The Missing Mile by M. K. Dreysen

Oh, it's there, if you're driving it you see every yard. According to the state and the county and the federal government, it ain't there. There's mile marker sixty-two, and there's mile marker sixty-two again, and what connects them?

Yards and yards of concrete, that's what. Traffic buzzing by, all oblivious to that which they pass.

Hang around at night, and what happens? No wrecks. There are no crosses in the median here, no skid marks on the tarmac, none of your torn down signs or tread marks in the grass and gravel. The racers don't line up at one end and scream out their mile times over this stretch. The drunks always take the turn before, each way, and go around. It's one of the few places in New Mexico you can do that, safely go around without having to travel a hundred miles out of your way.

The hawks pass it by every day, and the vultures, and they know there's never a roadkill buffet. But they do it anyway. The blackbirds fly in spring, they swirl off to the south where the fields lie. Buzz the little grove of trees off to the north and the subdivision beyond. Watch carefully, and you'll see them part. Half the flock one way and half the flock the other as the group of them passes that mile. The one that isn't there.

Go to the state engineering library, pull out the maps, break out your ruler and your notebook and your pencil, and start measuring.

You won't add up to the same number you'd get if you were to drive the stretch between New Mexico and Texas. Just short of the border between the two, where the signs tell you you're about to speed up, or slow down coming west, and the GPS greets you with a happy little "Welcome to New Mexico" or "Welcome to Texas", that's where the mile lives.

This isn't aliens, that's Roswell, a good hour or two, depending on the oilfield traffic, north and west. They'll give you all the aliens you can handle, and more than that these days. Stop in, have a cup of coffee, read the billboards and order the enchiladas half and half.

Over here though, there's no place to stop, and the locals don't think about it, talk about it. Leanna Rodriguez has tried for sixty years to get the county to fix the mile markers. She sends her letters, makes her phone calls, drops in on whichever wet behind the ears state rep is in office this year.

Every third year or so of this, and the state sends a crew. They start at the last red light, mile sixty, and they replace every mile marker in between that light and the state line.

Every time they do it, mile sixty-two and mile sixty-two get brand new signs. Clean, clear, reflective at night and legible in any weather that doesn't include blizzard or duststorm conditions. And always, no matter how much Leanna complains about it, the signs always insist, just like the state engineering office insists and the Bureau of Land Management insists and the Department of Transportation insists, that the number of miles along that particular stretch of notated highway is fixed and immutable and exactly ninety-seven point seven miles. And not a twittle more.

Always, there's an extra mile there, between sixty-two and sixty-two. Hiding in plain sight.

Trina didn't find the mile on purpose. She'd flown into El Paso because that's where Grandma lived, and if she didn't take advantage of the company travel to stop in with her grandmother she'd have to hear about it 'til the end of time. She flew out of Midland because, one, why not, and two, the way things were going she'd be working the Carlsbad area for the next few years so she might as well get familiar with the options.

The trip to Ruydoso would have to wait for next year. When the bank account had built up to the point where a condo on the mountain for a weekend wasn't too big a hit. And, when the peace of mind that came with the positive ledger balance would mean a weekend with her grandmother and her aunts and uncles could be spent not worrying about the questions she was only just beginning to be able to answer.

Hit seventy-five on the cruise control and ride.

The crack in the windshield, where the rock bouncing along off the back of a gravel truck met the glass, drilled down through the road hypnosis. Trina jumped in response to it; even she admitted her reflexes didn't kick in for what seemed like second after second after... and then she did kick into it in time to yank the wheel back to middle standard. Her heart caught up to her then, as well, and the only sound wasn't the road noise or the college radio station.

The beat of her pulse drowned it all out, hard and loud and all-encompassing. When that faded, just a touch, her breaths filled the gap.

She was most of the way through the mile before the traffic cleared and she could pull over. Off into the grass where no one could sideswipe her, and they wouldn't have to pull over unless they wanted to. She wasn't all that worried about the glass, sure the chip was there but it hadn't spread yet. And she'd be turning the thing in, just over an hour and a half from now if the phone was truthful.

She got out of the car because she needed to know if her legs were up to it, or if they'd just collapse out from underneath her. The shock was there, now the adrenaline dump had passed and the weariness and the nausea came on. 'Just keep your head down and keep breathing,' she told herself. So she did that for a while, grateful for the first time for the heat of the desert, pushed into her face with every passing truck and car. It wasn't pleasant, right now it was concrete and in the moment and it felt like the only thing between her and a faceful of caliche rock.

Trina reached for her water bottle, and that's when she realized she wasn't alone.

"Miss, are you ok?" asked the little old lady.

Trina spit her mouthful of water out, all over the inside of the driver's door but at least she didn't put it in the lady's face. For the second time in as many minutes, Trina's heart shoved up and took over everything. She pulled the bottle down, watching it crinkle where her fingers gripped the thing with far too much force but control wasn't anything, right now the only thing she had control of was her bladder. Maybe.

"Miss?" the lady asked again.

Trina could answer now. She hoped. "Um," she tried. "I think so." She tried to stand then, everything mostly worked, but she grabbed the top of the door just in case.

"What happened?"

Trina had to think that one over. A couple minutes and the reason for the season was already out of her mind. And then it came back, the rock rolling down off the back of the truck, one bounce only and then it was headed for her face and the only thing that mattered then was the integrity of the glass but her mind didn't know that her body couldn't care less the only thing it wanted to know was why she didn't react to the great big rock headed for their face...

"I caught a rock from the back of a gravel truck," Trina responded. Finally. "I guess I had to make sure everything was ok."

"Stupid oilfield trucks. I've had to replace my windshield three times in the past two years." The lady shook her head. "All the money they bring in now, it'll be gone tomorrow, and in the meantime do they pay for the damage they do?"

'No we don't,' Trina admitted inside her own head. Not that the trucks were her end of the business, but the stuff they were all drilling for sure was. That was the reason she was out here, after all.

And there was for sure no reason to get involved in...

"You work for one of the oil companies, don't you sweetie?" the lady said. "It's ok, my son's a welder, if it wasn't for the oilfield he'd be off in Houston or Corpus or somewhere." She'd have kept going, but a truck was pulling in behind her car. "Oh, look, it's that nice Mister Watkins, he teaches History at the high school."

Mister Watkins got down from his truck and walked up to join the other two. "You two ok?"

"Right as rain," the lady replied. "This young lady had a moment, she caught rock from the back of a gravel truck and stopped to make sure her rental was ok. And then I stopped, and now you're here."

Watkins nodded. "Couple cars pulled over out here and you never do know if someone needs a little help." He walked around the front of Trina's car, shrugged and came back. "Doesn't seem like anything they'll charge you for. Shoot, way things are around here, they might have to start giving bonus money for cars that come back without chipped windows."

The older lady stood there, Trina stood there, Watkins stood there, all three of them looking back and forth between the car and each other, and swaying as the wind from the passing cars forced them to balance in place. Trina broke the silence, or tried to. "I'm ok, really, but I do need to..."

And that's when the taco truck showed up. "You folks ok?"

Mister Watkins laughed at that. "You know what, I think we are all pretty ok. How's your supply, Ricky? Got a half dozen or so ready to go?"

"As a matter of fact," Ricky replied. "I do. I've even got a little chicharron, just for you." He disappeared into the back of the truck.

Trina held her hands up even as Watkins reached for his wallet, and stopped her mid-opening with his off hand. "Nope, I insist. You've had a bit of a rush just now, and you probably didn't even schedule in time before your flight to get any lunch. A taco, and I promise you Ricky's got the cleanest and best truck in this part of the world, and you'll be right back on the road with a full stomach and a little better understanding beneath you."

Trina would have, should have turned him down anyway. But her stomach chose that moment to remind her that the airport food, as much as it had improved, wasn't likely to be worth the wait.

And she might not have the time to even get that much, the way things were going. 'Might as well get the taco and get on down the road, Trina,' she told herself.

"I might need an extra pair of hands," Watkins called out from the side of Ricky's truck. Ricky had laid out three cold sodas, the half dozen promised tacos, salsa for each and a handful of napkins to catch it all in.

Trina shrugged to herself and walked up to the truck.

By the time she got back to the rental car, two sodas in one hand and tacos in the other, she and the little old lady and Watkins and Ricky had picked up another three or four people, or maybe more. They were all standing in line at Ricky's side window.

"He must make good tacos, then," Trina said. "A line like that comes out of nowhere."

The lady said "Thank you," caught her tacos and soda from Trina, and continued. "First bite and you'll figure out why they all pulled over."

Which, when Trina did get a bite, she had to agree. The salsa was fresh, cold, then hot as a rattle-snake with a ruptured disk, the meat was tender brisket with that smoke taste teasing her nose, a little avocado and cilantro and lime to go along with it, and the tortillas...

"Oh, wow," she mumbled around the bite, and the overstuffed rest of it in her hand that she juggled to keep contained in the tortillas.

"Told you," the other lady said around her smile and her own bite.

"I really do have to be going," Trina said when she'd swallowed her mouthful. "I didn't leave myself a lot of time, and the way the TSA is these days..."

"Don't worry," the lady responded. "You've got more time than you know."

And by now, there were a good twenty cars and trucks strung out along the shoulder. To go along with the taco truck. "Only thing we're missing now is a beer truck," Trina said.

"Wrong time of the year for it," the older lady replied. "Come back in September, October really, after the first good cold front comes through and lays the dust down, that's when you'll see a beer truck pull into our little stretch of road."

Trina didn't answer that. She was afraid to, like if she chased too far down the rabbit hole she'd find something she didn't want to find.

That, or she'd summon a margarita truck.

As it turned out, what did come in, and parked right in front of Trina's rental, "It's the only space left" as the driver helpfully pointed out, was a snowcone truck. Shaved ice and too much grape flavor in a paper cup with the syrup dripping down over her hands, and Trina waited to get hers until the line had wound down.

"Might as well wait," she told Watkins when they finally did get in line. "I can't leave until she's gone, anyway." The back of the truck, the way it was angled in front of her bumper. If they'd been on concrete, Trina could have backed and filled and made it just fine, but here she didn't trust the caliche shoulder. That stuff had a way of twisting out from under the tires, as she'd found out when visiting some of the derricks on her list.

Besides, the lineup for the snowcones blocked her in even more than the truck did. "Hola, Maria," Watkins said when they got to the front of the line.

"Howdy, Greg," the snowcone slinger responded. "Rainbow for you?"

"Yep," he said. He started to reach for his wallet again but Trina caught him. She already had a twenty in her hand, and that might have been the only thing that stopped him.

"I'll have a grape, please."

"Thank you both. How'd we all end up here this time, Greg?"

Greg Watkins gave Maria the summary of the events. The line had wound down a bit, but Maria had that look, like she could pack ice and drain syrup and give a dissertation on the weather, the traffic, and the likelihood of the Lobos making the tournament in March without breaking a sweat. "Huh," Maria responded when Watkins finished. "At least it wasn't like last time, you remember, Greg?"

"I do," Watkins responded with a smile and a shake of his head.

Trina looked from one to the other. Maria answered her unspoken question for her. "Porta John truck had a bit of an accident, let go half his load at the Texas state line."

Watkins was waving his hand in front of his face. "You could smell it for miles, just about. Except right here. All the traffic pulled over, we had the whole mile filled, this was the only part of the highway where you could take a deep breath without worrying what you'd be tasting when you did it."

Maria laughed when Trina's face showed her skepticism. "He's telling the truth, ma'am. The wind must have been blowing just right, maybe."

"Or maybe it's our little mile," Watkins put in.

"Most likely," Maria said, "But you don't have to go making her think we've spent too much time in the sun."

Trina laughed. "I'm thinking at this point that I'm the one who's been out in the sun too long." She reached for her phone, automatically, to get the time, but she'd left it in the car. "At this point I guess I'm going to end up getting a room in Midland tonight."

"Why?" Maria asked.

"No way I'm making my plane now," Trina responded. "Another hour and a half of driving, I'd put in a couple hours for security like they tell you to, but that's all used up with tacos and snowcones."

The other two smiled at each other. Watkins answered for them both. "You'll be ok, miss. We promise."

"That's just what the other lady said," Trina replied. "I'm not saying I don't believe ya'll..."

"We know you're going to need a little believe-me backup before you buy in," Maria said. "For now you'll just have to trust us." She looked down the line of cars and trucks stretching down the shoulder, the snowcone truck the head of the line. "About half full this time, not too bad for a Wednesday morning now."

"Yep. And I'll be able to get back before the end of my lunch hour."

"If you ever wonder why he's so dedicated about going out for lunch, there's your answer," Maria told Trina. "Either way, I think we've just about fueled everyone up for the rest of the day." And she started in on pulling her window screens down and closing everything up.

Ricky was doing the same thing with his taco truck; the little crowd took the hint and spread out for the climb-in and saddle-up.

Trina shook her head. "How often do you all end up doing this?" she asked Watkins as they walked back to her rental.

The older lady was still there at the driver's side door. "I took the opportunity of a place to sit, young lady. Hope you don't mind?"

Trina didn't have to touch her pocket to check her wallet and the keys to the car. She could see her cell phone sitting on the dash, and her bags were all in the trunk, safely undisturbed. "Not at all."

Watkins leaned in to the conversation. "The young lady asks how often we get together for our little shindigs, here on the mile."

The older lady pulled herself out of the car. "About every three months, more or less. Some years it seems like it happens more often, but then when we all get together the next time and start counting and telling stories..."

"It always works out to about once a season," Watkins finished. "Depending on when you get through here again, keep your eyes out."

"You never know when a Porta John truck will spill?" Trina asked.

The other two laughed and laughed; the three of them shook hands all around, and then it was time for Trina to climb back into the rental and move on. She was resigned to another night on the road.

As it turned out, though...

See, when the road hypnosis was still in control, and then the panic took over, when Trina rolled past the first mile sixty-two marker, her phone and the clock on the car both rolled to 10:01 a.m., precisely.

When Maria's snowcone truck pulled out, and Trina put it in gear and followed her, when the rental rolled past the second mile sixty-two marker, both the cell phone and the car clock clicked another minute over.

To 10:01 a.m., precisely.

Trina was halfway to Midland before that fact clicked into place. "I guess I should be glad I didn't try and reserve a room already," she told the empty car.