Part 7
The road rolled on.
Arkansas faded behind him, swallowed by green hills and winding rivers.
Cal drove in silence, save for the low hum of the diesel engine and the occasional murmur of an old country song drifting from the radio.
Dusty’s absence was a shadow in the cab.
Not heavy, but present—like the echo of a familiar tune after the music stops.
He kept glancing at the passenger seat out of habit.
Empty now.
But not forgotten.
Taped to the dash was the Polaroid.
Jeremy, Gunner, and Dusty—all smiles, all sunlight.
It looked like a memory borrowed from a better world.
Cal touched the edge of the photo before shifting gears.
That night, he pulled into a truck stop just outside Tulsa.
A summer breeze stirred through the parking lot as he leaned against the hood, sipping black coffee from a paper cup.
Another driver nodded as he passed.
“Where’s your copilot?” the man asked, jerking a thumb toward the cab.
“Found his stop,” Cal said simply.
The man gave a knowing smile. “Lucky dog.”
Cal nodded, eyes drifting toward the sky.
The stars were brighter tonight.
Or maybe it was just him, noticing more.
The next few days passed in quiet miles.
He delivered a load of lumber to a yard in Kansas City.
Picked up an antique furniture shipment bound for Nashville.
But something had shifted.
He started making time for places he once passed without thought.
An old diner in Missouri with the best sour cherry pie.
A trucker’s chapel off Route 66 where he lit a candle and sat for a while, remembering Duke… and Dusty… and Jess.
Not to mourn them.
To honor them.
At a rest stop outside Springfield, a girl in a tattered hoodie sat on the curb beside a small black mutt, ribs poking through her fur.
Cal watched them a moment, then walked over.
“You alright?” he asked gently.
The girl looked up, wary.
“We’re fine,” she said. “Just waiting on my uncle. He’s supposed to pick us up.”
Cal crouched beside the dog.
She didn’t flinch.
Just stared at him with eyes that had already seen too much.
He opened his cooler, pulled out a strip of leftover brisket.
The dog wagged her tail once.
The girl smiled faintly.
“Her name’s Molly,” she said.
Cal offered the girl a bottle of water and a granola bar.
Sat down beside them.
“You know,” he said after a while, “there was this dog I knew once. Showed up when I least expected it. Changed everything.”
The girl tilted her head.
“Was he yours?”
Cal smiled.
“No. I think I was his.”
They sat there for a while, watching trucks roll past.
Before leaving, Cal handed the girl a card from Martha’s rescue farm, scribbled with his own name and number.
“In case that uncle don’t show,” he said. “There’s folks who care.”
Back on the highway, the miles felt different.
Lighter.
Wider.
Like he wasn’t driving away anymore.
He was driving toward something.
Connection.
Purpose.
Maybe even redemption.
And all because of a stray dog who refused to stay lost.
Part 8
The further Cal drove, the more he began to feel like a man returning from somewhere far deeper than just a highway run.
The world hadn’t changed—still the same truck stops, same potholes, same long-haul routes he could drive blindfolded—but something in him had been rewired.
The road wasn’t just a way to outrun the past anymore.
It had become a way to carry it forward, gently.
A week after saying goodbye to Dusty, Cal pulled into a quiet layover in western Tennessee.
A little roadside chapel with a crooked white steeple caught his eye.
He hadn’t set foot in a church in over ten years.
But that morning, he stepped through the doors, the scent of old wood and hymnals wrapping around him like a forgotten coat.
A single woman played the piano softly—“What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
Cal stood in the back for a long while, hat in hand.
And when the music stopped, the woman looked up and said, “You look like someone carrying a story.”
Cal smiled. “Maybe I am.”
She nodded. “Well, there’s room for those here.”
That afternoon, as he sat on a bench outside the chapel, he saw a man walking a dog.
It wasn’t Dusty.
But it looked like him—same alert ears, same cautious grace.
The dog stopped suddenly and pulled toward Cal, tail wagging.
The man smiled.
“Friendly, ain’t she? Rescued her from a shelter in Oklahoma. She’s been my shadow ever since.”
The dog came up and rested her head against Cal’s leg.
He scratched behind her ear, gently.
“Well, she’s a good one,” he said.
The man squinted. “You had a dog?”
“Not long ago.”
The man nodded, as if that explained everything.
Sometimes, it did.
Later that evening, back in his rig, Cal took out the old cloth Eleanor had wrapped around the Polaroid.
He unfolded it slowly.
Inside, he found something else she hadn’t mentioned.
A brass dog tag.
Worn thin with time, edges dulled.
Stamped on it were four simple lines:
DUSTY
#148 | SERVICE COMPANION
SHEPHERD’S HEART SANCTUARY
DOES NOT FORGET
Cal closed his eyes, the tag warm in his hand.
He didn’t know if Eleanor had meant to include it or not.
But holding it now felt like Dusty was still there—still guiding the way, one mile at a time.
The next morning, Cal made a call to Martha’s farm.
Told her he’d be swinging by in a few days.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Something I need your help with.”
She laughed. “If it involves dogs, fences, or feeding something with a tail, I’m in.”
Cal smiled and hung up.
The wheels of something bigger had started turning.
And this time, he wasn’t just a man with a truck and a map.
He was a man with a mission.
And Dusty’s paw prints, though faded, still marked the path.
