“The socket drive was just the burning bush.”

Over the years I’d often pull over and converse with John, if I had time and he was on schedule and we were both so inclined. He managed to travel about ten miles a day. In the evening he would camp at one of his unofficial Stations of the Cross campsites along 117. He had attached a bracket and a rubber tire from a wheelbarrow to the road-end and strapped a pack with some camping supplies to the cross. Other than that, his was a pure stocker of a cross, right down to the hand-hewn hardwood and dimensions, and damn heavy.

I passed John and pulled over a couple hundred feet in front of him. It was still cold out, though there was very little snow along the shoulder. He didn’t drink coffee, or anything but water, which I usually carried. I set the brakes and requested everyone stay put. The baby was asleep. It seemed best to keep them both where it was warm and where the girl and the dog would be safe from traffic, if there was any. Though it was only John, I figured keeping the girl’s presence a secret was probably a smart move. My roadside visits with John never lasted very long.

I hopped out and waited for him with a thermos of water. He’d been at it for a while, probably since before dawn, and his tattered old down parka hung over the tip of the cross like a khaki surrender flag. I could see the sheen of sweat on his face as he approached.

John lowered the cross from his back, stretched his fingertips to prod the sky, and took the thermos from me and gulped down the water, careful as always not to waste even a drop into his white beard. He handed me the thermos. “Praise the Lord.”

“Got caught with your skivvies down out here, didn’t you?”

“Depends,” he said.

“On what?” I asked, both curious and a little afraid to hear his answer.

“On what you mean by ‘out here.’ The Lord has a plan,” he said, “and when you give yourself to it, you’re always ready. To my way of thinking, there is no ‘out here’ only here. God’s plan unfolds everywhere.”

“Is that so?” I said, pointing above us to the mirror embedded in my trailer. “Tell me that was God’s plan. And I thought I was ready.”

John was quick on the uptake and guessed what was lodged in the side of my trailer and exactly how it got there. He nodded solemnly keeping his eyes on the damaged trailer. “The Lord was watching out for you, Ben. His plan shall be revealed.”

“This little break of good weather will change, John.” I almost always called him by his first name, though many in the desert either didn’t know it or didn’t care. To them his name was Wacko or Wingnut or, at best, Preach. “Don’t you think God’s plan might be for you to use the brains he gave you to get the hell off this road and come in from the cold?”

John seldom smiled, and when he did his long white beard seemed to dance. “Maybe,” he said. “But God gave me this road and the glory of the day. Seems a little ungrateful to leave it because of bad weather.” He stared up at the blue sky and bent his tall body over and touched his toes. “That felt good,” he said. “I got a new pouch of tobacco.”

This was my cue.