Chapter 1 — Whitcomb
Wylie Marsh
It took four tries before the Tacoma caught and lurched over the metal bars set in the road, check-engine light still burning orange on the dash.
Wylie eased off the gas and let the truck coast through the dip where Pryor Creek cut close to the road. Gravel popped under the tires. The sun was gone behind the ridge and the last of the light was thin and cold, so he rolled the window up and left it up.
He had not had a bar on his phone since Bridger Falls. The podcast died somewhere around the county line, and after that the cab was just vent noise and the engine choking every time the road climbed. Jeanie's mug was still in the cup holder. He had meant to throw it out before he left the apartment and had not. Three months since the hospital and his thumb still found the chip in the rim when he reached for coffee that was not there.
Two weeks after he locked up Jeanie's place he quit the help desk — typed I'm done to his boss and closed the laptop for good. He packed what fit in the Tacoma, left the Aspen key under the mat, and drove east without calling Marla or anyone else.
The check-engine light had come on outside Cheyenne. He checked the gas cap twice and kept driving.
The road narrowed. Fence posts showed up on both sides, wire he remembered from when he was small enough to slip between the strands if he turned sideways. Hay smell cut into the cab even with the windows shut — cold dirt instead of the apartment with the broken ice maker.
Outside Ennis he stopped for gas. The pump screen asked for a phone number for rewards and he hit skip. When the tank was full the attendant came out and looked at the Colorado plates.
"Long way from home," the man said.
"Yeah."
"Road's open past that?"
"Far as I know."
The man handed him the receipt and went back inside. Wylie bought a coffee that tasted like burnt water and stood on the forecourt until the cup was empty, watching a pickup with a dog in the back pull in behind him. Montana plates. The driver never looked up.
He got back in and ate a gas station sandwich with the wrapper crackling loud in the quiet cab.
Bridger was still on the map. Whitcomb was not — just a gate he had not seen since he was nine, back when Pryor Creek was a whole summer and not a road sign.
Dusk came on the gravel stretch. His headlights picked up rabbits at the edge of the beam. A cow near the fence turned its head and watched him pass. On every hill the truck fought him and he let off the gas early and rolled the last fifty yards when he could.
He passed a mailbox he did not remember and a side road that might have gone to Hartley's. The county had graded the main road since he was a kid — smoother, different ruts — but the land was the same shape, hills on both sides and the creek somewhere down in the dark. He shut off the radio once and heard cattle lowing.
The pavement turned to gravel ten miles out and the Tacoma shook on street tires with only his duffel and a blanket in the bed. Three miles back he had pulled onto the shoulder when the engine quit on a hill and caught again on its own.
The road bent toward Pryor Creek and he knew the turn before the sign did — willows and mud when the water ran low. At nine he had gone in up to his waist and Bo laughed so hard he snorted while Grayson dragged him out with a towel from the clothesline.
The field opened on the left with cattle dark against the grass and the barn roof against the hill. House light already on though it was not full dark yet. A red truck parked by the barn with hay in the bed and tools chained down — nothing like his Tacoma.
The valley floor was wider than he remembered, more fence, more hay along the barn wall. On the last climb the truck choked again. The heater had been weak since Billings and the air from the vents smelled like dust. His stomach was empty since Ennis.
He came around the last bend and the gate had WHITCOMB on rusted metal with the chain still hooked through it.
He rolled to a stop. The engine idle had been rough for the last mile. He shut it off.
He turned the key. Wrong sound, then nothing, and the second try was the same dead weight.
Wylie sat listening to the fan wind down while his breath fogged the windshield. Ennis was behind him. Bridger was two hours ahead when the road was open. The truck was not going to make either without help, and he was not going to walk back in the dark.
He had enough cash for a motel in Ennis if he turned around. He was not turning around after twelve years and three days of driving. House light stayed on up the hill — porch bulb, kitchen glow behind the screen — and after a while the bulb shifted when someone inside saw the truck stop at the gate.
Someone on the porch moved, then one of them came down the steps.
He grabbed the key and opened his door. Cold hit his face. Colorado plates on the back of the truck — Aspen registration he never changed.
Bo. Cap backward, mud on the boots. Last childhood summer he had been shorter.
Bo took the rail in two and crossed the gravel before Wylie had the door all the way open.
"Wylie."
"Bo." Wylie put his hand out and Bo took it and held on too hard.
Wylie looked at the gravel.
"You got taller," Bo said. "Or I forgot?"
"Taller."
"Last time you were here you cleared that rail wrong and busted your lip on the post." Bo jerked his chin at the porch. "Ma still has the photo. You crying."
"I wasn't crying."
"You were." Bo let go. "Grayson, tell him."
"You made it," Grayson said.
"Yeah." Wylie flexed his fingers. "Took a while."
"Where from?" Bo glanced at the truck.
"Aspen."
"Figured." Bo glanced at the truck. "That where Jeanie—"
"Bo." One word from the doorframe.
Bo stopped. "Forget it."
"Bridger's two hours when the road's open," Grayson said. He stepped onto the porch. "Hank's is in Bridger."
"I know where Bridger is," Wylie said.
"Truck die on you?" Bo said.
"For now."
"We heard you coming." Bo looked at the Tacoma. "That last hill — sounded like you died twice."
Wylie tried the key from outside the door. Nothing. He tried again.
"Won't start," he said. The check-engine light was still on with the key out. "Light's been on since before Wyoming."
Bo walked around the front of the truck and ran his hand over the fender where road grit had striped the paint. "Street tires. Clean bed. Two paper cups and a blanket." He looked at Wylie. "Nice truck for a place with no mechanic for two hours."
"Good." Bo unhooked the chain from the gate and let it hang. "Then you know you're not getting there tonight."
"Ma know you're out here?" Wylie asked.
"Not yet." Bo jerked his chin toward the house. "She heard the truck stop. That's all."
Grayson looked at the Tacoma's hood without opening it. "Morning's soon enough."
"Leave it at the gate?" Wylie asked.
"Gate's fine." Grayson took the duffel from Wylie's hand, set it on the gravel, and picked it up again when Wylie reached for it — a short tug, then he let go. "Walk up."
Wylie shouldered the duffel and left the blanket and the cups in the bed. "Gate was locked."
"Gate's always locked." Bo coiled the chain on the post. "You think we leave it open for fun?"
The drive was longer than he remembered, gravel and weeds in the ruts and shoes that were wrong for it. Halfway up he looked back at the Tacoma sitting dark at the gate while Bo waited on the porch steps with his hands in his jacket pockets and Grayson stayed on the rail.
Clay's hat used to hang on the hook by the door. Empty now, nail still there. The rail had been repainted a darker brown since the last time Wylie busted his lip on it. Supper smell hit him on the steps — onions, something stewing — and he could hear a pot lid shift in the kitchen before Bo pulled the screen door open.
"How long you staying?"
"I don't know."
"Nobody told us you were coming."
"Few days."
"Vacation?"
"Something like that."
"You look like hell."
"Long drive."
"Yeah." Bo stepped back and held the screen door. Wind off the field pushed through the mesh. "We got room."
Grayson came up the steps behind them and Wylie shifted right so Grayson's boot scraped the wet paint on the top step.
"Truck can wait till morning," Grayson said.
Wylie nodded.
Through the screen he could see the kitchen table with the chip in the corner he used to pick at, steam above the stove, and then the footsteps stopped.
His duffel strap dug into his shoulder and he switched hands on the way across the porch. The top step still squeaked on the left.
Marla stood in the far door wiping her hands on a towel.
"Hi, Marla."
"I'm so sorry."
