After a brief blast on the interstate that morning, the newly reformed trio exited the world of slab concrete super highways and cement overpass columns to wander through the open country. They would sometimes be rolling on barely visible, dust coated roads, where only occasional ruins bespoke the ancient presences that required a road to or through them.
The city’s speeding cars, overloaded vans, growling semis, and wailing police cars were now two hours in their rear view mirrors.
They soared along the empty highway up and down as it rose and fell, back and forth round as it curved until they were out in a vast desert wasteland.
Flurries of dust and sand swirled around them as they rode through an eerie, barren land. The only sound outside of their motors was that of a rising wind.
Ahead something loomed out in front of a growing dust storm to the south. As they approached they saw that the storm was about to engulf the rusting remains of a massive oil pump jack.
The wind and sand fell upon them. In this maelstrom of decayed earth, ordinary men would have been ground and crushed into powder. The riders knew to move close into a tight slow moving group.
Their vision dimmed and all that remained were memories of yesterday and where the road was headed. They trusted their memories would guide them back . . . to the places they had planned see on the other side of this storm of earth.
Out of the dust storm they emerged as if they were ancient mud covered wrecks of vessels from some long ago inundation. The bikes and riders were totally caked with only their tires bearing their original blackness.
During a brief water stop, they silently remembered the terrible beating they withstood from the supercell. Despite the predicted desert heat for that day’s ride, these road warriors were dressed in leather and steel toed boots for just such a desert sand storm eventuality.
Later the blackness of a granite ridge grew to dominate the landscape in front of them. Behind the handlebars of the lead bike was Steve looking about for unexpected things. He was vigilant, muscular, tense – his leathers worn and scuffed from hundreds of thousands of miles.
The black clad riders cruised down the roller coaster highway. As they crested a hill, Steve hit his brakes. His companions did so in kind well before they hit the peak and lifted their heads to look. They glided to a stop.
On a granite ridge close to the road, silhouetted in a dust-blown field, was a strange assortment of rusting farm vehicles and bizarre creations of welded metal. Further along the ridge, there was a burned out wooden shack and several old, gnarled, dead trees. Beyond the shack were what looked to be small work huts, a decaying barn, and a field that was once under cultivation.
The scent of ash blew towards them borne on a salted wind from some long ago inland sea.
Piles of wheels and metal covered the foreground with broken furniture and other debris littering the desert. An old road rig gathered sand where it was abandoned along a dirt path that lead to the shack.
Their minds bordered on feverish while gazing through the heat haze at this human and natural wasteland. The wind sound dissolved into a buzzing that signaled the arrival of dive bombing flies around their faces. These little biters were like their bigger black fly brethren from the northeast they encountered several weeks earlier.
The earth here was sour as if its bones had been poisoned. Whether mankind or Mother Nature had gone rogue could not be determined.
Sadness hung over this region, a vestige, perhaps, of some forgotten dead sea. They were as far away from the Green Place they called home as they could get. Not even creepy crows were present. The soil was disappearing. There was no surface water.
They were the only ones on this Plain of Silence.
There would be no moon that night. The sky above their heads would be inky black. They needed to hurry onward to their motel before sunset after which they would surely lose sight of the unlined sandy road beneath them.
The road became lusterless, scaly, humping toward the center. There were no lines, no telephone poles, no mile markers, no road signs, no ruins of man, no tottering barns in fields, no trees, no houses, no fences. Just the sun and its glaring heat.
The road’s surface narrowed and became a gut-wrenching goat path. They were forced to dodge canyon sized ruts. While dealing with teeth jarring bumps and dips, the riders saw that this old road had memories. They were well hidden, forcing one’s contemplation inward. These potholes and cuts were testing their maneuvering skills
This desert highway would not lead them to new destinations, let alone attractions. It would lead to inner revelations. Long had this been the way with the road called life. This highway, despite its barrenness, was oddly beautiful. The riders did not know not whether they were traveling on it or the road was traveling in them.
They were silently awed by it.
After briefly exiting the empty wasteland to gas up at a one pump station, they headed out on the day’s last leg. After miles and miles of baked asphalt and sand and salt smell, they came upon a short stretch of highway that was aromatic with the steely fragrance of freshly dampened blacktop. They reveled in this rarest of smells on a desert road.
They were beginning to understand fully the wisdom of traveling beautiful roads past ugly places over riding ugly roads to beautiful places.
Steve said at the last pit stop, “This road reminds me of life. It’s headed somewhere familiar, but every time I look up, there’s a new obstacle or another big hole to avoid.”
Abruptly, the desert road simply ended as the sun was setting. No cul-de-sac. No sign like the ones they had seen before: “Stop.” Name of a town with and arrow and distance. “Private Property.” No Trespassing.” Just road . . . . then a decision. Which direction to take to continue?
A faint red glow on the horizon to their left told them the way.
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