The sky had no mercy that day. The sun scorched the road, and heat waves danced off the asphalt in shimmering mirages. It was mid-July, deep into a heat wave, and my 18-wheeler rumbled down a long, lonely stretch of Nevada highway. My girlfriend—who’s now my wife—sat beside me. We’d been hauling for hours, with nothing more than distant hills and vast desert on either side, the kind of solitude that presses heavy and makes the mind wander.
As the miles stretched on, the odometer climbed and the sun climbed higher. Our air conditioning labored. Fuel and food stops were few and far between. Finally, well past noon, we saw a small building off the road: a tiny gas station + convenience store combo. The kind of place you might expect to see every once in a blue moon. It was the only spot with restrooms and shade that we’d seen in hours. Up ahead, a faded sign warned: “Next services 118 miles.”
We parked the truck and stretched out, grateful for shade and stretch breaks. The lot was busy—people stopping for fuel, snacks, or relief from the heat. Under such relentless sun, everyone moved slower; sweat marked their shirts, water bottles clutched in hands, weary faces hoping for a little rest.
That night we slept in the cab. The metal groaned and the heat pressed in, even in the earliest hours of darkness. Morning came warm. We climbed down, rubbing sleep from our eyes, and headed toward the store for coffee and something to eat. The sun was already rising with an unforgiving glare.
As we approached the entrance, something unusual caught our eye—not far from our rig. A man—ragged, tumbly, clearly suffering—had approached us. He lay down, belly in the dust, skin peeling, eyes hollow. He was covered in ticks—hundreds of them, crawling, clinging. He whimpered, begging us for help. Something in him had clearly given up, or maybe just worn too thin by desperation, hunger, desert, and the elements.
He was starving, severely dehydrated, and the ticks were everywhere. Mouth dry, body shaking. He hadn’t eaten properly in who knows how long. Even water was too much at first: any liquid overwhelmed his system. He’d vomit immediately. We didn’t know how long since his last decent meal, but it was obvious that even something small would need to be introduced gently.
We bought all the smallest, mildest things we could: some water, some crackers, maybe fruit. Over the next few hours, we offered him tiny sips of water, small bites of food. He couldn’t handle too much too fast—but even that minimal care made a difference.
Eventually we reached a vet or some medical help. They told us that if we had waited just one more day—if he’d wandered off somewhere even more remote—he almost certainly would have died.
That’s how close he was. At the very edge of what’s “salvageable.” It took over a week of patient care—tender sips at first, then real meals—to bring him back to a place where he could enjoy a normal drink, walk without staggering, and just—be.
A few years later, I saw him again. He was different. He recognized the world differently. We drove to a dog park—I say “we” because, after all that, he had found people who cared, who didn’t just look away. He wagged his tail. He played. He rested on warm ground under shady trees, not dusty desert, not terrified of another day without food or water.
What started as a lifeless stretch of highway and a routine stop turned into something none of us saw coming.