Midnight in Wyoming

Sometimes the bikini would glow in the dark. The fading photo of Ray’s wife on the beach was duct-taped to the dashboard under the dangling rosary. She was prettier in real life. The bikini was orange against a blue honeymoon evening. It seemed to glow on the darkest nights.  

Some things you don’t tell people because you know they won’t believe you. Some things yout don’t want to believe. 

A while back, Ray sat in a fluorescent room with a few other truckers, waiting to get piss-tested for a new job.

He started talking with a guy named Leon about guns and guitars, and soon the conversation turned to good stories. Leon told about seeing sasquatch out on his family orchard in Oklahoma. One night his dogs were going wild and come morning half the apples had disappeared. At dusk, the dogs started howling again, and, so Leon set them loose. They came back whimpering with their tails between their legs, ran up and pissed on his feet. Leon grabbed his gun and went to investigate. He found giant footprints in the mud. Then he looked up and saw a huge, hairy figure standing at the edge of the woods staring at him. The thing screamed. 

Leon had a hard time describing the sound. He said it seemed like it was inside his head or under his skin, but from the trees birds flew in fright. Then the creature dropped to all-fours, turned and ran into the roods. Leon tried to cover up the tracks, so his daughters wouldn’t see, but they had heard the scream. The next morning Leon woke up to his daughters screaming at something they saw out the window. 

“Yeah, I saw a black bear once too,” said another trucker from the back of the room. That roused a chuckle from the other listeners who had been pretending to look at their phones. 

“No one ever believes me,” Leon said, grinning slyly.

These things are fun to think about, under the lights of civilization. People have bumper stickers that say “Big Foot doesn’t believe in you either.” It’s a joke. A funny joke, assuming there is no Big Foot. Nothing out there in the night you couldn’t find on Google.

One cloudless night in late-Summer, Ray’s headlights were swallowing moonshine down a stretch of two-lane road in western Wyoming at witching hour. Above the rolling black hills, the stars would have been dazzling except for a full moon glowing. Ray hadn’t passed another car or seen any other light upon the prairie in hours. Now and then, a deer flashed by peering at him with glowing eyes or a fox pup dashed into the blue sage brush on the side of the road. 

He had started the day sleep deprived in mid afternoon, but he wasn’t tired now. Stiff coffee, cigarettes, and mildly infuriating talk radio are to a man as diesel is to a truck. Even so, sometimes his eyes would play tricks with the shadows, making something out of nothing. Then he would crank down the radio and talk to Doug, the dog, who lounged in the shotgun seat.  But tonight Doug could not be bothered. 

With a sigh of resignation, Ray noticed that the map on his fancy new navigator had lapsed in signal. Then, cresting a hill, the highway disappeared from under the truck. Eighteen tires growled on gravel, as Ray throbbed the brake pedal and Doug struggled to maintain his seat. Tractor and trailer bounced to a stop over an unkempt road. The rosary smacked against the windshield wildly, and Ray caught it in his fist. Dust drifted through the headlights, revealing a decrepit, one-lane road receding into blackness, crumbling into tall grass on both sides.

A trucker should see road signs instinctively, but somehow Ray had missed a turn. Standing at attention, Doug considered the monstrous road. “Well Doug, how are we going to get turned around?” 

Ahead to the left, beyond the brittle pool of headlights, Ray saw a gravel drive leading to a few mobile homes strewn across the moonlit prairie. Cautiously, he rolled the truck forward, listening to the tires and pondering what space there might be to turn around. Grumbling, Ray turned the tractor down the gravel drive. The truck didn’t sink into the gravel, but there was not enough space to turn around. Doug glanced at Ray, grimly. Ray groaned. He had to back the trailer jackknifed on his blind-side. All in a day’s work for a trucker, except for the unknown terrain under the tall grass. Slowly he began backing the tight turn, and quickly lost sight of his trailer wheels. Inspecting the maneuver in the passenger mirror, Doug’s big head provided another obstacle.

Ray knew he should get out and look. He looked around at the mobile homes. They appeared long uninhabited, beaten in by wind and many winters. With a loud hiss, Ray set the air brakes. He nudged Doug out of the way, opened the passenger door, and climbed into the night. The stillness was surprising. Living on highways, true silence is rare. Ray listened with the same intensity Doug sniffed the warm air. The scent of summer sage hung rich and sweet. Ray inhaled deeply. Soon it would be winter, and his breath would freeze in his nostrils. 

Back to work, Ray studied the grass illuminated in the red trailer taillights, probably concealing a ditch. Breaking the stillness, his boot crunched the gravel, but he was stopped by a shiver down his spine.

The air chilled and a thick scent of death made Ray suddenly sick to his stomach. From over his shoulder, Doug growled. First low, then building to a raging snarl. Ray turned and followed the dog’s glaring gaze. 

Standing by one of the mobile home, barely backlit by the moon, loomed a tall, skinny figure. Doug burst into a fit of barking. The figure congealed into the murk. 

Ray pulled himself back in the cab, pushing aside the livid dog, slammed the door and slid back behind the wheel. 

He looked again, but saw nothing. He tried to laugh it off. But Doug spasmed and whined in fits of fury unlike anything he’d ever done before. The clinging odor of death seemed to be filling the cab. Stomach heaving, heart pounding, Ray released the air brake, slammed shifter in reverse, and punched the accelerator. The trailer flopped down in the ditch and bounced back onto the road. Deftly whipped round, the tractor lurched back toward the highway. Doug regained composure as he fought to maintain balance. 

Ray looked in his mirror. Something was following, lit by the red tail lights. It walked quickly on long legs and then bent down and loped on all-fours, with joints turned backward like a spider or a man crab walking with his head turned backward. It moved with unreal speed, its long black limbs lit more red as it came rapidly closer. Terror struck Ray like a punch in the gut. He hammered down on the gas and the truck careened back onto the highway. 

With the truck gaining speed, Ray saw in the mirror that black writhing thing recede from the red taillight glow and finally dissolve into the dark. Doug was watching his mirror, still snarling. 

Ahead, a tower of lights snapped Ray’s eyes back to the road. At first, he thought it was a crucifix—not an uncommon sight out in the vast midnight in Wyoming. But as he got closer, the lights became a jumble. Probably a power plant.  

Heart pounding, Ray laughed and whistled and said soothing things to Doug and checked his mirror. From the corner of his eye, he was not surprised to see the bikini glowing orange. 

Two baby deer appeared in the headlights. Again, Ray slammed on the brakes, and Doug toppled into the dashboard. The truck hissed to a halt. The two fawns gazed into the blasting light and didn’t budge. The rosary clattering against the windshield.

Doug quickly recovered, and hopped back in his seat and stared down at the innocent obstacles. Their eyes shined green and yellow. Ray gently rolled the truck forward. The fawns looked away and ambled casually off the highway. 

Ray caught the swinging rosary. He clenched his jaw. Doug perked his ears. Ray set the brakes and snatched the rosary from where it hung. He opened the door and stepped down onto the road. Doug hopped over to the driver’s seat testing the air, listening. Ray reached up and flipped off the lights and the engine, so there was only silence and moonlight. He turned and faced the darkness. 

They waited. Ray made the Sign of the Cross with the rosary.

Something was coming down the road. An old evil thing. But it stopped. As his eyes adjusted, Ray might have seen it looming at the top of a hill.  

A warm breeze blew. Ray saw a car’s headlights washing over the hilltop. He climbed back in the cab, closed the door, flipped the lights, and started the truck. 

Back up to speed, as the taillights of the passing car receded, Ray was glad his trailer was empty. Had it been full, it would be a mess, for sure. Trucker and dog shared a glance. Doug turned and sat and watched the road ahead. 

Ray remembered something else that guy Leon had said to the other truckers looking at their phones. “Someday y’all won’t believe in stars because all you see is gaslight.” 

Once, a long time ago, a girlfriend told Ray about a friend, a Native American girl, who saw something in the night. What it was she couldn’t say, because it should not be named. “Big Foot doesn’t believe in you either,” Ray thought, and he laughed nervously, triumphantly. It might take till daybreak for him to convince himself he hadn’t seen anything. What else was there to do? It would make a great story, but no one would believe him.