The semi was in no doubt about the whys and wheres of its schedule. It had picked up its load from a manufacturing firm in Northlyn, Chelan County, Washington, and was on its way to deliver it to a warehouse in New York City.
Quincy Steinke, owner-operator of Quincy Steinke Trucking, an original name he had coined all by himself, had pushed back his Wenatchee Chiefs hat and had scratched his balding head when he had received the call from Northlyn.
Quincy had been driving a semi for well over three decades, and had been an owner-operator for the last eighteen years. Quincy stood five eight in his socks and his bald head, thick mustache, and toothy grin were familiar sights in Chelan County. Well, he thought he was familiar, and was always puzzled when people failed to recognize him. He didn’t believe Debbie, his wife of thirty years, who constantly chided him and said he wasn’t as well-known as he thought he was.
Quincy’s home was just outside Wenatchee, the largest city in the county, but heck, he hardly spent any time home. An average trucker spent something like hundred days away from home. Quincy was on the highways for twice as much. Debbie often complained that he was practically a stranger. That’s what kept the marriage going, Quincy used to quip.
Quincy knew he was lucky, privileged. He had come out of the Army after serving his minimum eight with the Transportation Corps, and had come out with qualifications well suited to being a trucker. As a Motor Transport Operator, he had moved personnel and heavy duty equipment in the deserts of the Middle East. He had then driven military trucks through the high altitudes of Afghanistan.
On returning to the States, a then young Quincy married his sweetheart, Debbie, and signed up as a trucker with a carrier in the state. Working for someone else hadn’t suited the entrepreneurial Quincy, and after years of careful living, Debbie and he had taken the plunge and bought his fire-engine red Peterbilt.
Life was good for Quincy, especially in the last decade. He had gone to load boards when starting his business and had quickly realized that was a race to the bottom, a price war.
Quincy had spent several years cultivating shippers – local supermarkets, meat packers, manufacturers – and that effort paid off. Quincy now had a select clientele who paid well, who did quick-pays, who shipped to convenient locations, and who valued service. Quincy had paid off his truck four years back and Debbie and he had a neat little nest egg tucked away. He was now approaching his sixtieth birthday and Debbie had started making noises about his retiring.
Thing was, Quincy still liked driving. Loved it. He loved the feel of the wheel in his hands, the growl of his Peterbilt, the sound of concrete slipping under his tires. He felt free when he looked out of the window of his truck and saw blue mountains in the far distance.
In his thirty years of driving, he had crisscrossed the country several times and yet each time, he discovered something new on a route. A stream that bubbled just off the highway, a service stop that had the cleanest bathrooms.
No sir, Quincy Steinke wasn’t ready to hang up his hat yet. He had stomped off to his office after a minor argument on that topic with Debbie, when he had received the call from the shipper in Northlyn.
Quincy wasn’t surprised that he got a call from a shipper who wasn’t a client. His clients referred him sometimes and he did get calls from other shippers. He usually turned them down since he had his hands full with his current clients.
The Northlyn call was different, however. One of his shippers had just cancelled a regular load, something to do with poor quality product that couldn’t go out. He had a hole in his schedule as a result, a gap that the Northlyn load would easily cover.
The new shipper's requirement was different in another couple of respects. Northlyn to New York City was a long route and when Quincy had wondered aloud why they didn’t use larger, national carriers, the freight manager at the client had laughed and asked whether Quincy wanted their business. He had been recommended by another firm, a client of Quincy’s and an administration mixup meant that they had a load to ship and no carrier, as yet. Would Quincy be interested?
Yeah, Quincy replied, though more formally, and then the second point of interest came up. New York was a good two thousand eight hundred miles away and with five hundred miles of driving a day, Quincy reckoned he could deliver the load on the sixth day. Maybe the fifth, if he pushed it.
The sixth was fine, the manager said, if he could pick up the load the next day.
'Come again,' Quincy asked, thinking he hadn’t heard properly. Shippers wanted quick delivery. The same day if it was humanly possible. He hadn’t come across many shippers who implied there was no great hurry. Northlyn just had.
‘The sixth day from tomorrow is good for us,’ the Northlyn man repeated. ‘The warehouse won’t have space before then.’
‘What’s in the load?’
‘Paper. Bales of colored paper that are made into posters for Hollywood.’
Quincy removed his cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His took a deep pull from a bottle of water, and glared at a bird that had the temerity to peep through the door of the container that was his study.
‘You’ve got a paper plant there? I’ve never heard of it. I thought those posters got made in China. Doesn’t everything come from that country?’
The freight manager laughed ruefully, ‘They’re tough competitors, but so far we’re holding our own. We’ve been in business for a few years now. Not many people know of us. No idea why.’
They agreed on pick-up times, contracts, and after the manager had explained the approach to the loading bay, Quincy went whistling to the main home.
He picked the load up at dawn the next day, watching keenly and shouting instructions as a crane placed the container on the bed of his truck. Didn’t know paper could be that heavy, he thought as his truck sank a couple of inches.
He cross-checked a few more details with the freight manager, a text message to Debbie, and then he was off just as the first ray of sunlight streaked through the clouds and lit his cab.
He got on the I-90 E the first day and settled down to serious driving. He cut through Idaho, passing through the Lolo National Forest and halted for the day at a truck stop just after he had crossed into Montana.
He passed through the top corner of Wyoming, spoke to Debbie when he was in South Dakota, and ended the second day just before the Minnesota border. He jumped out of the cab, washed in the bathroom of the rest stop, and enjoyed his evening meal slowly, leisurely, like a man who’d just completed over a thousand miles.
He greeted a few fellow truckers, talked about the weather, routes, exchanged cell numbers with a couple of them, and then climbed into the sleeper of his Peterbilt.
Just before starting the next day, he uploaded all the photographs he had taken of his trip so far, to an online storage service. Most of them were scenic pictures, but a couple of them were of dangerous drivers he had passed. He memorized the plates of those drivers and made a mental note to steer clear of them if he came across them again.
He patted the door of his truck affectionately and set off on day three, hugging the border of Minnesota and Iowa. Lunch was a beef sandwich that he’d gotten packed the previous night. Lunch was at another rest stop, under the overhang of a tree underneath with a few other travelers.
He nodded politely at them, washed down the sandwich with a gulp of coffee, and set off again. He left Wisconsin behind and it was in Illinois that disaster struck.
A biker overtook him from the left, coming close to him. Quincy let him pass, correcting slightly, gripping the wheel with both hands. Another one appeared in his mirror, coming up fast, on his right.
Quincy sounded his horn loudly, warning him to be careful. He saw the biker give a careless wave and then he disappeared out of sight. The next moment, he heard a couple of thumps on the container and the biker shot ahead.
Quincy swore and when he was settling back, another biker came from the left, so close to the rear wheels that Quincy instinctively turned right. He corrected swiftly, then overcorrected, the angle of turn increasing suddenly when the biker thumped the container with a clenched fist.
The sounds startled Quincy and the truck veered out of control, its heavy load rocking its body, and crashed into the side rails. The truck swayed for agonizing seconds and then Quincy, his eyes glazed, his eyes squinted, saw to his horror, the container tip and break free from its securing bolts.
The restraints sheared as if made of putty, no match for the weight above them, and the container fell with a tearing groan of metal on concrete.
Silence for a while, and then Quincy stirred. He seemed to be unharmed; the cab’s belts and safety features had kicked in. His cab was damaged, he knew, judging by the way it had smashed into the railings.
The load!
He unbuckled as quickly as he could, opened the door gingerly and hopped down. He looked behind and stood aghast at the sight that beheld him.
Trucks, cars, a couple of bikes, were backed up behind the container that lay on its side. The container’s doors had fallen open and paper bales lay strewn on the highway.
That wasn’t what transfixed Quincy.
It was the pieces of paper fluttering in the air and lying on the concrete that gripped his attention and that of every traveler.
They were hundred dollar bills.