Rick looked for a familiar sight, but the virtually featureless landscape left few clues as to his exact location. Still, he knew he couldn't be more than a few miles or a few minutes from Uncle Floyd's farm. The bus slowed down for the reduced speed limit, and Rick knew it was time to get off. The driver called out the name of the town, and Rick stood up to get his suitcase. "That's okay, partner; I'll pull off the highway and give you a chance to get your gear. There's a phone booth here for you to call a ride, if you need to."
"That's okay," said Rick. "I see my cousin waiting for me."
"Hey, you old son of a bitch!" yelled Jeff, as Rick got off the bus. "I can't believe how long it's been, city boy!"
Rick walked toward Jeff's filthy pickup truck, carrying his suitcase. "Let me get that," said Jeff, who then picked up the case and threw it in the back of the truck. Rick cringed. "What's the matter? You ain't got one of your computers in there, Little Cousin??
"No. I guess if it could survive airline baggage handlers, it can survive anything," said Rick.
Rick climbed into the truck and looked for a seatbelt. There was one, but it was jammed. Jeff jumped behind the wheel and fired up the engine. Seconds later, the truck spun out of the parking lot and followed the bus into the setting sun. A couple of miles down the road, Jeff hung a right and shot down a paved but narrow country road.
"How long you stayin'?" asked Uncle Floyd after Rick and Jeff had arrived and Rick was settled in.
"A couple of weeks," Rick replied—though he really had no plans to stay more than one week.
"Good, you can help dig out some old stumps out back."
"When we gonna do that, Pa?" Jeff asked.
"Sometime next week," Floyd answered. "I'm gonna try to get some explosives. That's not as easy as it used to be since that bomb in Oklahoma City."
"You can't use fertilizer to make explosive?" asked Rick.
"You can, but it's not as easy as it used to be."
"You on the Internet?" Rick asked.
"Yeah, but only Audie knows how to use the computer," said Floyd.
Rick remembered the last time he'd been here. Audie had adored him. She was six, very smart and very pretty. "Maybe I can help her find something for you."
Hours later, Rick and Audie were surfing the Net. She wore a T-shirt and shorts. "I'll bill this to the co-op's credit card. Technically, this is their Website, even though I designed it. I'm working on a page for our farm on the co-op's Site."
"Good idea," said Rick, and for the next few days Audie was able to convince her dad and Jeff that Rick was of more use to the farm helping her build a Website than he could be out in the fields. Floyd and Jeff resented it, but they were impressed by the quality of the pages that Rick and Audie designed.
"Tomorrow," said Uncle Floyd on Monday afternoon, while Audie was at a "sweet sixteen" party for one of her friends, "we're gonna get some real work done around here." But first, he and Jeff had to go into town to get some farm supplies. While they were gone, Audie walked home from the party.
"Party over?" asked Rick as Audie walked into the living room in her party dress.
"For the most part. There'll be a barbecue later, but some are going swimming at the park."
"You come to change?" asked Rick.
"Do you want me to?" Audie said, sitting next to Rick.
"What?"
"I came to be alone with you," said Audie. "You like my party dress? Jeff says it's too short. Dad, too."
"I'm your cousin!" Rick said, as Audie sat on his lap. A white, lace-edged slip peeked out beneath the hem.
"I'm adopted, remember?"
"I didn't know you knew."
"I know lots of things. I know you're a transvestite, and planning to have sex-change surgery in Trinidad."
"What do you mean?" asked Rick. He was surprised, yet in a way glad that Audie knew.
"My computer. I've seen someone I thought was you while surfing the Internet."
"Your dad didn't block the—"
"Dad doesn't know squat about computers. Even if he could block explicit sites, I could easily get around them." Audie put her arm around Rick's shoulders. "Why do you want to be a girl?"
"I've always felt that I was really a female," said Rick. He had had a couple of years of counseling with sex-change therapists who helped him to understand what he believed he was. Now he was on his way to a small town in southern Colorado to become what he already thought he was—a woman.
Audie got up and turned on her computer. A few minutes later, the printer spat out a page that would change Rick's life forever. It was an organization that could help him live his life as a woman—including all the legal paperwork—without surgery or medical treatments. Best of all, there was an office near Trinidad, Colorado, where Rick was headed.
"You were planning to leave on the early-morning bus tomorrow, weren't you?" Audie said. Rick nodded. "I'm going with you."
"We'll have to leave in the middle of the night," said Rick. "It will take two hours to get to the bus stop on foot."
"The bus will come through about 4:30. Let's leave at 2:30."
Rick woke up at 2:00 to the sound of Jeff's dreadful snoring. He unpacked some clothes that he had not worn since coming to the farm. By 2:35, two figures could have been seen walking down a lonely country road under a clear starry sky—but there was no one to see them. At 3:30, they turned onto the main highway, which was equally deserted. They reached the bus stop shortly after 4:15. A dog barked off in the distance. That was the only sound—aside from nervous breathing and a few whispered comments—till they heard the roar of a diesel engine from somewhere down the highway. "That must be the bus," Rick said.
The bus driver loved the night run—no traffic, and very few, if any, passengers to pick up or let off in these small towns. But now, in his headlights he saw two figures waving for the bus to stop—and both in skirts. Two women? He turned on the four-way flashers and brought the bus to a stop a bit past the waiting passengers. "Sorry about that," he said. "Hard to see you on a night like this."
"That's okay," said one of the gals. After making inquiries about the fare, then paying it, the two carried their suitcases to their seats, put them in the overhead luggage rack, then quietly snuggled together.
When Jeff finally figured out how to turn on the computer and access the Internet and open e-mail, he read this message: "Don't try to find us. We've changed our names and built a life together. Remember to put flowers on Mama's grave every week. Learn how to use the computer to help the farm. Love, Audie and 'Ricki'"