Sister's Sorrow
by
George Stringfellow
At 4:45 AM I passed the road sign that announced
the Red Rock Truck Stop was one mile away at the next exit.
I'd been driving all night and was feeling drowsy so I decided to
stop and get some coffee and maybe something to eat. Night
time is a good time to drive through Utah's southern desert,
there's less traffic and it's cooler then. I was familiar
with the area so I wasn't missing any of its spectacular beauty.
Besides that, the desert at night has its own peculiar type of
beauty.
One tanker was getting fuel at the diesel pumps
when I pulled in the truck stop's parking lot. Other than
that, the lot was empty. I drove around the pumps and
parked near the entrance.
Inside the doorway was a convenience store that
carried everything fromfuel filters and mufflers to cheese
niblets and sacks of red licorice. The cashier's stand was
by the door. I nodded at the cashier who looked sleepy and
ignored me as I turned left and walked down the hallway into the
cafe. I sat at the counter. There was an ashtray close so I
lit a cigarette as the waitress brought over a glass of water and
a coffe pot.
A name tag pinned to her blouse informed me this
was Donna. It had been at least three weeks since I'd seen
anyone that looked nicer than Donna. "Hi. Do you take
cream with your coffee or need a menu?"
"No thanks. I don't need either, but I
would take some bacon and eggs with wheat toast."
She scribbled the order down on her pad.
"You're up awful early. Did you have a late date?"
"Naw. I keep odd hours. Like you
I work nights. Tonight's my night off."
The truck driver came in with a coffee thermos as
Donna turned my order in to the cook. He sat at the counter
four stools away and looked at me like I had clumsily stumbled
into him or like I was in his way. He didn't actually sneer
at me, but acted preoccupied and I was disturbing his thinking
processes. He was a regular and knew Donna well.
"Hi, Sugar. When are we gonna skip
over to Vegas and get married?"
Donna poured him some coffee and smiled.
"Hi, Sam. The day you get a better paying job.
One where you're not gone from home seven days a week. That truck
you drive might be your home, but after an hour two people inside
it becomes a crowd. You headed for the mines?"
"Sure. Got a load of nitrate on for 'em.
Where's Ed and Rick? I don't see their rig outside.
They passed me on the road a half hour ago. We were
supposed to meet here before going to the mines. They
couldn't have already fueled up. Have you seen them?"
"Nope. They haven't been in yet."
"That's kinda curious. I know they had
to fuel up . . . not twenty minutes ago I was talking to Ed on
the CB. Up until ten minutes before I pulled in here I was
following their tailights."
"Yours is the only rig that's been in for
awhile, Sam."
Donna rinsed the driver's thermos out and filled
it with hot water. She refilled Sam's cup and then mine.
Behind her the cook set a plate of food on the shelf between them
and hollered: "Order up!" She placed the
coffee pot on the burner then put the food before me. Then
the phone behind the counter rang and she answered it.
She listened for a few moments getting a
concerned look on her face staring at Sam. "The call's
for you, Sam. It's your dispatcher." He stood up
and took the phone from her. Donna wandered down the aisle
toward me and murmured in a low tone: "There's been an
accident."
Sam put the receiver to his ear and said hello
then he listened for a few minutes. "What? That
can't be . . . but I was ahead of them on the road, their truck
passed me on the flats, well past Sister's Sorrow . . . Yes, John.
I swear it! Rick was driving because Ed and I looked right
at each other and waved as they went by! . . . John, they can't
be dead! Right after they passed me, Ed and I got on the CB
and were talking! The last thing he said to me was I'll see
you at Red Rock, keep it between the lines." . . . No, I
haven't been on the road too long and I didn't imagine this! . .
. Ok, Ok. First though I'll drop my load off at the mine and then
come in. Yes, Yes, I'm all right. Ok, Bye."
Sam hung the phone up then turned and looked at
us. His gaze seemed to go about a thousand yards beyond us
though. "Something real curious is going on here, I'd
like to know what the damned hell it is. John says that Ed
and Rick were killed this morning at Sister's Sorrow. The
office found this out when the Highway Patrol called in to notify
them of the accident.
It's like I told him though, I saw their truck
and talked with Ed after the fact . . . it must be somebody else.
Fill my thermos up, Donna. I gotta roll outta here and find
out what's actually happened."
The driver tried to pay for the thermos of coffee
but Donna wouldn't accept any money for it. On his way out
the door she told him: "Stay cool, Sam. Drive safe."
I'd finished my breakfast and when Donna brought
my bill I asked her: "What's Sister's Sorrow?"
"It's the place where the highway winds down
out of the canyon onto the flats. Right where the road
turns sits a high mountain of solid rock that stands a good
eighty feet high or so. It's about fifty miles north of
here, if you're travelling north you'll see the place.
There's a long steep stretch coming down and it's a bad place for
trucks to lose their air brakes on.
The truckers call it Sister's Sorrow because back
in '94, in '86 and 1972, three truckers lost their lives in
accidents there when they blew an air line. Sounds likes it's
happened again."
I finished my coffee, left Donna a four dollar
tip under the cup, paid for my meal and left the truck stop.
An hour later I started into the turn going up the canyon.
The fire was out now but a fire truck, a semi wrecker, and four
highway patrol cars were still at the site. One officer was
in the road directing what traffic there was around the mess.
Everyone else was trying to figure out how they were going to get
the tanker off its side and upright again.
What was left of the truck cab was a charred,
smashed and tangled mess of crushed metal that not even Kenworth
could recognize as being their own. I drove by the accident
site slowly and carefully and recognized what was left of the
trailer as having the same kind of markings on it that Sam's
truck had on his.
I kept on driving up into the hills.
Someone once said that there are things that are known and things
that are unknown, in between are doors. Most of the time those
doors are closed and we can consider ourselves lucky their shut.
I think Sam drove through one of those doors earlier that morning.
If you ever find yourself standing before one of
those doors but it won't open, and if you really really think you
want to see what's on the other side of it . . . try knocking.
This story is based on an actual incident
that happened in the Utah desert a number of years ago to the
author's uncle, a long haul trucker, who followed another truck
that had passed him for over fifty miles only to learn later that
the truck had never reached the point it had passed him, having
been in an accident in which the drivers were killed. Another
interesting point that is not brought up in the story: after
refueling and back on the road, the trucker glanced behind him in
the sleeper compartment and saw a pair of legs wearing Levis and
workboots sticking out. This trucker always locked his cab when
refueling so there was no way a hitchhiker could have snuck in.
He pulled over, got out and checked the tires and whatever had
been sleeping in the cab was gone whan he got back in.