Tedi flew through the night.

            Cool, early morning air drifted into the cabin through the open windows as she hummed along with the radio and kept her eyes on the road ahead. Night meant lean traffic along the four lane she whipped along.

            “Should be smooth sailing, Jimbo.” Tedi reached over and scratched her pup’s back.

In the passenger seat Jim lolled with his head leaning out the window.

            Clear weather did little to illuminate the moonless night. Stars glowed, but created a black tableau just outside the realm of her headlights.

            In the distance she could just make out another pair of tail lights climbing a hill.

            Tedi smiled.

            The road flowed beneath her wheels. She hoped to knock out another three hundred miles before she needed to stop to drain a tank and fill another. Her beast rumbled contently beneath her feet as she fed Gertrude a touch of gas and picked up speed on the flat between the two hills.

            For a few miles she carved alongside a stream. On occasion she caught sight of the water as her headlights slipped beyond the guard rail.

            Then she curved away and began to climb after the tail lights that had disappeared over the ridge a few minutes before. On one side a forest crept up to flank the road in a tight embrace. The other shoulder dropped away to eventually afford a clear view of the vaguely starlit valley.

            Tedi pulled her phone from the bracket and leaning on the wheel with her elbow shot a text off.

            She stretched and tossed the phone in the passenger seat and Jim rolled his head to look back at her with the sad, judgmental eyes of a hound. With a sheepish grin, Tedi reached over and scratched him behind the ear.

            The CB crackled.

            The noise caught Tedi off guard. Rarely did anyone use the CB anymore, even though most trucks still carried them. Only immediate information ever came over the waves. Just like the common folk living their lives outside the arteries most drivers lived on their phones. They just tried to be careful.

            “Bear,” the CB coughed. “You still tailin’ me? Over.”

            Tedi pulled down the handset from the set strapped to the roof and leaned forward to peer into the night as she said, “Last I saw, Rover. Over.”

            She smiled at the word play.

            Tedi waited. No response came.

            “Rover, you got smoke? Over,” she asked.

            “Negs on the smokes, Bear. I just hit somethin’ and I’m pulled off. Any chance you got some miles to donate and help me check this out? Over.”

            Glancing at the clock, Tedi ran some rough calculations. “I got a few miles to spare. Where’d you pull? Over.”

            “Half past 617. Over.”

            “Two ticks out. Over.”

            “What you think that’s about?” Tedi asked Jim. The hound cocked his head and flashed his sad, droopy eyes. “If he just hit a deer or such, Rover would only stop if there was damage that kept him from rolling on.”

            Tedi squinted into the dim night beyond the reach of her headlights. “Even then,” she said as she glanced over at Jim. “He might push on to the next stop if his rig still rolled.

            “Something’s got him spooked.”

            She crested the hilltop and took in the murky countryside laid out before her. In the distant darkness she made out the flashing hazards of Rover’s rig.

            Pulling the CB from over her head she clicked the button. “Runnin’ just over a minute from you.” She held the radio in her hand and waited, half expecting a reply. As she stared at the approaching tail lights she tapped a slender finger against the plastic of the CB mic.

            “What are we gettin’ ourselves into, Jim?”

            Downshifting, Tedi slowed her rig and pulled to a stop about fifty yards back from Rover’s. Her headlights just barely illuminated the back of his trailer. For a moment she sat and studied the trailer. Nothing stood out.

            Pulling the handle and kicking her door open, Tedi climbed down from her cab. She stretched her back and flipped her long braids over her shoulder. With a click of her tongue she motioned for Jim to join her. She reached up behind her seat and pulled out a heavy metal flashlight.

            The hogs squealed in her trailer, indignant at the interruption of their evening.

            “Wonder what’s got his panties in a twist?” she asked Jim as she slammed her door shut and headed towards her friend’s rig.

            “Rover,” she called out into the dark night.

            Halfway between the two trucks Tedi stopped and listened. The two rigs purred, like primeval cats. Their rumble drowned out most of the usual night sounds Tedi knew danced in the darkness.

            She played her flashlight over the blacktop.

            Rover’s hazards played over her lean face as she studied the ground. No skids, no blood smears … the hit must have been glancing. She wondered why Rover had asked her to stop if the hit lacked any real damage. Hefting the flashlight, Tedi looked at the back of the trailer. Nothing stood out, just a sticker asking, ‘Do You Follow Jesus This Close?’ and about two thousand miles of road grit.

             “Rover, where you at?” she called out as she swung around the shoulder side of the trailer.

            Jim trailed along at her heels. As she stepped around the corner of the trailer he froze. A deep growl slipped from low in his gut. Tedi snapped the flashlight back to his shadowed face and then she zeroed the light in the direction he glowered.

            “Easy, boy.” She drifted back to his side and rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.

            The hackles on the floppy eared bloodhound stood stiff. Tedi stood still. Something in the deep brush shifted and Jim tensed.

            “What is it?” she whispered.

            Jim eased back. Tedi read the tension poised in the tremor running up his flank.

            “Stay,” she commanded and drifted down the length of the truck without taking her eyes from the wall of greenery. Jim dropped down at the back end of the truck, lying flat without taking his eyes from whatever spooked him.

            She made the cab without taking her eyes from the darkness and opened the passenger door. The truck idled but sat empty. A grimace crossed her face as the door clicked closed. Slipping around the front of the rig, she squinted into the headlights, trying to make out any damage to the fender or grill that would have forced Rover off the road. Only when she stepped back and shielded her eyes did she notice the smear of dark offal staining the lower edge.

            Tedi moved in close, but recoiled as the smell punched her in the face. “What did you clip, Rover?” she asked herself. Steeling herself she leaned back in and played the flashlight over the chunked offal decorating the fender in a generous smear.

            “That’s awful,” she said, fighting back the gorge rising in her throat.

            Her eyes tracked a smear of the same viscous fluid trailing from the front of the truck down the slight drainage ditch. Beyond a portion of the vegetation lay trampled. Tedi frowned. Her gaze drifted back to the bumper. She froze. Smeared in the thickening ooze, a hand print stood frozen in tableau.

            Something drifted in the thicket off the road.

            Tedi’s head snapped around, trying to locate the source.

            “Rover,” she called out, trying to sound confident. “This ain’t funny. There’s no real damage a wash won’t fix, unless you got something jammed in your unders. I didn’t see anything to that end though.

            “I’m just going to leave you to whatever it is you’re doin’ out there in the woods,” she said as she moved around the truck and quick walked back to where Jim continued to lie on the ground, growling in the direction of the rustling. “Just make sure a rattler don’t nip your nethers while you’re playin’ out there.”

            She patted Jim on the head and backstepped to her own rig. The dark swallowed everything outside the scope of her headlights, but just as she set to round her truck Tedi swore a pair of eyes blinked back at her.

            A soft swear slipped and she all but ran back to her cab. Whipping open her door, she shot a quick whistle at Jim. The hound had stopped at the corner of the truck and continued to growl into the darkness. A second whistle caught his attention and with a running hop he vaulted into the truck cab.

            Tedi followed and without taking her eyes from the darkness she threw the truck in gear. Flowing through the lower gears she gained momentum and only when she hit cruising speed did she begin to breathe again.