STORIES
If our lives are a book, the cars we drive define the chapters.
These are stories featuring cars, trucks, and even RVs that played a role in the lives of the people who owned or drove them. Many are set in Fort Stockton, Texas and involve a cast of characters in and around the dusty southwest Texas town. A lot of the stories are shared around the table at The Grounds for Divorce, where the ‘regulars’ meet.
Pull up a chair and let Lucinda pour you a hot cuppa joe and enjoy.
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MERCURY, GOLD, AND IRON, Chapter 5
By the time Kip Rudyard reached North English, Iowa, the road had worn through his boots, his pride, and the last of his gas money. He rolled the Mercury into town on fumes and fumes alone, the Gold Dust Metallic sheen now dulled by the smear of five states and a half-dozen bad decisions. The…
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MERCURY, GOLD, AND IRON, Chapter 4
By the time Kip crossed into South Dakota, the Mercury was crusted with five states’ worth of grit and his eyes felt scratchy from a thousand miles of squinting. The map was folded wrong and stained with burger grease. He wasn’t even sure if he’d made a wrong turn or if the road had just…
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MERCURY, GOLD, AND IRON, Chapter 3
By the time Kip Rudyard reached Taos, New Mexico, the gold Mercury had a film of dust baked into its lacquer, a missed belt loop on Kip’s slacks had started to fray, and something inside his chest felt… different. Looser. Hungrier. He told himself he was just cooling off from what happened back in Fort…
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MERCURY, GOLD, AND IRON, Chapter 2
Kip Rudyard hadn’t slept much. He didn’t need to. That morning, adrenaline was more powerful than rest. He stood in the yellow light of his bathroom, shaving with steady hands, humming Sinatra off-key. His best shirt—blue with faint pinstripes—was starched and buttoned, collar points sharp as roofing nails. Slacks pressed. Boots buffed. He’d polished the…
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MERCURY, GOLD, AND IRON: Chapter 1
Kip Rudyard was confused the minute he stepped into Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, “Home of the Straight Shootin’ Deal.” It was late fall of 1961, the kind of crisp West Texas day where the dust in the air made the sun look like it had been dipped in bourbon. Kip, forty-one, stood just inside the big glass…
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MEANWHILE, BACK IN FORT STOCKTON…
I was just minding my own business, then BAM—I looked up and 1975 was 50 years ago. That doesn’t seem right. I still remember sitting in the front seat of the first Fairlane 500 at the Prairie View Twin Drive-In with Buttercup, not having a clue what was playing on the big screen up ahead.…
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MOONSHINE & GLORY, A FORT STOCKTON FOURTH
They found it behind the Fort Stockton National Guard Armory, half-buried in a mesquite thicket beside some rusted-out ammo crates and what might’ve been a Cold War-era grill. The 1930 Ford Model AA Sinclair Tanker had been sitting there since the Johnson administration, still wearing its faded “Lamp Oil and Kerosene” decals like medals from…
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WORTH THE WAIT
In the fall of 1969, the sun was still unrelenting in Fort Stockton, but Tug Briggs walked a little taller. After thirty-seven years sorting complaints, cradling broken parcels, and chasing down mail fraud as a postal inspector, Tug had earned something he’d never had: time. Tug wasn’t flashy. Never had been. He and Vida had…
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CREAMLINE CONFIDENTIAL
From the declassified field notes of J. Carl Mooman, Senior Dairy Operative, Project Pasteur January 3, 1956New assignment. Fort Stockton, Texas. Codename: Butterfield. Truck in place—1955 Divco Model 11, registered to Mountain Gold Dairy. Modified under cover of darkness at Fort Bliss: false floor, butter tub compartments, butter churn antenna wired to CB. My cover?…
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‘X’ MARKS THE SPOT, PART III: The Ride Home
Deputy Wade Elkins didn’t care about stolen cars. Not really. He cared about what came after. And when he saw the blue Cadillac Coupe DeVille parked crooked outside the Fiesta Mart in Sanderson, half full of gas and completely full of sin, he walked slow and steady past it. Then he saw the badge on…