(a Legendary White Dog story)
They had been on the road for about two days when an old man in a ’64 Apache stopped and took them most of the way to Sioux Falls. A salesman picked them up on Route 90 just before the state patrol passed by and would have arrested them both for hitch-hiking and vagrancy.
The salesman took them all the way to Sioux Falls. The dog was last seen walking towards the cattle yards.
Amanda and the salesman spent a restless night at the Could 9. He left early that morning without saying good-bye. Amanda woke to the smell of the coffee he had left her and the sound of his Chrysler turning over and pulling out of the lot.
Amanda never left Sioux Falls.
She hasn’t slept much since the dog left, spending her days at the diner playing mother to too many truck drivers and her nights as the desk clerk at the Cloud 9, trying her best to ignore too many salesmen.
If you’re lost, stay put, they say. Someone will find you. She stays put and waits for a hero, thinks about the dog and Morgan, and wonders if either of them will ever pass through.