleys of dense oak and hickory forest. It was a signature combination of civilization and nature with an aura of grace and charm, a beautiful and only half-tamed country, far too vast to capture in a single glance.
“You’re not from ’round here, are ya?” Billie asked.
“I’m just passing through.”
“There’s a grocery store jes’ up the road a-piece. Do you want a soda pop?”
“Thanks, but that’s not necessary. I had a drink a few minutes ago before I left on this trip.”
“Thought you said you didn’t live ’round here, must have been more than a few minutes back, wasn’t it?”
After a long pause from pondering