It connected with deadly precision, cutting into Dale’s neck. Blood painted the wall like oil gushing from an uncapped well. Dale’s right arm fell limp at his side. The .38 revolver fell to the ground.
Dale reached for Desmond’s throat with his left hand, grasped it, his fingers digging in. Desmond released his grip on the blade, put his shoulder into the man, and drove him out of the shack, into the light. Blood shot out of Dale’s neck and onto the grass like weed killer being sprayed on the side of a highway.
Dale’s grip loosened. Desmond pushed him to the ground, stepped on his left hand. Within seconds, the color drained from the older man, the squirting blood slowed to a pour, then a trickle. He gurgled some words Desmond couldn’t make out, then his eyes went still and glassy.
Desmond stood, stared at Dale Epply’s dead body, lying there like a cowboy at the crossroads of a dusty western town—a gunslinger who’d been outdrawn.
What have I done?
The wind whipped Desmond’s blond hair into his face. Blood dripped from the fingers of his right hand where he had held the lawnmower blade too tight. He had killed a man. In self-defense, but nevertheless, he had taken a life. It had happened so fast.
Desmond expected to feel remorse, but instead he felt nothing. I did what I had to. But he knew that his life was about to get more complicated.
The lawful thing was to call the sheriff’s office and tell them what had happened. He figured they would believe his story: Dale probably had a rap sheet longer than the Missouri River. But Desmond’s record wasn’t clean, either; he’d been arrested in three states, mostly drunken brawls Orville had pulled him into. And Dale might have friends at the sheriff’s office—or folks who might put pressure on the case. Desmond had nobody.
Calling the sheriff meant uncertainty, possibly being trapped in this place, maybe for a long time.
Inside the house, he washed his hands and got his uncle’s truck keys. He backed the truck up, returned to the shed, and gathered what he needed: a tarp (which they used when the roof was leaking and they were too drunk to fix it), a shovel, a tank of gas they had used for the lawnmower, a bottle of Clorox bleach, and several unpainted oak planks they used to patch up the house.
He laid the tarp out next to Dale and took Orville’s single-page will from the dead man’s pocket. Desmond had seen men die on the rigs, knew how long it would take rigor mortis to set in. His body would be like a spaghetti noodle for a while. For that reason, he laid several oak planks next to the man, then rolled the man and the planks together into the tarp. With the stability of the boards, he hoisted the roll up, set the end on the tailgate, and pushed it onto the bed.
He scooped the blood-soaked dirt and grass into a five-gallon-bucket and capped it. With a handsaw, he cut away the blood-soaked portions of the shed’s planks, stuffed them in a sack, and tossed them on the back of the truck too. He stripped off his bloody clothes and tucked them inside the tarp.
Naked save for his underwear, he returned to the house, washed up, put on a fresh set of clothes, and gathered his belongings, which barely filled the passenger side of the truck. The computer tower sat on the floorboard; the fifteen-inch CRT monitor lay facedown on the seat; and a bag with three changes of clothes buttressed the computer, making sure it didn’t move. He put the .30-30 lever-action behind the seat.
He then went to Orville’s bedroom; he knew his uncle kept a pistol by his bed, an old Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. But when he opened the drawer on the bedside table, he stopped, surprised by what he saw. The pistol was there, but there was also something else: a slightly rumpled photograph. In it, an oil well towered behind a young boy of maybe eight—Desmond. Orville stood beside him. They were covered in dirt and oil. Neither smiled.
Without a thought, Desmond reached down, took the photo, and placed it in his pocket. Then he quickly drew it back out, as if it had burned him. He didn’t want to wrinkle it.
He returned to the truck and placed the photo in the glovebox and the pistol under the front seat—where it would be easier to reach.
Inside the shed, he popped the hood on the Studebaker and started taking the tools out. A few minutes later, he moved a straight pipe wrench, revealing some of the safe. He dug more quickly then, soon revealing the entire face of it. Had Orville welded the thing to the truck? He probably had, making it impossible for a robber to make off with it without a tow truck. Smart.
Desmond spun the safe’s dial to the three numbers in the will and turned the handle. When it opened, Desmond was stunned. He had never seen so much money in all his life. Stacks of green bills, bound in ten-thousand-dollar bundles, sat there like a mirage. Desmond reached out, held one as if making sure it was real. The safe also held the deed to the house, the truck, and a set of US Army dog tags with Orville’s name. Beneath those items lay a sealed envelope with a single word, written in rugged block letters: Desmond.
He stuffed the dog tags in his pocket and ripped the envelope open. It was a letter to him, written by Orville, dated a year ago. Unable to resist, he read the first line. He wanted to go on, to stand there and read it all, but he felt he should wait until he had time to process it. At the moment, all he could think about was getting rid of Dale’s body and getting out of town.
He put the deeds and letter in the truck’s glovebox and returned with a sack for the money. To his astonishment, he counted out thirty-two of the ten-thousand-dollar stacks.
Inside the truck, he pulled away from the home he had arrived at thirteen years before, after the tragic bushfire that had killed his family. He wasn’t leaving healed, but he was changed.
He drove west on Slaughterville Road, turned off ten minutes later, and stopped at a gate to an abandoned ranch. He undid the wire holding it closed, pulled the truck through, and shut it behind him. He drove through a field, far away from the road and out of sight.