THUNDER ROAD
1
Spears Out
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My dad used to say, “It’s amazing what you can see from the back of a pickup, if you’re in the right place at the right time.”
For him, it was watching ash from Mt. Saint Helens darken the sky from the bed of his own father’s truck in 1980—when he was just 13 years old. For me, it was watching Mt. Hood smolder and spume at precisely the same age; sitting not with my back against a rusted cab, as he had done (I knew because he had told the story a thousand times), but on the hump of a brand-new Chevrolet’s wheel well—so I could keep an eye on the driver.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” said Jesse, watching the man carefully, suspiciously. He held his stocking cap down so it wouldn’t blow from his head. “And why the hell does he keep starin
