Artifact 5: Raynor and his Truck

We step back in time to gain some insight into Josh's mysterious cargo.

Artifact 5: Raynor and his Truck

 

Only a few locals heard the heavy thud during the night. Those who heard it wondered what on earth could have made such a sound, while others simply didn’t care and went back to sleep on that otherwise quiet star-studded night. A weary hard worker and a typical sound sleeper, Raynor Raven didn’t hear it at all.

Up at the crack of dawn, Raynor headed out from his ranch at the wheel of his father’s hand-me-down truck. Trailing a cloud of old dust, the well-used and abused 1939 Ford pickup truck rattled and bounced along the dusty two-track lane heading toward the blacktop highway. From inside the truck, the last twangy notes of the country song faded, and the DJ cut in.

“And that was Ernest Tubbs with his latest, ‘Don’t Look Now,’” the boisterous DJ announced. “Well folks, there seems to be quite the buzz over Corona way about something causing a ruckus in the night. We don’t have any facts as of yet, but if it turns out to be something of note, we’ll let you know right here on KROS, so don’t you go away. Brought to you by Marlboro smokes, we now continue our songs for you Corona folks worrin’ over that bump in the night. You are listenin’ to KROS, your favorite place on the radio dial for great country music. Right now, I’m spinnin’ a sure hit for 1947, Jimmie Davis’ latest, ‘Bang Bang.’”  

The song on the radio sounded tinny almost drowned out in the rattling, chugging din of the old, bouncing truck. Smudges of red adorned the vehicle’s exterior. Perhaps it was once all shiny red way back when it was new and now the paint is particularly gone or perhaps the red is the body metal rusting away, but who’s to say at this point. This hot, dry, and dusty land proved hell on paint jobs and the hard men who worked the land like the cowboy behind the wheel, Raynor.

Long gouges trailed down from the truck’s damaged fender, to the door, and along to the rear fender resulting from a sharp-edged, barbed-wire encounter. Nevertheless, Raynor acquired it from his ailing father for nothing and despite its dilapidated appearance, the vehicle still moved under its own power and those two details made the truck good enough for Raynor. 

Much like his truck, Raynor Raven’s face bears the scars of war and creases of age and hard work under the sun. The right side of his sunburnt face is heavily scarred by fire, and he is missing part of his ear and two fingers. Some call Raynor a hero for his courageous actions during the war, but Raynor knows that his actions were those of any moral man put in the same harrowing situation.

            Raynor Raven wondered a bit about the DJ’s mention of the bump in the night after his Mexican ranch hands had carried on about hearing an unidentified noise. But out here in the scrub of New Mexico it wasn’t always still and quiet and right then, Raynor had more important matters to worry on. Raynor sat back easily and comfortably in spite of his fleeting wonder, the truck’s bouncy jostling, and the uncomfortable leather seat with tears exposing mohair padding along with a few shiny springs poking through.

The dust billowed in the open windows and up through the hole in the floorboard worn through from years of driving while wearing spurs. Raynor didn’t notice the ground whizzing by under his heel nor the dust adding to the accumulation on the faded steel dashboard. The song “Bang Bang” continued telling the story of Lulu supposedly chasing Jimmie through an orchard with a shotgun. Raynor smiled.

On this, a regular first Wednesday of the month, Raynor headed into town to eat breakfast, get his mail, get a haircut, and pick up a few provisions from the general store. As he approached the blacktop highway, the truck rolled nose first through the final dry dusty dip followed quickly by the rear, rocking the truck like a slow springing hobbyhorse just before passing under the ranch’s wooden arch. He drove slow over the cattle grate with a metallic rattle.

The weather-beaten arch over the ranch’s entrance simply proclaimed the Triple R with the brand engraved long ago on each end of the arch, formed by two capital R’s back-to-back with the third lying on its back atop the other two. Considering the brand, some might conclude that the ranch and the vast acreage was named after Raynor, but the place was named by his granddad long before Raynor’s aging dad was a gleam in grandad’s eye. In reality, the Triple R is the Raven Ridge Ranch.

 Since the war and his recovery, Raynor runs the Triple R. His father still lives with Raynor though his declining health over the past few years keeps him off his feet and in the ranch house on most days. On his better days, Raynor’s father wants to get involved with the ranch’s running and asserts his faded authority. He takes it personally if Raynor tells his father to take it easy and that the Triple R’s operation is completely under control. On those days with his father in the mix, Raynor has to bite his tongue and bear with his elderly bent, opinionated father. That’s just one more thing to complicate Raynor’s life and matters at the Triple R.

Raynor gave a heap of jumbled tumble weeds ‘the eye.’ Stopped amid their cross-country bouncy journey in this windy, dusty prairie, the large brown spiky weeds lay heaped up and wedged between one of the arch’s uprights and two strands of rusty barbwire. He remembers to clean them out of there whenever he passes by but never gets around to it with so many other things for him to attend to not to mention that this entrance is a good six miles from the ranch proper. 

            Raynor stopped at the blacktop to carefully scan both ways even though traffic is rare. Besides that, he can see in either direction for about 20 miles, so nothing unexpectedly could surprise him to delay his monthly trip to town.  In the early hour, the sun hung bright and hot low on the horizon, and Raynor shielded his eyes with his hand under the brim of his Stetson while looking east. Slowly pulling out onto the already warming blacktop, he slipped the clutch causing a teeth-chattering shudder that makes the battered truck to vibrate violently.

As he picked up speed, the dust lying thick on the dashboard and deeper on the floorboards began lifting and billowing up and out of the windows and cargo bed. Raynor gingerly nudged the column shift up into second gear with a shudder and a rattle and headed toward town.

             A lizard skittered up out of the meager weeds and across the road, under the pickup narrowly missing a flattening by Raynor’s left rear tread-bare tire, then disappears over the opposite embankment with flip of his tail. A few dried silver-tan yucca plants stood bent on the road’s arid shoulders, the desiccated husks rattling in the morning’s warmth with Raynor’s passing. Up on a far hill, a pair of pronghorns shared a few sparse leaves on a green shrub that somehow survived the climate and hungry grazing cattle.  

            Raynor continued to build up speed and shifted to third. He checked his dusty rear view mirror, but it had vibrated loose and hung out of place, reflecting his heavily creased and damaged face and not his traveled road. With the reflection, he sees a different man that went to fight in the ‘big one,’ but he is somewhat better than when he first returned home a bent and battered man.  

            Raynor wasn’t drafted, but like so many young American males, convinced himself and everyone in his life that it was his patriotic duty to enlist despite leaving the ranch in a lurch. Now looking at himself, he sees a tired man who lost the girl and returned back home to the family ranch to eke out what he can from the land. Despite the hard reality, Raynor doesn’t feel sorry for himself in the least for he is well-liked by his friends and does alright despite the outward appearances of him and his old, trusty truck. This once-a-month morning routine always proved a relaxing respite from his ranch-managing routine that at times was backbreaking and all too often heartbreaking.

            Town lay only about 50 minutes or about 40 miles away with the road a relatively straight shot with a final gentle curve right into the downtown area. Very seldom he sees another vehicle pass that isn’t another ranch truck he recognizes because this particular highway doesn’t connect with any major towns or cities.

 About twenty minutes on the road, Raynor spotted what appeared to be a large vehicle on the shoulder of the road.  As he slowed his approach, he recognized it as the back of a canvas-covered US Army truck.  Drawing closer, he found that there are two vehicles, a truck and a jeep apparently abandoned. He slowed to a creep and looked the vehicles over through the passenger side window, but there was not anyone around.  Raynor noticed the closed but unlatched hoods on both vehicles.

            How very strange, Raynor thought, that the Army would abandon vehicles out here without posting a guard because he knows that’s how the Army works. Taking a scan around across the surrounding flat land, he doesn’t see any tracks or signs of activity that the Army may be performing in the field. Putting his truck back in first, Raynor looked ahead and behind and saw no sign of pedestrians or other vehicles. He let the clutch out and continued on his way. 

            Very strange, indeed.

Author's Note

The character studies continue and I now introduce Raynor a cowboy in New Mexico a couple years after World War 2.