"Russ Roberts"
December 3rd, 1975- 15 miles outside Billings, MT – Hwy 312– 3:42 A.M.
As snow begins to fall, glossy paint reflects the lights of the sky atop the hoods of new cars harnessed into a pale blue convoy trailer. The Veloco-Trans truck is soaring down Highway 312, taking full advantage of the absence of a speed limit or patrol cars, its cargo tardy by two days. Behind the massive steering wheel bounces Russ, barely able to see over, but jamming out to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Saturday Night Special" with all his heart. He's freezing cold but starting to feel like an actual truck driver for the first time during the trip, now just twenty miles away from being over. Too busy belting out lyrics, both lead and backup, Russ doesn't notice the snow drifts getting larger, the road getting icier or the lightning illuminating the horizon.
He started this trip from his home in Detroit, where he was born just fifteen years ago on the day John F. Kennedy was elected, to a mother and father still angry from the news. Russ' father, Lieutenant Colonel Russell Roberts Sr., had recently received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor in the Korean War and was soon appointed Senior Information Administration Director. An exalted position, but unfortunately for Russ Jr., this led to a childhood spent globetrotting, seeing the world from inside the chain link fences of U.S. military bases and having a new best friend every three months. Around Russ' fourteenth birthday, this world came to an abrupt, crashing end when Russ Sr., was implicated by his peers in a scandal involving documents sold to foreign powers. The colonel was innocent, but the army brass needed a scapegoat to save face, and so a year later, the Roberts family had moved into a peach mobile home outside their old hometown of Detroit with Russ Sr. driving for V.T.C.S., Veloco-Trans Convoy Service. The bad luck continued. Russ dropped out freshman year, was arrested for pot, and got his girlfriend pregnant in the same month. His parents didn't seem to notice as his father was rarely in town and his mother's health depended largely on her accessibility to liquor, but Russ's behavior had its effect. With his dad barely supporting the current family, much less a daughter-in-law and granddaughter, tragedy again struck. Russ Sr. injured his ankle in a fall while strapping in a midsize van and had no one to turn to but his son.
"Russ, I can't drive with this ankle, can't shift. But, if I don't make this run, the company will put me on disability, basically cut my pay in half. I know you're only fifteen and don't have a license, but you know how to drive a truck and the family needs your help. Can you make the run?"
Russ looked at his dad's ankle and tried to feel like a good son. "Yeah, alright."
Two weeks, countless hamburgers later, and still oblivious to the coming blizzard, Russ is humming the horn parts of "Low Rider", when another convoy truck passes and gets in front of him. He turns down the radio and picks up the CB microphone.
"Uh, hey fellow trucker! I'm right behind you on Highway 312! COME ON BACK!"
"Not so loud! I don't have time to talk; this weather is getting nasty, out."
"Sorry! Wait, uh which exit is Billings? Do you know? Over?"
"You sound like a kid!"
Russ sits in angry silence, staring at the brake lights of the truck in front.
"Listen kid, we're about to hit one helluva storm here. I'd pull over if I were you, I'm pulling off now, over."
The brake lights get brighter and the truck eases onto the shoulder, the snow starting to look like a cotton blanket. Russ keeps driving, stonily staring ahead, not looking at the driver of the other truck who's now waving out of his window. He floors the gas pedal as he whispers something.
"Kid?"
Thirty seconds pass, ice creeping up the shoulder of the asphalt.
"Kid?"
A minute passes, snow swirling in an angry frenzy.
"O.K., don't answer. But just know that the weather service called this is the worst storm in fifty years and coming ahead a few miles there's a nasty curve, and if you don't take it just right, you'll go off the road and hit this rock mountain-thing called Pompey's Pillar. You should pull over, kid. Let the storm pass, then you can follow me, over."
Thirty seconds pass, lightning starting to strobe.
"Kid?"
A minute passes, and Russ can't take it anymore.
"I'm not a kid! I can do anything my dad does! OVER AND OUT!"
Russ turns the CB off and the radio back up. He's singing with the next song…
"Hey ho, let's go! Hey ho, let's go! Hey ho, let's go! Hey…."
For more information about the events which transpired on the night of December 3rd, 1975, on Highway 312, mail a letter of inquiry to the Yellowstone County District Court, 227 North 27th Street, Billings, MT 59307, or call (406)–256–2970 and ask for Records. To visit Pompey's Pillar, take exit number 23 off Interstate 94, pay your three dollars, and have look for yourself to see if you can find a roadside memorial to Russell Roberts. At the very least you can see where explorer William Clark carved his name into the rock, and you can even take a canoe tour while you're at it.
