Three fragmented images keep coming
to mind when I think of my brother. It is like a movie preview; short clips
showing glimpses of what’s important; but there’s no ending, no beginning. The
first swatch of thought is Duane making sure his wife has a car with a good
transmission, one which will run from Wyoming to New Mexico. Second, his dog,
whom he takes on the road with him when he drives the 200 miles from Basin to
Greenriver, is left at home. And third, Duane’s on the phone, trying to call my
Mom. He’s just about to drive that 200 mile distance to go to work in a factory
that makes diapers. My Mom’s not at home, so he leaves a message, then hops
into his truck, sans the dog, and takes off on the last trip of his life.

Tragedies happen to people all the
time, but when it hits close to home the clock stops and you begin to think of
little things leading up to that one sad event.

My brother was a simple guy.  He loved to hunt, fish, and spend hours
in his workshop creating beautiful things. He was also an inventor. He made a
weird looking gadget that would extract metal posts from the ground.  For those people who live in the east
this wont make sense. But in the west, ranchers use metal posts to mark off
their property, then they fence the area with barbed wire which is strung tight
and connected to the post. Every now and then you have to move a fence and
getting that metal post out of the ground can be a bugger.  My brother patented and invented the
devise that can do the job in a few simple steps.

At one point in Duane’s life he had
been a biker.  He had a bushy beard
and long hair, and a bike with extended forks to make his chopper look just
like those guys on Easy Rider. I would like to say he was a free spirit and
took to the road to find himself, but for my brother who never quite fit with
the “in” crowd, I think he was running away from a troubled childhood and the
little hick town that never accepted him. 

When I was seventeen I moved to
California and on one temperate summer day, Duane came to visit.  He was also living in California, but
more to the north.  We had not seen
each other in about a year. Since our parents divorced and the entire family
had fallen apart we all scattered, trying to make something out of all the bad
news. Duane and I had a semi-silent lunch. We tried to fill the uneasy gaps
with a few shared family moments. I could feel his emptiness and I suppose he
could feel the same in me.

On the way down from Bakersfield
his tire had popped and he’d hitch-hiked all the way to Long Beach from the
outskirts of LA. We went to a motorcycle store and he was able to get the tire
patched, but he needed a ride back to where he’d stashed his bike.  I had a friend with a car and we drove
through LA. How we ever found the spot where the chopper was hidden I’ll never
know.  But in the dark on a
non-descript freeway, my brother knew the exact spot and we found his bike
hidden in some bushes along I-5. For a guy who could barely read and transposed
his numbers, he whipped that tire back on in a matter of minutes and was ready
to be on his way. He was like that though. He could study anything mechanical,
take it apart, then, reassemble it without a hitch.

When he rode off, hair flying
behind him (no helmet), and the growl of the chopper fading into the night, I
ached inside for both of our empty souls. We really didn’t know each other and
circumstances beyond our control kept us strangers.

After I moved back to New Mexico to
go to college I very seldom saw my brother. But one night he appeared on my
doorstep. This visit was much like the one in California only this time he was
in a cast from his waist to his neck. He’d been in a bad motorcycle accident.
He and his girlfriend, Drifty, had gotten behind an old truck with a load of
crap in the back. The truck had slowed and when my brother sped up to go around
the truck turned right in front of him. No blinker, no warning, just a quick
turn to the left. Duane tried to avoid the truck. The bike slid to the ground
and my brother slid with it, but Drifty didn’t make it. She slid under the
truck and died instantly.  I didn’t
know how to talk to my brother about the death of his girlfriend. I ached for
him, but between us there was more silence.  I had no idea how to comfort him in his pain. 

I was happy when a few years later
Duane decided to move to Wyoming. 
He finally had settled down and decided to get married. He’d bought a
beautiful bit of acerage in Basin, Wyoming and he and his wife were expecting a
baby.  When his son was born my
brother became a new man. He took his son fishing, taught him how to whittle
and gave him every bit of the love and affection that he himself had been
denied by our father. I felt that finally my brother had gotten the good things
he deserved.

I too had married and had a son of
my own.  My husband was going to
graduate school in Austin, Texas. We had only lived there a few months and had
gone out for a walk in the neighborhood. 
When we got back we had a message on the answering machine. It was my
Dad and it was urgent. I returned the call. In a moment I was asking the
question everyone asks when they lose someone they love.  How and why did this happen?

Duane had left Basin to drive to
Greenriver-to go to work. Later, after speaking with his wife, I’d learned he’d
had a premonition, so his daily tasks took on precautionary measures. He bought
the reliable car; a nice, clean, ‘good runnin’ Buick.  He wouldn’t allow the dog along this one time. And… he made
one last call to my Mom.

On the road to Greenriver my
brother followed a short distance behind another vehicle. They were traveling
at a safe speed.  Coming toward
them was a big welding truck, speeding. 
The truck in front of my brother passed the welding truck. The woman who
was ahead in that truck later said in court she saw the welding truck as it
crossed into my brother’s lane. Welding trucks weigh anywhere from 10 to 12
thousand pounds, and as this one swerved it hit the drive’s side of Duane’s
Ford F-150 with such impact that the cab was blown apart and my brother thrown
out. Duane never wore a seat belt (because my father, with all of his good advice, convinced my brother and other members of
our family they were useless).  The
guy in the welding truck was so drunk he never new what happened. He barely got
a scratch.

Those events leading up to the very
last—and my brother’s premonitions—sit heavily on my mind. I had a tenuous
relationship with this person I had grown up with, I knew him, but could never
quite understand him. He didn’t fit in, but I loved him regardless. I didn’t
keep in touch with him because we never had much to say to one another. He was
a fisherman, a hunter. Duane was rough around the edges, but a diamond shone in
his heart and soul.

For Duane, he’d forgiven the people
who had abused and shunned him. He’d come to understand his own inadequacies
were okay. He could live with who he was, and he was finally happy. He’d grown
into a good man—one who even with premonitions clouding his heart, provided the
car, saved the dog, and in the end, longed for one last conversation with his
mother.