As for the boy’s father, who knew what in the hell he’d been thinking? Call it work ethic or habit, or necessity, or just a nasty stubborn streak. I would go out to do what I had done five days a week for half my life—drive the desert.

I got inside the warm cab and turned to my passengers. “Weather,” I said, “is my only prediction.”

Belle gurgled and the boy Juan stared ahead through the windshield and into the rhythmic swing and flap of the wipers. The dog angled his big head in my direction and briefly cast his pink eyes on my throat again before burying his nose back into his fur. Maybe he was either too cozy or too lazy to act? Or going after me just wasn’t worth the effort. Maybe he was curious about what would happen if he let me live. So was I—and I surrendered the four of us to the road and announced our departure with a whispered shit as I dropped into first gear and cautiously pulled out onto an ice-varnished US 191. At best it would be a long day, and at worst, a long dangerous day that wouldn’t have us back in Price until late evening, if we made it back at all.

3

Being primarily a day driver and not a long-haul operator my truck didn’t carry a sleeper; I couldn’t afford the cost, space, or the weight and, as a general rule, I didn’t need one. There were exceptions. During winters I always spent a handful of uncomfortable nights, sometimes a day or two, with my boots on the dashboard waiting for the weather to break. Ginny and Pedro might spend a long night full of anxiety waiting for me to return their damn kids. There was no happiness in that thought for me.

My truck pulled the steep grade out of town at a steady and safe thirty miles per hour and then tiptoed down the ice rink on the other side in low gear before dropping onto the desert floor and a straight stretch of five miles, not that I could see it. Visibility was less than a quarter mile. One touch of the brakes could mean trouble. The wind began to gust and buffeted the sides of my trailer like they were sheet-metal sails. A couple times the truck and trailer scooted sideways all of a piece as if pushed by unseen hands.

Up ahead I could just make out the red taillights of another truck and I kept pace with his lights a safe distance behind. Every few minutes I took my eyes off the road and checked on my crew, all of whom seemed serenely unconcerned, which was good, since I was concerned enough for all of us.

There were no headlights behind me. Not one vehicle approached from the opposite direction. A tardy dawn began to send slanted needles of soft red light down through the snowy canopy of darkness. Instead of helping visibility the broken and shifting light made the distance even trickier to penetrate.

The junction of US 191 and State Highway 117 came at about the halfway mark of the five-mile straightaway with no flashing yellow warning light and only a small, unlighted sign—and not so much as an extra foot of a turn lane. It was usually a dangerous left-hand dodge considering traffic behind picking up speed off the hill and a string of oncoming trucks getting a run at the coming 7 percent grade.

The fact that the road seemed empty did nothing to make me feel easier. Some of the worst accidents happened at that junction, at least one a year, and though none of them had ever involved me, a few times I’d come upon the fresh wreckage minutes ahead of the Utah Highway Patrol. Someone, often more than one, was always dead or dying and there was never a damn thing I could do about it except comfort the injured and dying and string flares up and down the highway in both directions.

Juan turned and stared at me as if he might be reading my mind, maybe seeing the collage of horrors I had witnessed over the years. I hoped not. Those were memories even I didn’t want. I slowed to barely a crawl and checked my side mirrors again and again. Nothing. For a long, quiet minute the only sound was the crunch of hard ice beneath the tires. Nothing up ahead. Satisfied we were alone on the highway, I committed the truck to the turn and began to cross the oncoming lane.

I couldn’t see the low headlights of the semi.