The Wolf Stuff Jackpot Part 2

L and I went into the thrift store. While I browsed for my next great souvenir, she bought pink gingham sheets and a few thick blankets. I walked out empty-handed.

We had some trouble finding the White Birch. We stopped at a gas station and they told us to go up the road and take a left. The left turn took us back the way we came. We stopped at a fast food joint to eat grease and steady ourselves. We'd been on the road for only six days, but we'd managed to tour the Hearst Castle, stop at Nepenthe near Big Sur, eat a tuna melt at the Madonna Inn, spend hours in Powell's in Portland, avoid fireworks on the 4th of July and then shop at Pike Place in Seattle. We drove on toward Montana, with a pit stop in Idaho. In Montana, we'd managed to stop at a large used book store in a town with only ten houses. We bought wolf stuff at the trading post and from the guy who warned us against camping while menstruating. By the time we made it to Kalispell, we looked as wild and as unkempt as we felt.

And we kept trying out left turns with the confidence that eventually, one left turn would be the right one.

The White Birch would eventually have to reveal itself to me.

After ingesting roast beef and curly fries, we continued on. One more left turn took us to another gas station. I went in to grab snacks, while L smoked a cigarette outside. I had my arms full of soda bottles as I turned away from the coolers, and turned straight toward a man wearing little round sunglasses. I couldn't see his eyes. His hair was long - hippie long, not metal long. It was graying slightly. He held his hands up when he saw me, like I was about to place him under arrest.

"Whoa!" he shouted. "No guns!"

I stepped around him and joined L in line. She was waiting to buy another pack of cigarettes, and I had all the soda we could need for the night. The man with the hippie hair sauntered up behind me. When I looked at him, he pointed at L.

"She," he said as he pointed at my friend, "is beyond reckless."

L stared at the man. She was wearing a "Hard Times Saloon" t-shirt from the lone bar in the poverty-stricken town in which I was about to live. Her long curly hair was unwashed since Washington state. Mine was too.

We paid quickly and ran to the car. We had a motel and suicide scene to find.