Chapter 1

Notebook

June 6.

7:43 P.M.

Corsica, Pennsylvania

Interstate 80

I was not a man to fall in love, and knew this at a very young age. No one could have my heart because I failed to love anyone who became emotionally involved with me. Most people construed me a mystery regarding my feelings, and that’s exactly how I wished that they looked at me. I was quiet, an observer of the world, and most intrigued by those around me.

I went by different names and identities, which always made things interesting in my life. In the last ten years I traveled all around the United States,, drifting from state to state and county to county, working the highways like an unfinished puzzle, in search of a final destination, but knowing in my heart that one didn’t exist.

I kept a leather notebook of my past names and long-winded details that I had used. Scribbles had created various personas and personalities. Notes crafted a variety of characters that I could use, or new identities could be created on the spur of the moment, whatever the case entailed. Such pages detailed that I was Oscar Reynolds, an actor from NYC, or Paul Starlight, an adult porn star from West Hollywood. I was Keith Summer, an English professor or Kit Marsden, a writer. I was Bass Danile, a rising country singer from Nashville, or Billy Stay, a baseball player from Boston. Twenty or more identities were inside the notebook, and no one really knew my name, where I was born, who my family was, or what my education entailed.

Each person that I rode with knew that I was twenty-eight-years-old with sandy blond hair, bottom-of-the-ocean blue eyes, and weighed approximately two hundred pounds. I stood at six-one, wore a size twelve shoe, and had a waist that was thirty-two inches. Such details were hard for me to change. Occasionally I wore glasses, but hated contacts. I sometimes wore a crew cut, buzzed all of my hair off, or grew it long. I really didn’t like tattoos and piercings and stayed away from them. And rarely did I change the way I dressed: jeans, a cowboy hat, and boots. Sometimes I would shave, but no matter what, there was always sandy blond stubble that decorated my chin and cheeks. Another thing that didn’t change was my chest, which was smooth and rippled with natural muscle, and not at all dainty or feminine.

I walked wherever I went with a leather pack on my back, and I enjoyed being a woebegone man without a home, family, or any attachments in the world. Some people that picked me up wondered where my money came from, but that was none of their business. In truth, I came from wealth. My grandfather started a chain of fast food restaurants. I had enough cash to last me three lifetimes, or more. Not that I carried it around with me. Instead, I had access to it by a credit card, which was paid through an accounting firm in Philadelphia. So my funds were taken care of and I could go about the land being venomous and out of control, just as I wanted to be.

The pack on my back had the essentials I needed to travel: a cell phone for emergencies, a bottle of water, a roll of toilet paper, and a box of granola bars in case I was hungry and ended up in the middle of nowhere.

I was the Highwayman, on my own, and quite simple. And I knew someone would pick me up and welcome me inside their personal lives, because they always had. 2: Nissan Frontier

7:51 P.M.

The highway was dusty and unpredictable, just the way I liked it. The temperature in the evening was slightly below eighty, hot for June, but I didn't mind. A rainstorm was approaching; the meteorologists had nailed the forecast. I walked slowly along the Interstate in hopes that a cop wouldn’t see me, since it was illegal to hitch a ride from a passing vehicle. My nature entailed risk taking, though. The truth was I enjoyed living on the edge. Half of me wanted the law to get in the way just so I could find a way of getting myself out of the shit. It was a gamble, of course, to be on the Interstate. But what the hell, I was a gambling man who sometimes looked for trouble, and discovered it at freewill.

No matter how much I lived on the edge of life, the Interstate was no place to be regarding my history. If a cop picked me up I could land in a lot of trouble, but only if I were fingerprinted. My history wasn’t clean and I had accomplished some very nasty shit in my past. Then again, I was ready to give a cop a good time, rough him up, and make him have a bad day. Isn’t that what cops were around for?

I planned to be on Interstate 80 for no more than twenty-five miles and closer to Ohio. To my advantage a Nissan Frontier pulled over on the side of the Interstate approximately sixty feet in front of me. The truck was dark blue and looked and had a fresh wax. Behind its wheel was a young man around nineteen-years-old with flaming red hair and freckles. He looked tall and thin with some muscle on his frame. His personalized license plate read COWBOY 1. The truck had white-rimmed tires and didn’t look dented or scratched.