Pat Simmons heard the tour bus tires sing out when he got a little over the edge of the mountain road and the tires hit the warning strips on the shoulder. A minor adjustment was all that was needed to correct his mistake. His mind was wandering; he was thinking of the argument that he and Bess had this morning. The shoulder was still paved and the warning strips had been cut to warn drivers that they were about to run off of the road, He was sure that no one had noticed it until the shrew that was chaperoning the girls called out for him to watch the road. Pat didn't respond to the barb and continued climbing the mountain. He was very familiar with this area as he had been hunting in it since he was a child. The area was dotted with old gold, silver and lead mines.
This was to be his last trip for his father-in-law's bus company. Pat and his wife had finally had enough of each other and were calling it quits. Pat had gone in to work today and gave his notice. Naturally his father-in-law had gone ballistic and shouted about all that he had done for Pat and how Pat would never make anything of himself and that his daughter would do well to get rid of Pat. Pat had refused to take the bus out at first but there was no other driver available so he agreed to make this one last run. He didn't want to hurt the kid's summer trip.
Pat and Bess had gotten married right out of college. Bess was an only child and she was more spoiled than anyone Pat had ever seen. Pat had wanted to be a high school science teacher but Bess argued that he should work for her father and take over the company one day. Pat saw right away that Bess' father was mad that Bess had married this man that looked more like a lumberjack than an executive. Bess' father never missed an opportunity to belittle Pat in front of the other employees or try to make him ashamed that Bess was doing better than him.
Pat started out working in the office of the tour bus company. His father-in-law told him that he should learn the whole business and convinced Pat to learn to drive the bus occasionally. Occasionally became all of the time shortly and Pat knew that it was his father-in-law's way of letting him know how little he thought of his son-in-law. Pat had quit several times but, after a week-long argument with Bess, each time he relented and went back to driving the bus.
Comments were often made that Pat would never take over the company; his father-in-law swore that he would sell it before he would let that happen. Pat never wanted to take over the company; his heart was in teaching.
Pat looked in the mirror at the people sitting in the bus. The bus was not totally full. There was the shrew that was constantly haranguing the twenty girls, a woman that was probably a teaching assistant and a very young teacher. This was probably the first year for the young teacher. This trip was supposed to be for one week at a camp higher up in the mountains. Pat figured that it was a junior class trip as the girls looked to be about sixteen or so.
Pat was to drop off the passengers at the camp and then drive the bus back to the terminal. He would then quit, turn in all of his logs and company equipment and that would be it for his career as a bus driver. Another driver would pick up the passengers from the camp in a week.
Pat's mind went back to the arguments of the last several days. The arguments had been getting more heated for a long time now. Bess was climbing up the corporate ladder and she had started talking to Pat like he would never understand the corporate world and the pressures involved and the skills needed to survive. The final straw was when she told him that he was only a bus driver and that was all he'd ever be. Pat reminded her that it was her idea for him to go to work for that bastard father of hers and then all hell broke loose when Bess heard him call her father a bastard.
Bess and her father thought the sun rose and set on each other. Most decisions in their marriage were either approved or disapproved by Bess' father. Even the house that Pat and Bess had bought had to be approved by her father before Bess would sign the real estate contract. Pat usually went along with Bess because he had really loved her at first and he wanted to please her.
Bess had decided to put off having children until she had made her mark on the business world. At first Pat went along with it but later this had caused several arguments between them. They once broke up for a week after Bess had told him that even her father thought that it was best to put off having children. Bess had come to him in tears days later and told him that she would work one more year and then they would start a family. That was three years ago.
In the ten years Pat and Bess had been married, Pat's personality had changed. He had lost his drive and he became quiet and moody. His love for Bess faded until now they were just two people that lived together in a sort of armed truce. Pat had been raised by his divorced mother and he had always sworn to himself that he would never get a divorce. Bess seemed relieved when he told her that it would be best for both of them if they parted and went their own ways. He had wondered for the last year if she was seeing someone else.
Pat looked up at the sky. The sky looked funny. The sun was shining brightly but it seemed to be getting a strange sort of darkness. He looked around the sky but there were no clouds. The sky looked strange.
"How much longer until we reach the camp?" the young teacher asked.
"About two and a half hours I guess. We should really stop soon and let the girls have a potty break."
The teacher looked at his face in the large rear view mirror above his head, "I can use one too. My name is Pauline by the way."
"I'm Pat. Nice to meet you."
"Pauline, let the man drive. He has to concentrate on the road." the shrew snapped.
Pat glanced at the shrew but he didn't say anything. The shrew, as he thought of her, was not a bad looking woman; in fact, she was very pleasant looking. She was about forty and she dressed very conservatively and wore minimal makeup but she had that pleasant face that didn't need much makeup. Pat wondered what had caused her to become so abrasive and cruel to others. The woman saw him watching her in the mirror and averted her eyes.
"Is it going to rain?" Pauline asked, "The sky looks dark."
"I don't think so; there's not a cloud in the sky."
"I'd better make sure that the girls aren't getting into trouble," Pauline said as she walked toward the back of the bus.
Pat watched her as she walked away from the front of the bus. Pauline had an excellent figure and moved with the assurance of someone that knows what she has and isn't afraid to let you know it. Pat looked at the shrew and saw her watching him with venom in her eyes.
"When are we going to stop?" the shrew asked in a tone that showed she considered Pat as her paid servant and. as such, he was beneath her.
"There's a restaurant about three miles up and they have clean rest rooms and decent food if the girls want to get something to eat."
"Good," she said but the word came out like a slap at Pat and the shrew walked back to her seat.
The bus was well-maintained but it was one of the older models that didn't have a rest room on board. Bess' father milked his investments and the new buses, with rest rooms, were much more expensive than what he had paid for his present fleet. When the buses were finally retired no one in the world would want them for commercial use.
Pat continued driving up the mountain road. The scenery was beautiful and he saw that the girls were soaking up the views. When he looked at Pauline in the rear view mirror he saw that she was watching him.
Pat remembered the hunting trips with his father before his father passed away. Pat and his father loved the outdoors and spent every moment that they could in the outdoors. His father's death had been traumatic for Pat and, truth be told, Pat still hadn't fully gotten over the loss. The man that Pat considered his father was actually his step-father. Pat's real father had left him and his mother shortly after Pat was born.
If Pat had been planning the excursion for the girls he would have picked this area. The land was as unspoiled as any in the USA but very few people wanted to "rough it" anymore. People today wanted to stay in a plush motel and venture out of the motel for a couple of miles, view "nature" and then spend the rest of the day by the motel pool or bar. There had to be something, other than nature, to entertain them or the vacation wasn't worth it. Kids today didn't like to rough it because there were no electronic gadgets in the wild.
Pat saw the truck stop up ahead and called out that they would be stopping for a half an hour. The shrew stood up and began telling the girls to be on their guard because there were truckers in the restaurant and truckers were of a lower class of people than the girls. She told the girls to call her if one of the truckers tried to talk to any of them. The shrew became very serious when she warned the girls not to allow themselves to be in a position where the girl would be alone with a trucker.
Pat shook his head. This woman had serious head problems. The teaching assistant that had come along as a chaperone rushed to the front of the bus and hurried toward the restaurant without a word to Pat.
"She's three months pregnant. She's been climbing the walls for the last ten miles. I was afraid she was going to wet herself," Pauline said smiling as she walked up behind Pat and began to get off of the bus.
After all of his passengers were off of the bus Pat shut the engine off and went into the restaurant. He used the restroom before he tried to get anything to eat as he knew that the girls would be keeping the restaurant staff busy for a while.
When he came out of the restroom he saw that the restaurant staff was busy so he picked up a candy bar and a Coke, paid for it and went back to the bus. The sky still had that strange darkness to it.