Harlan Beaucamp showed up at the Grounds for Divorce this morning.  Drove into town in his old ’59 Dodge W300 Power Wagon.  Harlan and his Dodge were both cut from the same cloth, or sheet metal, as it were.  Tough as a boot, as few repairs as possible, both in need of several more that may or may not ever happen. 

He’s been the ranch foreman out at the Rockin’ R Ranch since the Dodge was new, seems like.  Whereas the Dodge has acquired patina, Harlan seems to have acquired an attitude, not that he didn’t have one even in his younger days.  A scare with his prostate a few years back didn’t help any.  His emotions tend to run about like the mismatched tires on his truck.  But he’s as honest as any man in Fort Stockton, and you never run the risk of not knowing just where he stands.

“Ya see they voted to impeach the Attorney General?” Harlan said as he sat down at the big round table in the middle of the cafe.  “Who’s this?” 

“That’s New Guy,” Rusty said.  Harlan looked him up and down, sized him up, but did not offer any further opinion, which was probably to New Guy’s benefit.

“The Great State of Texas is facing a multi-year drought, a housing crisis, and an epidemic of mass shootings.  We got migrants pouring over the border.  The town of Marlin had to cancel high school graduation because only five out of thirty-three seniors fulfilled the requirements to walk the stage,” Harlan said.  “And our junior senator has just opened up an investigation into Bud Light.  What the hell is going on?”

“Now Harlan,” Lucinda said softly,” it don’t pay to drive all the way into town if all you’re going to do is get all worked up about things you got no say in.  Have a cup of coffee and enjoy some time with the Boys.  Nobody’s seen you in a while.  She reached down and gave the back of his neck a little squeeze, just for effect.  It was as leathery as a saddle from spending all day, every day out in the sun.

How’s the Dodge been running?” Rusty asked him, attempting to change the subject to something more positive.

“The old Power Wagon will still be running’ the ruts in these old roads around Pecos County long after I’ve been planted in the south forty,” Harlan said.  “Nothin’ ‘ill kill that thing.  It don’t have a prostate!”

“Neither do you, anymore, Harlan,” Lucinda said as she filled up his mug with what was left of the first morning pot of Folgers.  Harlan always liked it if his spoon could stand straight up in his coffee.  He chuckled at Lucinda’s observation, despite himself.

“Some kid came out to the ranch a few weeks ago and tried to buy the old Dodge from me,” Harlan said.  “Don’t know where he ever got the idea that I’d let it go.  Offered me five grand cash, if you can imagine.  Don’t know what surprised me most, the fifty Benjamins he waved in my face or the fact that he was sportin’ a pony tail.  What kind of man wears a pony tail?”

“Willy Nelson.  Two in fact.  Braided,” New Guy said.  Everyone just looked down at their menu and avoided eye contact.  We all knew Harlan held Willie in the highest possible regard.  There were even rumors that Willy had been out in the bunk house at the ranch a couple times pickin’ and grinnin’ with Harlan back when they were both a little younger and a lot more wild.

“Why you little . . .” Harlan said through clinched teeth.  Only Lucinda’s long nimble fingers wrapped around the base of Harlan’s leathery neck and squeezing tightly enough to distract him kept him in his seat.

About then Rex Hall wandered in and took a seat on the other side of New Guy, making New Guy the meat in a Good Old Boy sandwich.  We all wondered just how that was going to turn out..

“Saw the Dodge out front.  Had to come in and say hello,” Rex said.  “Hadn’t seen you in a month of Sundays, Harlan.  What brings you into town?”

“The Power Wagon.  Same as always,” Harlan snickered.  “I gotta pick up some supplies over at the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store.  A few rations over at the Piggly Wiggly.  Maybe get my ears lowered over at Barnaby’s Barber Shop before I head back out to the ranch.  

That’ll probably be all the humanity I can stand for one day.”  He glanced over at New Guy, as if to punctuate his point.  That was the first time Harlan had actually gotten a good look at New Guy.  Eye to eye.  “Do I know you?”

“Doubt it.  Don’t recall seeing you around before,” New Guy replied.

“You look familiar, somehow.  You from around here?” Harlan asked him, intrigued.

“Grew up here,” New Guy said.  “Over on Maple.  Moved off after graduation.  Didn’t come back to Fort Stockton for forty years.  

“Then, when it was time to retire, my wife wanted to move back here.  Got a daughter in Albuquerque, a son in Houston.  Fort Stockton’s kind of a halfway point.”

All of a sudden Harlan knew more about New Guy than any of us around the table. There was a certain irony in the fact that he came to town and sat down for coffee a half dozen times a year, hated to talk to strangers, but found out New Guy’s story before we did.

“You go to Jim Bowie High?” Harlan asked him, his forehead wrinkling onto question marks of flesh on top of his big bushy eyebrows.  

“No.  Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern.  Class of ’56,” New Guy explained.  “But my wife graduated from Jim Bowie.  Class of ’58.  Wendy Mae.  Wendy Mae Larson, back then.  You know her?”

And with that, Harlan turned white, the blood draining from his leathery face. Rusty said later he thought he saw a tear well up in the corner of Harlan’s eye. “I had to look away before he saw me, so I wasn’t sure. But I think it was a damn tear,” Rusty recalled.

Harlan stood straight up.  Seemed a little shorter than when he’d walked in.  Maybe slumped over just a bit.  He grabbed the brittle straw hat from the table and put it on top of his head.  Shifted it back and forth slightly till it sat above his ears perfectly.  Pulling out the tooled leather trucker’s wallet, he opened it and pulled out three crisp ten dollar bills and fanned them out next to his coffee mug.  No one remembered Harlan picking up the check before.  Not a word was said.  He glanced at New Guy, tipped his hat towards him.  Then headed out to the Dodge Power Wagon.

Standing in front of the truck, Harlan pulled out a worn leather memo pad, flipped through the pages, and made note of the date in the margin, and a short sentence inside. In the back of the little leather book were a couple old. black and white pictures, Harlan glanced at each and then tucked them back in.

Time and wind had stripped the top of the driver’s door down to bare metal, then covered it with rust. Windy Mae had done the same thing to Harlan back in 1958, their senior year at Jim Bowie High School. Her decision had driven Harlan out of town and into the desolation to a remote ranch with miles of fencing nearly as barbed as her words.

Turning the key, the 318 cubic inch V8 rumbled and shook, then settled into a low idle, a lot like ol’ Harlan. The Dodge had always been faithful. Why couldn’t Wendy Mae have been?