The truck lasted for another 100 miles, until it croaked and nearly wrecked us abruptly in the dark. I still had a 100 miles left to go before we reached where the plane was stashed at a private airstrip in the country. It would've been so nice and convenient to have continued driving on through the night, gotten to my plane, been safely back in the air before daylight, and on my way back to my island with fantasy girl firmly in tow.
Nothing ever went that easy though. Always the……! In search of an adequate curse word I felt Asia's reproving gaze in the darkness and I stifled it.
"Get out of the truck!" I said gruffly already in a thoroughly bad mood.
I pulled my pack out of the back bed of the truck and said, "We can't stay near the road. It's too dangerous. We'll travel through the night across country and rest when the sun comes up."
Asia said nothing, but dutifully followed me into the weedy brush alongside the road. We walked all through the night and Asia had a hard time of it. She was a city girl and not used to the ways of the forest. She'd best learn now, because frequenting cities wasn't in her future, as I had never cared for them. The rougher the country was the better. I'd at least make sure she had access to society of some kind, but I'd live in no city or large town. Maybe a little town.