Chapter 1

August 20th, 1990

I am on the road headed west from Iowa.

Eventually, I will reach Tacoma, Washington.

My name is Mike; I am 6' 6" tall and weigh approximately 250 lbs. I use to work hard as a teen on my Grandpa's farm, milked cows by hand, clean out buildings with a pitch fork. Shovel endless tons of manure using a #16 scoop. In high school, I was 207 and lean and in shape. I went away to the Marines, on June 5th, 1965 and became one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children.

I came home from Viet Nam in February of 1969 after serving a little over a year in the Hue/Phu-Bai area as NCOIC of the Hue/Phu-Bai Airport. I had a short timer Lt. Col over me as CO and he really didn't care much what went on. He just had to finish his tour and get out. He had been passed over for promotion a couple of times.

I came home to go to college in the fall of 1969, if you read any of my other stories; they will fill in some of the details. This tale is a little about the end of a 19 year marriage to a tall, skinny redhead I met in my last two years of college.

It is a story about a man and his new love and his new lover.

Some of it is true and some is made up to improve my aging memories so that when they consign my sorry carcass to the Rolling Vegetable Stand, I will have some pleasant memories that I hope I can ruminate about in my pigeon hole as I wait to go meet my Maker. Soon, very soon, I hope.

This is a slow story with a long build up. There is very little sex in it. With that said, please enjoy.

A big Thank You to my editor Emeraldfae for making this story much more readable.

All constructive comments and emails are welcome. All haters will just be deleted out of hand so don't waste your time and energy.

With that we begin.

Cheers...

The reasons for the divorce of my tall, skinny redheaded wife and I, is why I am on the road now going toward Tacoma.

One day after my Father's funeral, Dearly Beloved, Redheaded wife told me that we needed to talk. As most husbands know after 19 years of marriage, those words boded no good news for me. To say that I was shocked by the content of the TALK would be an understatement.

"You need to move out, I don't love you anymore and frankly I can't stand the sight of you." She said.

From that point on for the next month, she would say nothing to me and to say things were cold would be an understatement. Needless to say, I didn't take things at face value, and tried to find out what was going on. I tried to talk to our Pastor, he claimed that he knew nothing and was just as much in the dark as I was. He said she refused to discuss it with him as well. Everywhere I turned, I was confronted with a wall of ignorance or lies; someone had to know what was going on. I probably should have asked my two sons, years later I was to find out, that they actually knew the reason. They were only 13 and 10 at the time and I was trying to shield them and not draw them into the problem. I continued to believe that it was probably something that I had done. Hey, you know how it is. From the time you say "I do." you are almost certainly guilty of something in your wife's eyes. I was in love with her and up till the TALK; we had been actively making love 2 - 3 times a day. As I look back now, it was just me getting off and her just laying there. May be that was the reason, Nah, not me; I was the world's greatest lover, at least in my own mind.

Finally I came to the conclusion that there was no point to continue and I decided to do what she wanted. I moved out. I suppose that she thought that I would just get an apartment in town, I could see no reason. I had recently sold my business and was at loose ends for the short term. I decided to put some space between me and her.

I took my sons aside and tried to explain what was going on. Little did I know that they already had a better understanding of the truth that I was ever able to find out till many years after the fact, so with a broken heart and a somber countenance. I hit the road.

On the Road...

I left eastern Iowa on the morning of August 20th and headed toward Sioux City, West across the state some 225 miles or so. When I arrived at my Mother's house, I took her out to dinner and told her what was going on. When I took her home, she wished me well and sent me on my way.

Why am I going toward Washington instead of some other direction? Well, I am the oldest of 5 boys and other than my Mother and I, they all live on the West Coast. One in Northern California around Redding and one by Coos Bay Oregon, The other two live in Washington State. I am heading toward my brother Jim's place in Tacoma. My other brother lives in Auburn.

Other than my Mother they were possibly the few people in this world who remotely gave a good damn if I was alive or dead.

So I headed north on I-29 toward Sioux Falls, once there, I headed across the bottom edge of South Dakota on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the month.

One of my favorite authors on this site is StangStar06, if you follow the Loving Wives category, you will undoubtedly know his work. In his stories, he always manages to work in a Mustang. Be it old or new, it is there in every story.

Well, I too have an affinity for one particular kind of car. I like Lincolns and almost since I got out of the service, it is all I have ever driven.

As I set out across South Dakota, the A/C was working overtime and it was still early morning, by mid day, it was well over 100 degrees and the sun was unrelenting. I pulled into a rest area, just to let the car sit for a couple of hours and cool off while I sat under a tree at a picnic table and ruminated about my life so far. As I sat there, I watched one car or pick up or RV pull in with boiling over radiators or hissing radiator hoses. A couple had even managed to blow a head gasket or crack a block. It was brutally hot and the tow trucks were working over time.

As I sat there, I saw one old beater pick up pull in boiling over. It had Arkansas plates and they were the best looking part of the truck. I watched the unfolding tragedy before me for awhile. I saw a guy get out and head to the bathrooms with a bucket to get water for the radiator and after he got out, I saw a really tall, lean redhead get out on the passenger side. She was far enough away that I couldn't see much detail other than a spectacular head of carroty, red hair, all frizzy and flying all over the place. She had to be all of 6'3" or 4" or so. She was lean as a Greyhound. When the guy came back, he started in yelling at her and while she went off to the bathrooms, he filled the radiator and jumped into the truck and backed out and drove off. Since the next exit for a city was just a few miles up the road, I figured he was heading into town to get something.

Mean while the woman came back and stood there looking lost, looking all around for the truck and the man, as she stood there, she saw him and the truck headed back the other way on the east bound side of I-90 heading back toward Sioux Falls some 100 miles back. All of a sudden, she just kind of folded in on herself, kind of all knees and elbows as she sank to the ground and there on the ground she was wracked by great wrenching sobs. I got up and went to her and helped her to her feet and guided her back to my table in the shade and sat her down and gave her a Coke out of my cooler. She sat there with her head on her arms on the table and just sobbed and sobbed. She sat there for the next 20 minutes or so and then kind of gathered herself together and sat up, looked at me and thanked me for helping her and drank the Coke down in one pull. I popped another and gave it to her. She looked a little dehydrated.

We sat there not speaking. I didn't' know what to say, so I said nothing. After a while, she looked at me again and said.

"Well, I guess I am on my own again." She proceeded to tell me about what I had just witnessed. It seemed that she had been hitch hiking from Missouri and had been picked up in St. Jo by this guy at a truck stop. At first he was polite and caused no problem after they got to Sioux Falls and headed west he started to pressure her for sex in exchange for a ride.

"I kept telling him no. He kept getting madder and madder. He told me that if I didn't put out he'd leave me beside the road."

"You mean he was just a ride?" I asked.

"Yeah, I wasn't crying about him. I was crying about the loss of all that I have in the world. Other than the $2.00 I have in my pocket. Everything else I have was in the back of his pick up. All my clothes, the rest of the little money I had to get to Washington with."

"Where are you going in Washington?" I asked her.

"I am going down toward the southern part of the state just above the Oregon border. That's where my Dad is and he wanted me to come out if I could. He didn't have any money to send me to help me make the trip, but I figured that with my tips that I had saved, I would have enough to buy a bus ticked to get there. I had about $400 and that was enough. I went to the bus terminal and sat and waited for the next bus headed west. As I sat, I realized that most of my money was gone for the ticket. I went and got a refund and headed down the road hitch hiking. A trucker had dropped me off at the big truck stop in St. Jo. That's where I got the next ride with that jerk."

"So here I am with just the clothes on my back and $2.00 to my name."

"What is your name anyway?"I asked her. "Mine is Mike."

She looked me right in the eye and extended her hand across the table and said. "Hi Mike, I am Janey, with a "y" not and an "ie" like most of them."

"So Janey, what are you going to do now?"

"I guess, I'll walk out to the end of the on ramp and wait for a ride to stop and pick me up."

"Would you mind if I make a suggestion?"

"No, go ahead; I have nothing to lose by listening."

"Well, I am going to Washington and would welcome the company. Would that be OK with you?"

"What would I have to do? Are you a pervert, how do I know I could trust you?"

"Whoa there hoss, I am not asking anything from you, nor am I implying anything other than a ride. Sorry, I asked. Guess I'll be going. See ya'."

I got up and headed toward my car. I hit the remote button and opened the passenger side door and put the cooler in it. Closed the door and walked around the back of the car to the driver's side and opened the door, I started to get in when a hand was laid on my arm on top of the door.

"Mike, I'm sorry for being a bitch. If the offer is still open, I would like to ride with you."

"Sure, go ahead and get in, just shift the cooler to the back seat. I am going to have to stop in Rapid City and go grocery shopping, can't be running out of Coke or Ice."

On the Road again...

After a few miles of silence, I looked over at Janey, she was sound asleep. All she had on was a sleeveless blouse and cut off tan jean shorts and little thin strap sandals. I reached into the back seat and grabbed my trusty forest green poncho liner from Viet Nam and tried to lay it over her. The car's A/C was really working and it seemed like it was down below 60 or so inside. Just like I like it to drive. I settled down to drive. I had another 100 or so miles to drive to Rapid City and the sun was going down and the temperature was dropping rapidly outside the car. On the high plains, sometimes the nights get cool very fast.