Story of my life

I was l5 year old when I left home, a vagabond, riding the rails, hitchhiking, the highways and byways of the country. I traveled to the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, from the seashores of the East to the seashores of the West. It was on one of those excursions leaving San Francisco in fear of my life. I headed east in the direction of Reno, Nevada. Springtime and winter had not yet touched the cottonwood trees, I spent three and a half days coming down the Sierra Nevada range from Donor Summit. It was cold and rainy as I reached the outskirts of Reno, I had been without food since exiting the bay area. I made a race to the rail yards to catch a freight heading east. Unfortunately, luck was not on my side, the railroad bulls collared me which sent me packing, but not before guiding me to a highway that was not well traveled. The rain had ceased, replaced with a headwind. I stood there for a couple of hours and was about to give up, when a very old blue pickup truck stopped to offer me a lift. I peered in at the driver; he was a very old Indian man, with deep set black eyes, gray hair that appeared to be tossed by the wind into frenzy. His face was pot marked, accompanied by wrinkles that told a story all by themselves. I accepted, threw my gear in the rear and got in. He asked, "where ya' headin' son?" I didn't know, I hadn't thought it out, so I blurted out "Chicago" No more was said, and I fell into a sound sleep that was interrupted by the potholes in the old highway. I awoke with a start, but in time to see a shooting star pass in front of a full moon, with a heading, south to North. "Hey Mister, look there, it's a shooting Star." He said nothing, and then within a minute no more than two seconds came another Shooting Star, this time passing from South to North. The weathered face Indian, stopped the truck, parked, looked at me and said ; "The story you're about to hear son, will stay with you the rest of your life, you may lose it to memory, but one day soon you'll write about it. The story may take a year or it may take fifty, but you'll surely write it when the time comes." What was this old Indian man telling me, I was a high school dropout; I was surely not a writer by any stretch of the imagination. I listened to his story, I hung on his every word, the engine was off, the cool of the night had crept into the cab so I listened. For over two hours I listened to a story about a UFO abduction of a man. A story of a man in the 1930's was riding his horse in the desert in search of the boys lost horse. When he finished, he started the truck and we proceeded east on a vacant highway, we traveled for another two hours. He stopped his truck and said to me with no emotion,"here's where I turn off son, you'll be gettin' out here." The windswept desert, tumbleweeds blew across the highway unabated. "Wait, you can't put me out here in the middle of this damned desert mister, I ain't got no water, no food, nothing, there ain't been a car nor truck for hours now, I'll die out here, without water Mister." "No you won't Son ya' got a story to write, just hunker down by the fence in behind them tumbleweeds and they'll break the wind." He was pointing to his right, I turned and followed his finger, beyond the fence a rise of light illuminated, and I knew even if he put me out, I could hike to the town beyond the hill and get water and beg for food. So I got out of the truck, baggage included and did as he had suggested; I hunkered down in my sleeping bag along the fence and slept the night away. When morning arrived, I waited for someone to pass, but they didn't pass, so I started the hike to the crest of the hill beyond, I followed where I had seen his taillights disappear over the crest of the hills. It was much further than I anticipated, but, I finally crested the hill and looked down expecting to find a town or a village, all that was down there was the old Indian's blue pickup and a large circular burnt area with a rock pyramid erected in the center. Instantly I recalled the scene I had heard the previous evening, running back to the highway, sweat my only alliance and fear joined in. Many years later I was serving a sentence in a federal prison, and was writing a story "THE EMERALD TRIANGLE" a trilogy. Midway in the story, I had a sudden urge to remove the sheet of paper and replace it with another one and typed RUN, BOBBY, RUN. It was at that moment that the Old Indian's story blossomed back from the past. Now you know how the story began. Love Dick