Preface I am not a leader, but I will not follow. I would rather seek solitude than be subject to servitude . . . I am an independent individual . . . I will choose my own road. I sincerely desire that you will find value in this literature, even if you find that literary rules have been broken in its creation. That was intentional. The story itself includes broken rules, promises, hearts and dreams. Enter into a three-dimensional world of fact, fiction, and fantasy-of past, present and possible. You may think you are being taken for a ride. That, too, is intentional. My expectation is that interactions will occur between the characters, the author, and the reader. A complete copy of the United States Constitution is included as a gift and as a reference. I pray that you will at least read and retain that valuable document. Every American should read it without interpretation. You are an individual. Your own individual existence, beliefs, desires, and dreams are intended to be protected by the Constitution. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Foreword An Allegory Once upon a time in the not-too-distant future . . . There was a small traveling circus, one of the last of its kind, with a long history filled with the joy of entertainment, adventure, and pride. However, the times had changed and the circus was smaller than ever, with only one quality, crowd-pleasing act-the elephants. Only two elephants were left. Mary was the female (about 29 years old). Joseph, or Mighty Joe (current billing name), had been born into the circus and was entertaining in his fifth decade. He had been billed under many names, including Jumbo or whatever was popular, to help the gate. He simply responded to the J as grunted by the trainer. Always there was trouble with the use of a copyright or other such infringement, but Mighty Joe instinctively knew how to wow the little boys and girls, as he had for generations. New trouble was brewing for the little circus, this time far more difficult than ever faced in its history. The animal rights people were protesting the use of elephants, and this little circus was an easy target. With pressure on politicians, a coming election, and three canceled Saturday night performances (due to the protesting), Congress acted. They wrote and passed another convenient law violating the Constitution's purpose of limiting the size and power of the government. Yet again politicians advanced, overreaching authority to further empower government at the expense of the individual, be it one or one little circus. The little circus's owner took the news hard. The decision was made reluctantly. With those three canceled Saturday night performances, no money was left. The employees were told in a tearful meeting. The little circus could not operate without the elephants. The "show" must end. Good-bye and farewell! Everything was sold, from the antique pipe organ and hand-carved carts to Mary. There was one last problem. Old Mighty Joe was soon to be 60 years old, and no zoo wanted to risk him dying upon entering into their care. Animal rights people were after zoos, too. The little circus owner held out as long as he could, but Mary was sold without Mighty Joe. Days and weeks passed by, and Mighty Joe had lost his world. Even the trainer of the last 10 years was gone. Now a young teenage boy fed and cared for Mighty Joe while the little circus owner desperately searched for a buyer. Mighty Joe just stood there, day after day, with the sides of his massive face wet and stained from the weeping of his eyes for his lost world with Mary (now in a zoo halfway across the country)-no more performances, no duty, and no reason to live. Mighty Joe turned rogue 60 days after Mary was sold. His first victim was the young teenage boy. Without warning, the young boy was thrown like a rag doll against the electric pole Mighty Joe was chained to. The little circus owner heard the noise from his trailer, and upon viewing the scene, he called 911. He then approached the mad elephant, his old friend, to attempt to calm him. That was impossible now. The rogue crushed the life from the old man moments after throwing him to the ground with his trunk. Two patrol cars, each with two officers, arrived within minutes. Upon observing the two motionless bodies and the rampaging elephant, pistols were drawn. Volley after volley of insufficient caliber bullets struck Mighty Joe's flesh. He screamed in agony. Then standing on his hind legs, trunk pointing skyward (as he had on so many Saturday nights), exposing his soft tissue underbelly, he trumpeted his charge with a haunting squeal of bloody spray emanating from his collapsing lungs. Breaking the chain on his hind leg and the leg itself, he reached one of his tormenters and fell upon him. Mighty Joe's last performance was over. Do you, reader, know why the elephant became mad? Of course, you do. It was his broken heart and the power of hate created by the broken heart. The elephant has no understanding of government, laws, finances, or why he should or should not perform. He is only a "beast of burden," with a willingness to do the tasks asked of him. Come with me now, if you understand, with another rogue, a human beast of burden with a broken heart. It is a 5-million-mile ride on the highway to heaven, with stop offs inside the gates of hell. Beware, my friend, because this highway may run right by your town and into your own heart. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1 Sunrise As he rolled over onto his side, placing his feet onto the floor next to the sleeper bunk, he could feel every aching muscle. His head was pounding . . . ! He was cold . . . but sweating profusely . . . and his left side felt numb. It was dark or dark again, he did not know which. Forcing himself into the driver's seat and to the door, he attempted to climb down out of the cab . . . but his muscles would not move correctly . . . The left side of his chest now burned, and his left leg was not able to hold the dead weight of his large body . . . He fell hard onto his left shoulder, luckily not breaking his collarbone. Painfully, he struggled to his feet and stood at the back side of the fuel tank in front of the tandem drives and emptied himself. Using what little strength his iron will could summon, he climbed back into the cab, moaning from the effort of it. He sat in the driver's seat and leaned heavily on the wheel. Reaching behind the seat, he found the coffee thermos . . . It was filled with cold, bitter poison . . . . Straining further, he was able to grab the cooler handle and pull it close enough to open it. Fumbling, he found a can of beer. He managed to open the can, only to taste warm, ugly foam. "How is it possible for coffee to get cold and beer to get warm at the same time?" he cursed to himself. He next attempted to get a pack of Winstons from his coat pocket, but all he found was that tiny brown bottle containing the nitro that had been prescribed 2 years ago. He put two of the tiny pills under his tongue. With a long sigh of exhaustion, he settled his head, chest, and shoulders onto the wheel . . . Slumbering, with eyes closed and breathing irregular and labored, his right arm instinctively grabbed the gear shift . . . his left foot pushed in the clutch . . . the left hand somehow found first the key . . . then the start button . . . While completely unconscious, he checked for neutral and pushed the start button . . . Five hundred horsepower of Caterpillar diesel engine sputtered, shook, and came to life . . . The engine's massive size vibrated the entire rig, and the vibrations sent the engine's own life force through the wheel, into the chest cavity and heart of its master . . . As the big Cat's cylinders, pistons and internal metal components were being massaged with their lifeblood oil, smoothing out the vibrations, evening the flow of diesel into the injectors and gradually bringing the legendary motor to normal operating temperature, so were the blood circulation and heart rhythms evening in the driver's body. Muscles relaxed to normal . . . breathing was no longer labored . . . Engine, body, mind, mechanics, and the entire combination of man and machine were reaching perfect harmony . . . His eyes struggled to open with the day's dawning. The first real light helped clear his mind, and he began to recognize the area around him. He started to have a remote understanding of where he was. In the far distance to the sunrise side directly in front of the windshield, he could make out the outline of mountains. They were majestic! Just like what is written in the song "America the Beautiful." Between him and the mountain's purple outline was a vast white valley. It was the salt flats, Bonneville! His rig was sitting on an entrance ramp just outside of Wendover, Nevada, with an absolutely stunning panorama before him. It was a perfectly clear, winter desert morning-the kind in which one can "see as far as the eye can see." In his world, with an absolute dream truck under him, a clear desert winter morning, and an engine now calling him, he pushed the gearshift into first and released the air brakes. Just as he pulled onto the pavement, a small flash of glare appeared in the driver's side mirror. Its outline was familiar to him. It was the shining grill of a Kenworth W-900, and that truck was rolling fast. The W-900 moved into the hammer lane to allow his black Peterbilt onto the freeway. In the frozen instant as the KW W-900 passed, he could see the other driver's face. He was a younger man (probably in his early thirties), with determined pride etched in that face; indicating that this bright yellow, chromed-up, studio sleeper KW was that man's ultimate truck. He could hear the whining turbo of a big block Cummings under the hood. The black Peterbilt moved into the main driving lane and then moved into the hammer lane, just as the yellow W-9 pulled back to the right. At the very moment that the black Pete's driver knew the other driver would be checking his shoulder view, he pushed the gearshift into the highest gear and stepped down hard on the Cat's tail, signaling with billowing clouds of black smoke that the W-9's driver had not seen the last of this classic black and chrome Peterbilt. Returning to the driving lane, he put the motor back into its proper gear at this speed, and worked the transmission and motor perfectly to build speed . . . The yellow W-9 was distant now and getting smaller and smaller. When the Pete reached its top gear, the distance between them stopped growing . . . Then the Pete started gaining as the big Cat's RPMs were reaching maximum power range. The heat flow from the clean burning stacks of the yellow KW changed, ejecting just a little more smoke into the rushing air, and the Pete's driver knew the other driver was now ordering the computerized big block Cummings to release all 600 horses. Gaining . . . gaining . . . with plenty of RPMs left, the black Pete's old-style mechanical Cat 3406 stalked its prey. The black Pete's driver decided to just let it go with less than a quarter of a mile of distance remaining between, blowing by the yellow KW W-900 by 15 miles an hour at the Pete's top geared rolling speed of 108 miles an hour. He left the other driver in a disappointed bewilderment. With the race over and joyful pride flushing his ego, the black Pete's driver punched up "Sunrise" by Uriah Heep, to hear words that he had memorized decades ago. The 12-disk CD changer with its Concert 2000 system was blasting: Sunrise . . . The morning of another day without you And as the hours roll by . . . There's no one to see me cry . . . (Ken Hensley) Thoughts of the last race were gone now, replaced with darker, sadder memories. His mind wandered . . . The Pete was now being driven on instinct . . . Then thirst and hunger set in, and he pulled into a truck stop just west of Salt Lake City. With Bonneville behind him, and sitting at a table, the big yellow KW pulled into the parking area. Its driver purposely drove by the black Pete with its highly polished grill and West Coast custom bumper smiling at him. The yellow dream truck's driver wanted to talk to the black Pete's driver, but he knew that the driver was already inside. Disappointed, he parked next to the victorious machine and studied it. "Damn! What a truck," he said audibly to himself. This was no standard factory truck. This Pete was painstakingly detailed; it had chrome everywhere it should be, including chrome antique headlights. Its black color was not just black, it was deep; like looking into a demon's soul. No markings touched its paint. Half-inch thick Plexiglas was bolted onto the sleeper sides, low, subtly placed, and a half inch away from the surface with special chrome bolts. All markings as required by law were on the Plexiglas rectangle 10 inches high and 24 inches long. There also was a small, 3-inch by 5-inch gold plaque on the driver's door just below the window. It read: This Unit Custom Built For: THE WORLD'S GREATEST TRUCK DRIVER.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He had traveled less than 3 miles on the two-lane road when the flashing lights caught his eye in the shoulder view.  He knew he hadn't done anything wrong and was not speeding.  What could this cop want? Barley pulled over to the side, but the shoulder was not wide enough to get the rig off the road.  The police car was approximately 30 feet behind the trailer and was not completely off the road either. As soon as Barley recognized that this was the same man--Deputy Dan--he felt a pain, a stabbing, explosive pain coming from deep inside his skull.  Barley was overwhelmed, leaned forward, and closed his eyes. Hobbs took control, scanning for an opening--an escape. The opportunity came as the young deputy was still sitting in the police car's driver's seat: an oncoming cement-mixer truck.  Hobbs rocked his head to judge the timing and then put the gearshift into high-range reverse.  While releasing the clutch pedal, Hobbs gave the wheel a three-quarter turn to the right, sending the trailer into the passenger side of Deputy Dan's front grill. The impact spun the car directly into the path of the cement-mixer truck, with the police car driver's side door being struck by the overhanging steel bumper just above the bottom of the window.  Hobbs observed the large, wide eyes of terror in the instant before the young deputy's death. The driver of the cement mixer hadn't even had time to hit his brakes. (pages 73,74) Speed building, turbo whining, beep-beep-beep-beep-beeeee...from the radar detector, and a full-grown Bear entered the westbound lanes from a hidden, shadowy stand of trees. The Road Rogue's muscles tightened in his neck and shoulders as the Bandit closed in, disco lights not yet turned on.  Reaching behind the driver's seat, the calculating mind of the monster pulled a gallon of engine oil up to its lap.  The oil container was opened, and just as the Bandit's intentions were confirmed with the flashing command to pull over, oil began spilling out of the vent window, creating a sticky spray.  The downgrade into the shadows allowed for the truck to accelerate quickly past 80 miles per hour. As the Bandit's wipers made their first blinding swipe, the Road Rogue downshifted and hit the engine retarder while drifting right, exposing the cursing Bandit officer to the violent trailer swat.  The patrol car struck the opposite guardrail with such force that it flipped up over the rail and down the steep slope, rolling and spinning until it reached a death valley 300 feet down in the old rubble of the highway's birth. (page 140) Love is difficult to describe.  It must he recognized that the human heart is not unlike the animal world.   In the forest, the doe waits as two bucks challenge.  The doe has no preference, instinctively knowing that the stronger will win and ensure her species the best chance at survival. The human heart comes in two forms, man and woman.  Love is a meal served in a large dining room with two entrances. One side has an on/off switch.  The other side has a dimmer switch. A man can be cruel, using women with indifference until he falls in love.  He then enters the dining room, turning on the light to full brightness to illuminate the meal.  A woman enters this room cautiously, turning the light on slowly.  When the meal is finished, she exits with a flick of the off switch, not wanting to see the mess.  The man leaves on the dimmer side, slowly turning off the light.  He looks at the table and does not want to leave, because it was good.  (page 90)