6
Unlike many men of his age and station, Danny doesn’t drink (not now, anyway), doesn’t smoke, doesn’t chew.
He likes pro sports and might put five bucks down on the Super Bowl just to make it interesting, but otherwise he doesn’t gamble—not even two-buck scratch tickets on payday.
Nor does he chase after women.
There’s a lady in his trailer park he visits from time to time, Becky’s what used to be called a grass widow, but that’s more of a casual friendship than what the afternoon talk shows call “a relationship.” Sometimes he stays over at Becky’s place.
Sometimes he brings her a bag of groceries or babysits her daughter if Beck has errands to run or an early evening hair appointment.
There’s plenty of get-along between them, but love ain’t in it.
On Saturday morning he packs his dinnerbucket with a couple of sandwiches and a piece of the cake Becky brought over after he wired up the tailpipe of her old Honda Civic.
He fills his Thermos with black coffee and heads north.
He thinks he’ll feel like eating if he takes a look behind that deserted gas station and finds nothing.
If he sees what he saw in his dream, probably not.
The GPS on his phone gets him to Gunnel by ten-thirty.
The day is all Kansas, hot and bright and clear and not very interesting.
The town is nothing but a grocery store, a farm supply store, a café, and a rusty water tower with GUNNEL on the side.
Ten minutes after leaving it, he comes to County Road F and turns onto it.
It’s tar, not packed dirt.
Nevertheless his stomach is tight and his heart is beating hard enough so he can feel it in his neck and his temples.
Corn closes in on both sides.
Feed corn, not eating corn.
As in his dream, it’s not yet as high as an elephant’s eye, but it looks good for late June and will be six feet by the time August rolls around.
The road is tarvy and that’s different from the goddam dream, he thinks, but only two miles along the tar quits and then it’s packed dirt.
A mile after that he stops dead in the road (which is no problem since there’s no traffic).
Just ahead on his right is a county road sign, which has been defaced with spraypaint so it reads CUNT ROAD FUCK.
There’s no way he saw that in his dream, but he did.
The road is rising now.
When he goes another quarter of a mile, maybe even less, he will see the squat shape of the abandoned gas station.
Turn around, he thinks.
You don’t want to go there and nobody’s making you, so just turn around and go home.
Except he can’t.
His curiosity is too strong.
Also, there’s the dog.
If it’s there it will eventually disinter the body, visiting further violation on a girl or woman who has already suffered the ultimate violation of being murdered.
Letting that happen would haunt him worse—and longer—than the dream itself.
Does he know for a fact that the hand belongs to a female? Yes, because of the charm bracelet.
Does he know for a fact that she was murdered? Why else would someone have buried her behind a deserted gas station somewhere north of hoot and south of holler?
He drives on.
The gas station is there.
The rusty tin signs out front read $1.99 for regular, $2.19 for mid-grade, and $2.49 for high octane, just as they did in his dream.
There’s a light breeze here at the top of the rise, and the signs go tinka-tinka-tinka against the steel pole on which they are mounted.
Danny pulls onto the cracked and weed-sprouting tarmac, careful to stay clear of the busted glass.
His tires aren’t new, and the spare is so bald it’s showing cord in a couple of places.
The last thing he wants—the last thing in the world—is to be stranded out here.
He gets out of his truck, slams the door, and jumps at the sound it makes.
Stupid, but he can’t help it.
He’s pretty well scared to death.
Somewhere in the distance, a tractor is blatting.
It might as well be on another planet, as far as Danny’s concerned.
He can’t remember ever feeling this utterly alone.
Walking around the station is like re-entering his dream; his legs seem to be moving on their own, with no directions from the control room.
He kicks aside a deserted oil can.
Havoline, of course.
He wants to pause at the corner of the cinderblock building long enough to visualize seeing nothing, nothing at all, but his legs carry him around without a pause.
They are relentless.
The rusty trash barrel is there, overturned and spilling its crap.
The dog is there, too.
It’s standing at the edge of the corn, looking at him.
Damn mutt was waiting for me, Danny thinks.
It knew I was coming.
This should be a stupid idea, but it’s not.
Standing here, miles from the nearest human being (living human being, that is), he knows it’s not.
He dreamed of the dog, and the dog dreamed of him. Simple.
“Fuck off!” Danny yells, and claps his hands.
The dog gives him a baleful look and limps away into the corn.
Danny turns to his left and sees the hand, or what’s left of it.
And more.
The stray has been busy.
It has exhumed part of a forearm.
Bone glimmers through the flesh, and there are bugs, but there’s enough left for him to see that the person buried here is white, and there’s a tattoo above the charm bracelet.
It looks like either rope or a circlet of barbed wire.
He could tell which if he went closer, but he has no urge to go closer.
What he wants is to get the hell out of here.
But if he leaves, the dog will come back.
Danny can’t see it, but he knows it’s close.
Watching.
Waiting to be left alone with its early lunch.
He goes back to his truck, gets his phone out of the glove compartment, and just looks at it.
If he uses it, he’s going to look guilty as shit.
But that goddam dog!
An idea comes to him.
The trash barrel is on its side.
He tips it all the way over, sliding out a pile of crap (but no rats, thank God).
Under the rust it’s solid steel, has to go thirty, thirty-five pounds.
He clasps it against his midsection, sweat rolling down his cheeks, and walks it to the hand and forearm.
He lowers it and steps back, brushing rust off his shirt.
Will that be enough, or will the dog be able to tip it over? Hard to say.
Danny goes around to the front of the station and pries up two good-sized chunks of the crumbling concrete.
He takes them around back and stacks them on top of the overturned barrel.
Good enough? He thinks so.
For awhile, anyway.
If the dog decides to batter at the barrel to get what’s beneath, one of those chunks is apt to fall off and bonk it on the head.
Good so far. Now what?