Road to Bountiful by Donald S. Smurthwaite

fairness, his understanding of silence, and his quiet way remind me of the tribal elders that I had occasion to meet.
    Or I could tell him I liked sports, girls, and greasy hamburgers, played too many video games, and that I wear my baseball hat backwards whenever I can.
    Junction ahead, Levi. Time for a choice. What do I tell Loyal about me? Would he understand the comparison with the tribal elders? Would he get the whole concept about our fast red schooner sailing across the wheat fields?
    I fidget and pretend to concentrate on the road ahead. I still don’t quite know how to answer Uncle Loyal. It is so nice, so utterly cool to be driving out here in the middle of North Dakota or Detroit or the Yukon or wherever we are. This is like a scene out of Mayberry, me being Opie, Uncle Loyal playing Sheriff Andy, the two of us having a nice little chat on the front porch on a Sunday afternoon with Aunt Bea fussing about a pie.
    “Well, I’ve lived in Utah all my life.”
    “I thought perhaps so.”
    “Except for my mission. I went to Arizona, northern part of the state.”
    “Quite an experience, eh?”
    “Yep. I’ll graduate next spring with a degree in business.”
    “Wonderful. I believe I knew that about you also. And after that?”
    “Get a job, I suppose. Maybe grad school, but I don’t have much money. Money’s important when you’re just getting started.”
    “Often a problem, the combination of grad school and finances.”
    “And I have a friend, a girl-type friend, her name is Rachel, but she’s not my girlfriend , just a friend who happens to be a female, and when I get back to school, I’d like to see where things go. You know. Like you and Aunt Daisy. Or my parents. See if we get there or not, hook it up, you know, like go to the big dance.”
    I realized that I had just referred to eternal marriage, creating spirits and worlds without number, making the most important decision of my earthly life and perhaps in my entire existence, as “getting there or not.” The feeling of being a philosopher evaporated in a nanosecond. Why could I never quite trust the right words to come tumbling out of my mouth?
    “Interesting. I’m sure Rachel is quite taken with someone of your obvious abilities and talents, with your kindness and depth of understanding about life.”
    “And that’s about it. I’m not very interesting or exciting, and this trip with you, I . . .”
    I’m doing this for money, Uncle Loyal. That’s what I was going to say, but I can’t force out the words. I’m not the person you think I am. I began to feel awkward. Really awkward.
    “And?”
    “And that’s about it for me.” I think a few seconds. It was true. That’s about all there was to me. Not much to show for twenty-four years of work.
    “I see.”
    My fingers are strumming the steering wheel. I didn’t want to tell Uncle Loyal anything more because the conversation might quickly get into areas that would lead him to conclude that I was not a kind person, that my depth of understanding was at the shallow end of the pool. And I was beginning to feel like a creep because I was making this trip with this really nice, old, and wise guy, and I was doing it just for the money.
    He must have figured out that I had become uncomfortable. He says, “I already feel I know you better. Thank you, Levi.” It is a nice little period on the end of a sentence, his way of saying that’s fine, that’s okay, the conversation, at least this part of it, is over, you don’t need to tell me anything more. He puts his hands behind his neck and stretches out. Then he tilts his head back and yawns, and down the long road we go.
    We are beyond the edge of civilization. Signs of life disappeared quickly during our short conversation. I couldn’t see farmhouses anywhere. It’s dark, as dark as it used to get when I was out in the woods on a campout and the last embers of the fire had died down; the only light you saw came from the moon and the