Chapter 2

Earlier that week...

As Rose pulled on to the interstate Kiesha and Kim were going through the box of goodies that Mr. Downing had given them. The first thing they pulled out was two more caps like the ones they were wearing. Kim handed Rose and Amber their caps, Rose's cap was way too big so Amber adjusted it. The caps had 'Banning Campground' and a pine tree embroidered on them. The box also yielded four t-shirts with the same logo on them as well as other advertising stuff, calendars, drink holders, and even books of matches ... The rest of the box was canned goods. Kim stashed them in the storage area under the stove top. There were also some office type supplies, clear tape, white glue, scissors, a set of coloured pens and pencils, and a large sketch diary. Kiesha also found four disposable cameras. The last things to come out of the box was a scrap book and not one, but four journals.

Kiesha laughed, "I think they want us keep a scrap book of the trip and for each of us to keep a journal."

"Well you guys should keep a journal" Rose said.

Kiesha turned to Rose, "How long have you been keeping a journal Rose?"

Rose thought back to the teacher who had helped her so much, Mrs. Wright. She had been the one to pull Rose out of her self imposed exile. She had also been the person that first got the girls together as a group. Rose was pulled from her thoughts when Kiesha repeated the question. "Five years, I started right before Mrs. Wright got the four of us together."

"Yeah, Mrs. Wright," Kiesha thought back to the first time she had met the teacher. The four girls were alone, Ann Wright was like the patron saint of lost causes. She had thought that by bringing the four girls together they could have each other to hold on to and that was exactly what happened. She had then got them connected to Mary Jones and the rest as they say is history. "She was always very nice to me," Kiesha finished.

After driving for a little over two hours the girls stopped in Quartzsite Arizona. There they decided to fill up the van. While they were stretching their legs Amber called them together and showed them an idea. She had been studying the road atlas and thought she had found a slight detour that would let them get to the mountains near Tucson a lot faster. They wanted to avoid the traffic of the Phoenix area so they would turn south at Buckeye and take Interstate 8 to Tucson. There they would find a campground and spend the night. Seven hours later they were setting up camp in the Spencer Canyon campground. They had stopped at another discount store and bought four fold up canvas chairs. They also splurged on a small folding table, some camping dishes with silverware, and a small propane lantern. When the girls found a bargain bin full of books they went just a little crazy. Finally Amber reeled the girls in and they decided to limit their book budget to twenty dollars. They combed through the dollar books until each girl had five books.

That night without the drama that they had endured the night before the girls realized that they really were on their own and they were very happy about it. Where they were going didn't matter, they would know when they got there.

Sunday...

Don Phillips was hot; sweat was dripping off the end of his nose. He decided to stop and take a break, after all, the fence wasn't going anywhere. He walked over to the old pick up that his family used on the ranch, a 1969 Dodge Powerwagon. His Dad had bought it used, used Hell! It was worn out when they got it. It had belonged to a doodlebug crew. Doodlebuggers used big four wheel drive monsters with hydraulic thumpers to do seismographic surveys. The Tank, as his family referred to the old Dodge, had been used to string out the miles of cable that connected to the sensors they used to find oil and natural gas. To help protect the truck they had built a huge almost indestructible front and rear bumpers, add to this the heavy duty headache rack and the two inch pipe guard that went down both sides of the truck and the nickname made perfect sense.

Deciding it was close enough to lunch Don retrieved the small ice chest that held his lunch and walked over to the lone hackberry tree growing on the banks of the dry creek. As he ate his lunch Don let his mind wander. It was one of the things that drove his Dad nuts. Don thought about girls. In another month summer vacation would be over and it would be back to school for his senior year. It was not something he was looking forward to.

If Don had a curse it was that he was a nice guy. He would go out of his way to help someone who needed help and helping a girl when you were supposed to be going steady with another had caused Don lots of problems.

Don thought back to the Connelly girls in his freshman year, two sisters who he had been madly in love with. That love affair lasted until one of the girls asked which one he loved the most. When he had answered that he loved them both equally they had simply called him a pervert and left. This had led to him to be ostracised and spending the last two years alone. That was why Don loved to read and after his Dad had got the satellite link up to the internet he had found plenty of stuff there to read. His favourite subjects were polygamy and polyamory. Much to his surprise he had found a polyamorous religious group that had a compound at Eldorado just over a hundred miles away. But after he researched that group he found he didn't like what he had found. They regularly kicked out all of the male children so that the older men in the group could have all the young girls to themselves. Somehow to Don that just didn't sound very loving, and that's how it was with Don, he couldn't imagine being in love with just one person. At the same time he didn't see that an unlimited number of lovers would work either. And then there were the dreams that he'd had for the last four years. He wondered if those girls really existed or if it was just a dream. If it was just a dream he had gone through a lot of trouble for nothing.

So Don sat there under the thin shade of that hackberry tree daydreaming about meeting those four girls, who he could fall in love with and they with him. He'd been so entrenched in his day dream that he hadn't heard the car stop on the Interstate near where his truck was parked.

"Hey Don!" the highway Patrolman had shouted, "You about got it fixed?"

Don jumped half out of his skin. "Damn it Mike, don't scare me like that," Don had yelled back at the trooper. Now Don was using his bandanna to mop up the sport drink he had just poured all over his chest. Now he could look forward to being sticky for the rest of the day. "No!" Don replied, none too nicely, "I still have over half of it to finish. I don't suppose that the drunken idiot that did this managed to kill himself did he?"

"No, no chance in that," the trooper stated, "the good news is that the people he forced off the road with him are all going to be all right. Although the little girl will be in the hospital a long time and she'll have some real bad scars."

"Don't get me started, Mike. You know how I feel about allowing idiots to have guns or automobiles, if you don't let everyone have them it's just not fair. If there was any justice in the world that jackass would be out here fixing this damn fence instead of me." Don knew the trooper would have liked to have the drunk out in the hundred plus heat digging postholes and stringing wire. It was then that Don remembered the stuff he'd found, "Did you find out the guy's name?" Don asked.

Mike's head snapped around, "How'd you know we hadn't identified him yet?"

Don got up and gestured to the trooper, "Come here and I'll show you." Don started walking towards the end of the fence he hadn't fixed yet. "I always walk the whole section that they tear up before I start. When I did that this morning I found this." Don lifted a large flat rock with his foot and moved it aside. Under the rock were a pistol, a wallet, several bundles of cash and several zip lock bags with white powder in them.

"How did you find that?" Mike asked.

"Look at the rock," Don told the trooper, "it has the dirty side up. He must not have had a flash light or he's real stupid. I knew the rock had just been turned over and it's too big for either of the cars to have done it without leaving marks on the rock..."

"Did you touch the rock?" Mike asked.

"Just with my foot just like I did that time," Don told him, "I don't suppose I can make a claim for that money could I?"

Mike laughed, "What do you need money for?"

"You know my hobby," Don replied.

"I'll tell my boss about you finding this stuff and see what he says," Mike said.

Mike walked back to his car and called for the Sheriff's crime scene investigators to come out. Don looked at Mike and said, "Look, I have to get back to work." He turned and went back to put up his lunch. After putting the ice chest back in the truck he went back to work.

Earlier that week...

The girls left the mountains north of Tucson early the next morning and headed for New Mexico. They made their way across that enchanted state and stopped for the night in Las Cruces. It was hot in Las Cruces. The girls had been very glad that the air conditioner on the van worked. That night the girls wrote George a letter and told him how the trip was going. They went to bed early that night hoping to cover a lot of miles before it got hot.

Continuing on Interstate 10 the girls entered Texas. It was early enough in the morning that the El Paso traffic had not been much of a problem. Kim was driving today and Kiesha was looking at the campground guide and road atlas. "Hey guys'" she called to them, "we are going to have to make a decision here in a little bit." Kiesha explained that just past Kent Texas I-10 splits into I-20, "Which way do we want to go?"

"Let's flip a coin," Amber suggested, "Heads I -20, Tails we stay on I — 10." Amber took a quarter out and flipped it, caught it in the air and covered it with her hand. Amber took her hand off the coin and found the tails side up. "I — 10 it is," Amber called out and when the junction came up the girls took the southern route. Their lives would never be the same. Little did they know just how important that coin flip had been.

Sunday...

Don was almost finished. The Sheriff's men had come and gone. They had brought out a cheeseburger and a large drink from Ft. Stockton for him. It was their way of thanking him for finding the man's stash. Don had wolfed down the cheese burger even if he had had lunch hours earlier.

Don was putting the last of his tools away when he heard it, "Pow!" It almost sounded like a shot. But when he looked up he knew it wasn't a shot, a van coming down the Interstate towards him was belching tons of white smoke out of the tail pipe. Based on Don's experience with the Tank they had just blown the engine. The van was slowing to a stop as it passed the spot where Don was parked. They ended up rolling to a stop a hundred or so feet further down the road. He walked up to the van to see if he could help them in any way.

Inside the van the girls knew something bad had happened. They had heard the bang and now their beloved van was slowing to a stop. Kim steered the van off the shoulder of the highway and let it stop. Rose called out, "There's someone walking this way. He must be from that pickup parked over there by the fence.

Amber slowly rolled the window down on the passenger side. Don walked up and Amber for one breathed a sigh of relief when she saw he was about her own age.

Amber turned to the other girls and whispered, "This guy is a hunk!" Turning back around she undid her seat belt and started getting out of the van. She started to run her hand over her hair and realized she still had that silly cap on. Deciding to leave it be Amber put her best smile on. Amber's best smile to her was one that hid her crooked teeth; orthodontics is not a benefit in foster care.

Don couldn't help but smile at the beautiful redhead that got out of the van. The bright red hair flowing out of the back of the cap she wore only added to her charm. "Howdy," Don started, "it looks like you have some trouble." Don started to offer his hand to the girl then wondered if it was dirty. He pulled his hand back giving it the briefest of inspections then, wiping his slightly dirty hand on his even dirtier shirt, introduced himself, "Don, I'm Don Phillips." Don could feel his face turning red...

"Hi Don, I'm Amber, Amber McMichaels. Do you think it's bad?" Amber asked.

The name should have registered on Don but it hadn't. Don turned and looked at the water that was still dripping out of the exhaust, "I'm afraid your motor is blown, at the very best you've cracked a head or a blown gasket." The look on Amber's face made Don's heart break. The side door to the van opened and three other girls started to get out, and all three had the same look on their face. One of the girls, the one with the hare lip looked familiar but he couldn't for the life of him place where he should know her from. He may have stared at her a little too long, he saw an angry look pass over her face.

Amber felt the tears starting to form in her eyes, the look on Don's face was one of worry and compassion, but all Amber could think of was that this was the end of their journey.

Don saw the tears and rushed to the beautiful redheaded girl, "No, no, please don't cry. Nothing is so bad that it can't be fixed." Thinking as to what he should do next, "Look what we need to do is to get the van back to our ranch. I need to call my Dad. Let me go get the Tank and I'll drive back up here. OK?"

The three other girls moved in to comfort their friend so Don took that as the time to go. And go he did. He ran as fast as he could to get to the Tank and the two-way radio that was inside it. Don was breathless as he made his first call on the radio. His heavy breathing and urgent effort at reaching the base station at the ranch made his mother think that something bad had happened. So she was a bit panic stricken when she replied. While Don was trying to explain to his mother what was going on he was driving the Tank up to the girls. He was a little sorry that he had driven up to them when he got into an argument with his Dad over bringing the van to the ranch. Finally Don screamed at the microphone, "Damn it, Dad, for once don't argue, just come over here and help me." Don looked up to see the girls looking at him with some concern.

Don got out of the Tank and walked towards the girls, "My Dad wanted to call a wrecker and have them come get you and take you back to Ft. Stockton. I guess I could have him do that if you wanted to."

It only took a few seconds for Amber to grasp the significance of Don's offer, "We don't have a lot of money and I guess I should tell you what you are getting into." So while Don and the girls waited on Don's Mom and Dad to show up, Amber introduced the other girls to Don and explained their situation. When Amber introduced Rose Don's heart almost stopped. Suddenly he knew where Amber fit in his mind, these were the girls from his dreams, or were they, was that even possible?

Don listened and found himself drawn to the four girls, but the one thing he knew for sure was that they just had to come back to the ranch. He would help them repair the van but he hoped against all hope that the girls would stay.

Jack Phillips was not happy. He didn't understand why his son insisted on having him come help him drag some broken down van back to the ranch. His plan was to show up then tell who ever has conned his son into helping them that they would be better off going back to Ft. Stockton to have it fixed rather than bother him.