Beyond it, the Sierra Nevada loomed, a dark wall of mountains beyond the lights. The night sky was spectacular. My gaze lowered to the gas station lights. Each was surrounded by a halo of insects. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, turned my head to focus on the office.

The door finished opening, the kid came out looking at the bills in his hand. His head raised, he looked across the street at the market. My head turned, the car was gone. I looked back at attendant. He visibly sighed, and focused on us. His eyes widened. He started running.

“Wait! Stop!”

Dave turned up the empty can and plunked it down on the engine. “That should do ‘er,” he said smugly.

The kid ran up. “The filler,” he gasped, “It's loose. The fluid's on the ground!”

I dropped to my knees and looked under the car. Two quarts of red transmission fluid were making a pool that got wider as I watched. Drips spotted its surface from the underside of the transmission. Dave's face appeared across the pool. His grinning reflection took off its dark glasses, rippling with each drop. I got to my feet, hearing Dave chuckle.

“Get the hood. You're driving,” Dave said, walked over, plucked the bills from the stunned attendant's hand, got in, slammed the door.

“Keep the change,” he yelled out his window as we pulled out and turned left, back onto “Main Street” and headed north. Dave reached over and flipped the switch for the diesel air horn.

BBAARRAAAAAAA!!

I looked in the mirror. The attendant was flipping us off. He was yelling something.

“He didn't like that.”

Dave looked over his shoulder.

“If he’d been doing his job you wouldn’t have checked the transmission fluid,” burst out laughing, opened the glove box, stuck his dark glasses in. He slammed it three times before it stayed closed.

“Damn thing,” Dave said.

I was watching the road, mesmerized by the white dots that separated us from the oncoming traffic.

“You want to take 120 west, but that won’t be for a couple hours,” Dave told me, slumped down in the seat and closed his eyes.

The occasional road sign flashed by: “Crowley Lake”, “Convict Lake”, “Hot Creek road”, “Mammoth Lakes”, “June Lake”. I passed a sign for “Mono Craters”. Way off to my right, in the moonlight, I could make out these huge gray shapes, rising out of the

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