Day Seventy, His Mighty Wrath

I woke up early, alarmingly so, some time before seven o'clock. It seems my carefully concealed camping spot was not too far from a sort of factory where they crush rocks into dust. It's a noisy and rather frightening process, that. But it is important work and it needs to be done.

There was thunder and lightning just overhead. It rained off and on through the night. I guess I slept through the best of it. The noise of a nearby highway drowned it out. It was still cloudy when I set out on the road. I try to be glad for small favors. But when I finished my breakfast the sun was back. My computer said eighty-five. I tend to think it was hotter than that. I was sweating like an nervous monkey.

Just as Billings sprawls out to the east, it sprawls to the west as well. That is something of a blessing believe it or don't. I like to stay near civilisation. I found a laundromat some miles in, which is where you find me now. From here I load up with food for two days and two and a half gallons of water. It is 42 miles to Hardin, Montana. I've already put in eight or ten. It is going to be a hot dry stretch, much of it on Interstate 90. God knows what bad decisions led me to this. Perhaps I'm being punished for something. Good intentions alone are never rewarded. Good intentions are all I have.

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I am still at my last outpost, holed up in a Subway of all unfortunate places. It is a chain that has ruined the American sandwhich, but they're keeping me fed, I guess. I ate one of the plasticky things and stuffed another deep in my bag. Maybe it will taste better tomorrow, flattened and curdled a bit. A rainstorm is raging just out of doors. I am glad to be inside. Even on a ridiculously uncomfortable chair with the smell of chemically disinfected vegetables about. I still gots to buy me some crackers and Gatorade; then my pack's going to weigh a ton. Then it's out on the highway for my regular interview with the brave men of the State Patrol.

On a brighter note, I did get my computer recharged. Loitering has its privileges.

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God looks after drunkards and fools, but first He likes to get their attention. I left my last truck stop with a fifty-pound pack and hiked off into the unknown. That forty-odd mile stretch of praire where awaited by destiny. I must say I was not too happy about it, but I was determined to give it a try. I had prepared about as well as I could. The rest was up to the Fates.

A comfortable road took me up to I-90 where it veers off from I-94. My pack was heavy but my intentions were good. My feet hurt but I'm used to that. The girl who had made my sandwich was walking home. I passed her like she was standing still.

And I was still gaining speed when I rounded the corner. Then the road took off straight uphill. But I was shielded from the sun by thick grey clouds, swirling and beautiful. I felt optimistic in my own sour way. I was determined to do fifteen miles.

I do my best walking when it is threatening to rain. I am not altogether sure why. To my right the sky was green and black. To the left was more of the same. But ahead the sky was clear and blue. I was not worried at all.

Or not much, at least. I have had good luck avoiding the storms. When they hit they pass quickly, in a minute or two. The worst rains happen at night. And a few drops of rain can't hurt me at all. They wash the sweat from my brow.

And as I walked up more hills the lightning was pretty. I could see where it hit the ground. And the thunder was loud and immediate. There was no waiting at all. I congratulated myself on my bravery and composed a few sentences for my evening report. I've since forgotten them but they were good. Something about comic book superheroes, and how we are so much alike.

Now I make frequent reference to my being afraid. I do not exagerate at all. But it is a quiet, constant sort of fear that most men would term mere unease. But when the storm on my left met the storm on my right, I was scared out of my cotton-picking mind. It was a m-m-m-mama kind of afraid. Check the tape, you may hear me whimpering.

The sheets of rain did not get to me. I have been through proper monsoons. And the icy cold was a welcome change. It would be warm again soon enough. I guess it was probably the lightning strikes, not on the surrounding hills but down on my very same plane. It never got closer than a few hundred yards, but I could see which way it was heading. And there was too a real threat of hail, which in Montana can knock you goofy.

It would have been a great place for an overpass or a culvert, or one of those bomb shelters which were so popular in the late Fifties and are just again gaining ground. But there were none. Had a car happened by I would have gladly hopped in but I was at this point on a gravel road, very little travelled.

So when I spotted a house I lit out across their field, rather squorshing my man parts on the way over the fence. I didn't care (I do now), I was emboldened. I made my way to their front door.

Says my walking friend Anthony, there is a popular alternative to the traditional NO TRESPASSING sign which reads, IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU'RE IN RANGE. It as not that Montanans are less hospitable than your average American. If anything they are more so. But whereas in the suburbs we grow accustomed to all manner of religious fanatics and Girl Scouts showing up at our doors, it is different here in the country. Houses are few and far between. You can see a car coming for miles. They are not pestered by the odd Fuller Brush man. You wonder why they even have doorbells.

But I rang it and delivered my speech, reproduced here in its entirety: HellomynameisJamesIamwalkingacrossAmericacanIstandinyourshedorbarnorsomethinguntilthestormpassesover?

Turned out I could. I was welcomed into the warmth of Deb and Dave's three car garage and plied with Pepsi cola. Deb kindly offered to make me a sandwich. Dave offered me a beer. Deb washed my socks. They are awfully nice people. God bless America.

I was quickly convinced to put my tent up here. There's breakfast on my horizon. I had planned on walking; I turned down the beer. I have since made that right, too. And it is good beer, too, with some character. God bless America.

As it stands, things could not have turned out better. I am in great shape to continue my journey. I am two even days from Hardin, Montana and I will leave here with plenty of water and a full stomach. And I've got dogs to play with and it ain't buggy at all. And I may get to make friends with their llamas.

God bless America.


ONE LLAMA they call Dalai or Dolly, I did not stop to ask which. I think you'd have to be Richard Gere to resist that kind of temptation. Tony, sadly, has passed away. There is no Rama Llama Ding Dong.

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