Siskiyou Summit
If you drive I-5 northbound over the Siskiyou Summit between two and four in the morning, sooner or later you’ll see a man walking in the left lane.
He’s on the long grade on the California side, below the state line, usually somewhere between the Hilt exit and the summit. Tall, thin, a dark canvas coat, no hat. He walks uphill, in the left lane, with traffic, at an ordinary walking pace, with his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look back. When your headlights hit him, he doesn’t flinch.
The rule is: flash your lights twice, move to the right lane, and pass him. Don’t honk. Don’t slow down. Don’t stop. Don’t call it in, because CHP won’t find anything, and you’ll be the one who gets a welfare check at the next scale.
I learned that rule from an old driver named Purcell at a truck stop in Weed, California, in 2009, my first year running team with my husband, Ward. Purcell said the rule had been on the CB since before the interstate, back when it was Highway 99 and the trucks had to crawl over the pass in low gear. He said if you pass the man and look in your mirror, he won’t be behind you. He’ll be ahead of you again, a mile on, walking, in the left lane. He said some guys passed him four or five times on one climb. He said he’d never heard of him hurting anybody, as long as you followed the rule.
I said, “What happens if you stop?”
Purcell drank his coffee and looked at me like I’d asked what happens if you put your hand in a wood chipper.
Ward and I ran team for fourteen years. Produce out of the Central Valley to Portland and Seattle, dry goods back. Team driving means one drives while the other sleeps in the berth behind the seats, and you swap every five or six hours, and the truck almost never stops. You get to know a road like that. You get to know the people on it by their voices on channel 19, people you’ll never meet. And you get to know the things on it.
We saw the walker maybe twenty times in fourteen years. Always northbound, always on the climb, always between two and four. Ward used to joke about him. He called him Hitch. “There’s old Hitch,” he’d say, and flash twice and swing over, and I’d watch him in the passenger mirror, a dark shape in the red of our tail lights, until the curve took him. And sure enough, a mile on, there he’d be again.
I never liked it. Ward didn’t mind. Ward didn’t mind much of anything. That was the trouble with him and the best thing about him.
It was February, three years ago. A storm came over the Siskiyous on a Tuesday night, the kind that makes them put chain controls on at Yreka and close the pass to everybody who doesn’t have chains on. We chained up at Hilt in the dark, both of us out in it, hands frozen, and started the climb at about a quarter to three, twenty miles an hour, wipers going, snow coming at the windshield like a tunnel.
Ward was driving. I should have been in the berth but I couldn’t sleep in that weather, so I was sitting up front.
We came around a curve and there he was in the headlights. Left lane, walking uphill through four inches of snow, in his canvas coat, no hat, his hands in his pockets.
Ward flashed twice. Moved right. And then, as we came alongside, he took his foot off the accelerator.
I said, “Ward.”
He said, “It’s six degrees out, Lupe.”
“It’s not a person.”
“Look at him.” He was slowing down. Fifteen. Ten. “Look at him, he’s got no hat. He’s got snow in his hair.”
He did. I could see it in the side mirror, his hair white with it, his shoulders white with it. I’d never seen him that close before. He was an old man. Older than I’d thought. His face was gray and creased and very tired.
“Ward, don’t. Ward. Purcell said—”
“Purcell’s been dead ten years,” Ward said, and stopped the truck.
The man stopped walking when we stopped. He was even with my door. Ward leaned across me and rolled my window down, and the snow came in, and Ward called out, “You need a lift, buddy? Where you headed?”
The old man turned his head and looked at us. His eyes were pale and watery, the eyes of a man who’s been walking into wind for a long time.
He said, “Over.”
That was all. Just: over. Like it was a place.
Ward said, “Hop in, then, we’re going over.” And he unlocked the door.
I want to tell you that I fought harder. I didn’t. I was scared and cold and fourteen years married and Ward was already reaching across to pop the latch. The old man opened the door. He climbed up into the cab, slowly, stiffly, and the snow on him didn’t melt. He didn’t sit down in the seat. I had to lean back to let him go past me, and he went past me between the seats and into the berth, and lay down on the bunk, on his back, with his coat on and his hands folded on his chest, and closed his eyes.
He smelled like cold. That’s the only way I can say it. Like the inside of a meat locker.
Ward pulled the curtain across the berth and put the truck in gear and said, “See? Poor old guy.”
We crested the summit at 3:20 a.m. At the top of the pass there’s a brake check pullout, and I said, “Stop here. Let him out. He said over, this is over. Stop here.”
Ward pulled into the brake check. I turned around and opened the curtain.
The old man was still lying there with his eyes closed. I said, “Sir. Sir, this is the summit. This is over.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t seem to be breathing. I put my hand out to shake his shoulder and stopped an inch from his coat, because the air there was so cold it hurt.
Ward said, “Let him sleep. We’ll drop him in Medford.”
He never woke up in Medford. Or Portland. Or anywhere.
You have to understand, he never got out. Not that we saw. We’d unload at a warehouse in Tacoma and I’d open the curtain and he’d be there, lying on his back on the bunk with his hands folded. We’d stop at a fuel island and he’d be there. I stopped going in the berth. I slept sitting up in the passenger seat. Ward slept in the berth, next to him. Ward said he didn’t take up much room.
By June Ward had lost thirty pounds. He was cold all the time. He drove with the heat on full in the Sacramento Valley in July with sweat running down my face and his lips blue. He stopped talking much. He’d drive with his hands at ten and two and stare out the windshield and when I talked to him it took him a long time to answer, like I was calling from far off.
He’d say, “I’m just tired, Lupe. I’m just so tired.”
In September, on a northbound night, he pulled over at Hilt, at the bottom of the grade, at two in the morning, and put the brake on and got out of the truck.
I said, “Ward, what are you doing?”
He said, “He’s done. He’s had his rest. Somebody’s got to walk.”
I got out and ran around the front of the truck and he was already walking. Up the shoulder at first, and then, at the on-ramp, out into the left lane. In his canvas jacket. Hands in his pockets. No hat. Walking uphill toward the summit at an ordinary walking pace.
I screamed at him. I ran after him. I got close enough to grab his sleeve, and it was so cold it burned my fingers, and he didn’t stop or turn his head. A truck came up the grade behind us and flashed its lights twice and moved over and passed, and I let go.
When I went back to the truck, the berth was empty. The old man was gone. The blanket on the bunk was folded square.
I’ve run solo for three years now. I take the I-5 runs. Every one I can get.
I see Ward about once a month. Northbound, between two and four, on the grade between Hilt and the summit. Walking in the left lane. Hands in his pockets. He doesn’t turn around. I flash twice and move over, and I look in the mirror, and he isn’t there, and a mile on, he’s ahead of me again.
I’ve tried stopping for him, of course I have. He doesn’t stop for me. He won’t stop for anyone he knows. That’s not how it works. He’s waiting for a stranger who’s soft enough to stop. Someone to take his place. Someone to give him a rest.
And I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about what I owe a stranger and what I owe my husband, and I’ve thought about it on long nights at fifty-five miles an hour, and last month I decided.
Here’s what I’m doing. Tonight I’m running northbound out of Redding with a load of tomatoes. I’ll hit the bottom of the grade at Hilt around half past two. I’m going to pull into the chain-up area and get out of my truck. I’m going to walk up to the left lane, where my husband is, and walk beside him. Then, I think, I’ll walk ahead of him. And I think, if I’m right about how it works, he’ll stop.
So if you run I-5 northbound tonight, between two and four in the morning, and you see a woman in the left lane on the Siskiyou grade, about five-foot-four, gray braid, in a Peterbilt jacket, walking uphill: flash twice, move over, and keep going.
If you see an old man in a canvas coat on the shoulder, without a hat, looking cold and confused, give him a ride. He’s all right. Tell him to go home and get some sleep.
But don’t stop for me. Whatever I look like. Whatever I say on the radio.
I’ll be fine. I’ve got a good coat.