They stopped after dark at Valentine, Nebraska, five miles from the South Dakota border. Rain subsided to a light drizzle, and the sky was overcast and starless.
JR said, “I’ll sleep up here tonight with Smokey. You can have the camper bed.”
“I’m fine up here, really.”
“Sam, you’re not getting proper rest. I need you in good health and relaxed not exhausted and grumpy. We’ll switch every night. I insist. Now go.” He knew she was right and let logic overpower his male ego.
“Thanks,” he said before the door shut. Before dozing off he thought of JR; he was glad to have her along. She was adapting to their situation as well as possible and showing strength he suspected she didn’t know she possessed. He’d read coming of age stories but had never actually seen the growing pains clearly in people he knew. He hoped she would decide to stay with him after they crossed into Canada.
Early Tuesday morning they crossed the South Dakota border. Much like Nebraska, they passed huge fields of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa. Rain must have been plentiful throughout the growing season because the plants looked tall and healthy. After twenty-five miles they entered the small town of Mission. A sign on the outskirts gave the population as eleven hundred. A left turn to stay on Highway 83 headed them toward the business district where traffic was backed up to a standstill. A fire covering an entire block of the miniscule downtown business area blazed in the distance.
A strong breeze blowing from the north fanned flames and drove heavy, dark smoke and sparks to the south. Sam noticed other vehicles turning north on side streets and told JR to follow their lead. She drove a short way before turning west again. Slowly they drove through a residential area to bypass the downtown section. Without warning the street funneled them onto a local Native American college campus. A sign at the entrance to the Sinte Gleska University of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Lakota Nation, proclaimed an enrollment of over eight hundred students.
Traffic was routed into a large sun drenched parking lot. As JR circled to leave the parking lot, two young students approached the truck with pamphlets in hand. JR stopped and lowered the window. The short, heavy female student said a prayer meeting was scheduled to invoke the tribe’s spiritual entity’s help dealing with the undead threat. The students invited Sam and J.R. to stay and join them. Sam and J.R. exited the truck to stretch and talk to the students. Smokey was restless until JR reached through the open window and laid her palm on his coat. He licked her hand and calmed.
Listening to the student’s prepared spiel, Sam and JR shared a bottled water and gave some to Smokey. They talked to the students for a quarter hour. The college existed to provide programs to preserve and teach tribal culture, history, and language and to seek innovative and effective strategies to address the myriad social and economic concerns confronting the Sicangu Lakota Oyate tribe. Additionally the students said the school offered a wide range of business degrees. J.R. and Sam declined to stay for the prayers, asked for directions to skirt the fire, and drove on. The truck’s windows were left down. They discussed how it was finally bearable to stand in the sun even in the early morning hours without sweat forming in minutes.
JR drove and they rode in silence with the disc player running. On the highway again, JR said, “That pair we spoke to at the college . . . they’re so wrapped up in their religion I didn’t want to burst their bubble by telling them to wake up to reality. I’m afraid they’ll both be stumbling zombies within the next two weeks if they depend on any god to spare them from the evil coming at them.”
“Yeah. In a way I envy their complete devotion to some mysterious deity they believe will save them. But then it’s very presumptuous of them to think their god will save them while billions of other people have been susceptible to evil because they worship a different god or don’t believe in any god.”
“I guess that sums up how I feel about them too. On one hand I sort of admire them for their tenacious beliefs, but then I think they’re fools and are going to suffer a horrible fate because they’re so wrapped up in false promises. You’re liable to think this is morbid; I’d like to know if they survive the zombies intact. Does their god protect and spare them while hundreds of millions around them are sacrificed? Then, if the religious adherence works, I wonder if the zombies are a manifestation of the devil.”
“Wow. You sort of make me wish I’d gone to church more often and paid attention to what was said, just in case.”
South of Pierre they approached Interstate 90. JR picked up a CB radio broadcast by a trucker hauling a load of lumber from Pennsylvania heading for Nevada.
