Under the burning Kansas sun, the Jaguar sliced through the Kansas heat hardly disturbing the still air. Inside its sleek aluminum and steel body, Judge Harold J. Hudson was chasing his dream. He was celebrating his 50th birth year by cruising old US Highway 50 in his 1950’s Jaguar roadster.

Back of them, eastward, thunderclouds piled high on the horizon. There would be rain soon in Kansas City. The roadster and its driver would not be there to enjoy it. The Jaguar never enjoyed rain anyway; its canvas hood (top) and side curtains were too porous, puddles tended to drown out its sparking plugs.

The Judge was perhaps imprudently proud of the roadster and its English heritage. To him it represented the epitome of English sports car design; born in an era before speed became more important than style and agility. Like all true sports cars, it required constant tinkering. Judge Hudson liked that. He doggedly practiced calling its various parts by their English names, thereby confusing his friends, to his own secret delight. He kept both its engine and leather well oiled, for he enjoyed the scent of fine leather that even now caressed his nostrils.

He was of course, totally unaware that his decision to explore old Lincoln Highway could lead to very imprudent happenings, else he would hardly have undertaken this journey.

Judge Hal and the Jaguar joined Highway 50, the Lincoln Highway, at Dodge City. Now they cruised past fields of grain. The Kansas landscape was serenely indifferent to the passage of the highly polished, beautifully restored machine and/or its driver. The stately water towers guarding farmhouses seemed to have no concern that they were witnessing the beginning of Judge Harold J. Hudson’s permanent escape from life in the slow lane.

Somewhere west of Garden City, the towers watched the Judge become aware that a shining spot on the highway ahead waxed rapidly into a small sedan, with a small female standing beside it waving for help.

"Now what sort of person would pick up a lone female dressed like that, in next to nothing?" the Judge asked the Jaguar as they cruised by. Probably some kids in a beat-up van, he decided. It was well established that picking up hitch-hikers was not prudent even in Kansas. To Judge Hudson’s surprise, the Jaguar slowed, stopped, shifted into reverse, and growled back to the scene of feminine misfortune. Somehow the Jaguar could not abandon her to that imaginary bunch of kids in the imaginary van. A mild sense of danger heightened the Judge’s pulse. He kept a wary eye out for burly males lurking in the drainage ditches on either side of the road.

His experience on the bench had made him well aware that small females were often accompanied by large, cruel men, who without consideration for age and position of good Samaritans, hid behind the skirts, or in such cases as this, behind the cars of women; to burst out and attack the would-be rescuers at the worst possible time (or best possible time, depending on one’s point of view).

There was no evidence of such a lurker, but the good Judge kept himself ready to take off at a second’s notice. He shifted the transmission out of reverse, let the car roll to a stop, kept the clutch in, put the transmission into first, and held it there while he cautiously addressed the young woman.

"Are you in trouble?" He asked the obvious.

She smiled a winsome smile, transforming her plain face into elfin charm, allowing a glimpse of clean white teeth. The Judge, following well established habit, started a list:

She was dressed in the uniform of the day for young ladies on the road—ragged, tight jeans, with taut knit breast band. Bare dusty feet were tucked in nondescript sandals. The thin cloth of her outer clothing displayed no sign of underclothes. Numerous large metallic bracelets of thin wire and plastic decorated her arms. A dozen or more necklaces tangled together about her neck and across her tight chest. Her hair was or appeared to be uncombed, finding its way limply past her shoulders and down her back. She looked to be about five feet in height, less than 100 pounds in weight. Her ribs clearly showed beneath the tanned skin. A strong Kansas wind might blow her away.

Were it not for the well-developed bust, he would guess her age at about fourteen. She allowed him to survey her, standing beside her car, feet close together, with a little girl expression that said she would be twisting her little fingers in her skirt if she had one. She was not particularly pretty, but put together well enough that she should not have had to be traveling alone.

"Where’s your companion?" asked the good Judge, ready to pop the clutch and take off in a cloud of dust. The girl swirled her body about to look behind her, then back at the Judge, confused.

"Companion? I gots no companion." Her puzzlement seemed genuine, her grammar atrocious.

"Have," corrected the Judge austerely. "You have no companion."

"That’s what I said," agreed the girl, perhaps unaware of the correction. "I gots no companion."

Judge Hal sighed; a familiar sigh. She reminded him so much of his middle daughter.

"Okay, you gots no companion. What’s a nice girl like you doing out in the middle of Kansas all alone?" He had a feeling that he was being most imprudent.

"This monster," she walked to the car and kicked its passive fender in accompaniment to her complaints, "has died on me, you know? Michael promised it would get me to Reno. And, you know, it just quit. I told him it wouldn’t make it.

"I go: ‘Michael, this rattle-trap won’t even make it out of the state’. He goes: ‘You don’ know nothin’ ’bout cars. This is good ol’ car. It’ll get you to Reno an’ back’. I go: ‘If this car gets me as far as th’ mountains, I’ll be surprised’. "He goes: ‘What do you care, anyway? It’s free’."

She stopped abusing the car and walked, or sashayed, to the driver’s side of the Jaguar. The Judge noted that she moved smoothly, seductively, and that solid muscles moved beneath the artistically placed tears in her jeans.

"I was good to it, too. I fed it lots an’ lots of gasoline, I put gallons of water in its radiator, an’ it upped and died. Just like that." She snapped her little fingers to demonstrate the suddenness of its demise. "It was good enough for Dorothy."

"What?" the confused Judge asked.

"Kansas. Kansas was good enough for Dorothy. ’Course she did keep goin’ back to Oz. For a refill of magic."

"Is that where you’re headed? Oz?"

The girl giggled; a soprano arpeggio. "Maybe. Reno. It’s kinda like Oz, some ways, you know?"

The Judge looked at her more closely. She grinned conspirationally.

"What are the symptoms?" he inquired carefully, easing the shift lever into neutral and letting the clutch out. He set the hand brake, locking the rear wheels.

"Symptoms? Are you a doctor? Or even better, are you a mechanic?" Childish curiosity erased the worry from her eyes, again changing the face from plain to elfin.

"None of the above," responded the Judge. "Just curious."

"Oh. I’m curious too. Well...." Her face changed again into serious professionalism, although her eyes continued to sparkle. The Judge had a feeling that this chameleon-like young woman was much more than she appeared. He felt sorry for any young men who came up against her. He should have felt sorry for himself; but then he would have time for that later.

"It was doin’ fine until Dodge City. Then after I gassed it up an’ everythin’, an’ had a little bite to eat, not much, jus’ a coupla burgers an’ fries an’ milk, you know, jus’ to keep my energy up; well, after a while, it began to smoke, only the smoke was black instead of th’ usual white. Th’ engine light went on." She began counting symptoms off on her small, blunt fingers. "Something began to clank. The engine stopped all of a sudden. The steering got hard. The brakes got hard. I don’ think it’s ever gonna run again. Th’ starter runs but won’t start it. It makes a lot of noise." She finished with a shrug, then stood waiting for the Judge to decide her fate.

Silence stretched between them. A black Buick sedan hummed by in the opposite direction. In the silence that followed its disappearance, Judge Hal became acutely aware of ambient sounds: The purring of his car’s exhaust; the chirping of some birds, sparrows probably, in the fields of grain; the distant chug-chug of a John Deere tractor; the clicking sound of the hot metal of the girl’s deceased car cooling down to air temperature. The woman-child stood beside his car, shifting her feet on the hot pavement, hands clasped in front of her, waiting for him to make up his mind. The Judge mentally listed the myriad problems that could arise from picking up a stray alongside the road.

One of his best attributes as a Judge was his ability to catalog items of evidence. Picking up a stray girl of indeterminate age called for a lengthy list. The litany from a glut of experience sitting in judgment of men who had started out to help someone and wound up being imprisoned for it ran through his mind. He decided the most prudent thing he could do was to leave her here, locked in the safety of her car, drive on ahead and call for help for her from the next telephone; it was the surely the wisest thing to do.

"Get in," he said, "I’ll take you to the next town."

The young woman skipped back to her car, and began unloading it before he could change his prudent mind, piling her few possessions on the pavement. A large truck rumbled by, creating a strong wind and blowing dust and gravel about them. The girl squealed, a sound the Judge had not heard since his youngest left his house in a tantrum. He reluctantly levered himself from the car and raised the boot lid. There was just room for her two tote bags, so he placed them inside, closed the lid. The young woman was standing by the passenger door with her purse and a thick manila envelope. Judge Hal felt an unaccountable dread at seeing the envelope. These always meant trouble to lawyers.

"There ain’t no handle," she needlessly advised him.

"It doesn’t have handles," he needlessly advised her. "You can stow that envelope under the seat. The purse, I don’t know. It seems awfully big for a lady your size."

"So’re my shoes." She grinned, again changing the mobile face. "But somehow we get along. My lap’s sure big enough."

The Judge casually surveyed the lap in question. He doubted it was big enough for a purse half that size. She stood beside the car, waiting for him to remove the tonneau cover.

The good Judge obediently unfastened the canvas cover and dropped it behind the seat. The girl slid into the vehicle, then quickly out again.

"I forgot somethin’. Go ahead, get started. I’ll be right back." She ran to her car, leaned inside, then returned, breathless, slid into the seat, fastened the safety belt, demanding, "Let’s go."

Judge Hal eased the car into motion, enjoying again the effortless symphony of moving through the gears, then the click into overdrive. Just as the overdrive took over, he felt a powerful gust of wind strike the back of his head with a force that sent his new cap sailing, then heard the explosion.

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