Extra Indians. Eric Gansworth

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      “We met in the war, and though Liza Jean could never understand how that could make you stay connected to someone, I admit it’s more complicated than that. It never starts out complicated. If a familiar face is all you got, that is what you go with. Fred was the only one I recognized from basic.” I laughed a little and she tried to laugh, too. “I’m not for sure when we moved from being friendly to being friends, probably around the time I saved his ass, though.” She was gone again. Sometimes her eyes would follow something at the roadside and if I had ever offered to stop, she would have been out there in a second, wandering in the snow.

      She probably didn’t need to hear this kind of stuff, anyway. I’ve been to the Trinity Site in New Mexico, where those first atomic tests were done, and of course have gone and found some of my buddies up on the wall in D.C., but I have always wondered what that Hiroshima museum must be like. I hear they have a watch there, a pocket watch or wristwatch, I am not for sure which, that survived the blast, but stopped ticking at that exact moment the bomb went off. Everyone should see that. I bet this lady has. Even if she hasn’t been to that museum itself, she’s seen it. It’s the same way you can see the name of someone you knew, who never came home from Vietnam, written neatly in that black surface, you can feel the depths of those etched names under your fingers, as you run them across, even if you have never been down to see it in person, to stand in front of the wall. That is the nature of the way we lose some things in our lives.

      “We’re here,” I said.

      “Fargo? Here?” the girl asked, gathering up her little backpack.

      “Yeah, you just hang on, missy. I got to find somewhere reasonable for you to stay.” Fargo can be a bad scene, and that was all this girl needed, to let the wrong person see her. If she still wanted to continue her crazy search in the morning, that was her business, but for my part, I got her to safety and it was time for me to make my yearly trip to the designated wide-open skies. Fargo would have been okay for me any other night of the year but the light pollution would be too strong for my purposes that night. Coming into it, or really coming into any of the cities at night, was like flying into Phu Bai that first time. The firebases, and particularly the rear, just seemed to be begging for enemy fire, all lighted up in the dark jungles like that, but the NVA could never get it together enough to go that deep into our territory without getting caught. These hot spots in the dark Dakota winter also drew all sorts of their own trouble, with the promises of alternatives, and this girl would not be able to make it on her own, I was sure.

      I know, she had made it all the way from Japan to the Twin Cities and then on to Bismarck in the first place, so who was I, telling her she couldn’t make it? But like I said, Fargo is a tough place. The Mainline just off 94 was pretty decent, continental breakfast, you know, bad coffee and stale doughnuts, but it was something to eat, if you wanted it, and you could actually see the river from some of the rooms there. It would be fine for her, and besides, I really had to get a move on if I was going to make Detroit Lakes in the time I wanted. I don’t know why she didn’t just fly to Fargo in the first place, but she must have had her reasons for doing the things she was doing. Everyone does, whether you agree with them or not.

      “You just head right in there, where it says office, o-f-f-i-c-e, see?” I said, pointing to the glowing sign above the lobby door, “and they’ll take care of you. Tell them, one night.” I held up my pointer finger again, this time, straight up, and tried to get her to do the same. I touched her hand and folded the other fingers under, into a fist, and then she got it.

      “Come?” she asked. Actually, I only assumed she was asking, as about all of her brief sentences seemed to be questions. She might have been commanding, for all I know.

      “Uh, no.” I shook my head and reached over, opening her door for her. “I got things to do tonight, and I gotta get a move on, if I’m gonna make it. Now you watch your step getting out. There’s a little platform for you there, watch. Don’t fall.” She just sat there, the cold wind blowing in and filling up my cab with the smells of Fargo, industry, greasy food, diesel, the works. I never drive with a coat on, so I reached back over her, shut the door, grabbed my jacket from behind me, and hopped out myself, climbing on up on the passenger’s side and reopening the door.

      We were beginning to draw some attention from inside the lobby. The night manager even lifted his remote and I assumed turned down the volume on his little television set. I guess what we were doing was more interesting than the goings-on in a black-and-white Mayberry. I had a sense it might turn out to be a good thing, later, that the night manager saw her refusing to come down from my cab. Now, when I’m alone on the drive and need to take a leak, I do what most do and just use Ziplocs until I come to a convenient service area to dump the full bags. You get agile with the trick after years of practice but I was guessing that would be a bit impolite with my passenger. I also wanted that night manager to know my passenger was with me not only willingly, but defiantly, so he’d be able to say so with certainty if authorities started asking after the circumstances of that evening. I just had a sense I was already into something a lot deeper than I had planned to be. So I went in and asked if I could use their john and gave him the quick rundown, suggesting she might be back in a cab later on.

      I didn’t have time for this kind of nonsense. I already had the key to the place I’d reserved for the next couple of nights, had them mail it to me when I paid in advance. It had been sitting in the upper compartment of my truck’s cab for almost a month. As soon as the astronomers had made their predictions, I had picked up the phone and made a couple calls. I got lucky on the second try. Though they tend to be booked up solid for summer by mid-March, there’s not a lot of winter demand for those little cabins around Detroit Lakes, and they were just the sort of thing I was looking for.

      “Look, miss. I really need to get a move on. I’m running late. My load don’t need to be to the Twin Cities until tomorrow, but I have got to get going, and I won’t be making a stop back this way again. This here is the place you wanted to be. This is it.” The coat she wore wasn’t much, looked more like a spring jacket than anything else, maybe even silk, bright pink. She shivered as I stood in the door holding my hand out to her, all the time watching my dashboard clock too. I was about out of hand gestures other than the “come here” motion and to point to the ground.

      “How save friend ass?” she said.

      “What?” Her voice had been so quiet, the wind almost took all of it away, but I knew that she was speaking relatively coherent English. I had not imagined her fluency. She held her shoulders close, looking down into her lap. The map was gone, I guess, into her bag. I shut the door, shrugged my shoulders at the night manager through the big plate glass doors, and he shrugged his shoulders back and returned to Mayberry. I went around and climbed into my seat.

      “His life. There was no donkey involved. It doesn’t matter. Really. In the end, I don’t guess I did a very good job of it anyway,” I said, looking out in the yellow-gray night of Fargo.

      “Where . . . now . . . friend?” Yeah, I know it sounds like I’m mocking her, but I remember the few words she spoke to me, clearly. She did understand English pretty well, it seemed, but the way she spoke it was in these long, long pauses, and big chunks of clumsy language. Why she didn’t speak before, to me or to the troopers, I do not have an answer for.

      “I have to go. Missy, I am guessing you have a pretty good idea of what I’m saying after all, and you’re welcome to come with me. I’m sure there’s plenty of room where I’m staying, and I promise, I will not lay a hand on you. I got other things on my mind tonight, anyways, but if you do not get out of this cab in the next minute, I am pulling out, and this will be the last you see of Fargo with me.”

      “Where friend?”

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