The trucker didn’t give his name, and as far as Nova was concerned, that was just fine by him. The man didn’t seem like a friendly type—he had been more than irritated when Nova first approached him back at the gas station—and his social skills were poor, but he was headed west, back toward Parrot Spur, and twenty bucks was getting Nova a lift into town. After all, it was less than a fifteen-mile ride, and the trucker was already headed in that direction, so why not?
Company regulations, that was why not, the trucker had told Nova. But then he paused, seemed to reconsider, and sighed saying what the hell, hop in.
And so Nova was in the truck’s cabin, staring out the open passenger-side window, the wind breezing through his hair. It made him think about being in the convertible only a few short hours ago, and he wondered how Jessica was faring on her own mission.
As the highway curved and the desert opened up, Parrot Spur could be seen about a mile away, just a cluster of buildings in the middle of nowhere.
Nova checked the side mirror, saw no cars behind them, and said, “You can drop me off here.”
The trucker gave him a brief, blank look. “Say again?”
“You can drop me off along here.”
“But you paid me to drop you off in town. I told you, it was against company regulations, but I figured what the hell, I can make an easy twenty bucks, and the deal was to drop you off in town so I’m gonna drop you off in town.”
“Here’s another twenty,” Nova said, pulling a bill from his pocket and holding it out toward the trucker.
The trucker went to snatch the bill, but Nova pulled it back.
“Only if you drop me off now,” he said.
The trucker looked even more irritated than before, but his eyes stayed on the twenty-dollar bill a moment too long. Finally he grunted, checked his side mirror, then downshifted.
“Thank you,” Nova said. He extended the bill again, and this time didn’t pull it away when the trucker went to snatch it.
“Whatever,” the trucker mumbled as he halted the tractor-trailer long enough for Nova to jump down from the cab and slam the door shut. Then, almost immediately, the rig was moving again, the engine groaning as the trucker shifted gears. Nova stood on the side of the highway, the canvas bag strapped over his shoulder, watching the tractor-trailer go. He waited several moments, made sure nobody was coming in either direction, and then hurried across the highway.
The pickings at the hardware store hadn’t been as plentiful as Nova would have liked. In the end he had purchased binoculars, rope, a utility knife, and an air-powered nail gun, a full battery pack and gas canister included. The nail gun was because he currently didn’t have a gun of his own. Whether he would need a gun was still debatable, but he didn’t want to be completely defenseless on the off chance he would need protection.
He had also purchased a canvas bag which contained all of these new items, along with his leather jacket which he had balled up and stuffed inside.
He kept low as he moved through the desert. He was approaching the town at an angle which would take him toward the back of the houses and trailers. The tracks he had seen in the dirt originating from that wooden shed kept bugging him. Those tracks had belonged to a dirt bike, and that dirt bike had been leading toward the hills, away from the direction of the mine. It could have been nothing—maybe one of the townspeople just liked to dirt bike for fun—but he had seen the slight hesitation in Sheriff Smith’s eyes when he pulled up and saw what Nova had noticed, and it was that slight hesitation that sparked Nova’s curiosity.
At one point he stopped and pulled the binoculars from his bag and looked to see if anything was happening in town. Unsurprisingly, the place looked deserted. There were a few cars parked out in front of the diner and bar, but that was it. Jessica’s Rabbit was nowhere to be seen.
He continued on, taking his time, wanting to make sure he was as inconspicuous as possible. He knew he didn’t have to go the entire way to town. He remembered where the dirt bike trail had led, and it was in that direction he eventually steered himself.
When he found the trail, he paused for a moment, realizing that he had brought along binoculars and rope and a knife and a nail gun—a fucking nail gun, what was he thinking?—but he had failed to bring any water.
Perfect.
Nova could beat himself up about it later. As it was, the day was wearing on and he didn’t want to get caught too far out in the desert by the time the sun set. He told himself he would spend only a half hour more on this, maybe an hour, and that was it. As far as he knew, this was nothing.
Still, he told himself, it was a lead, and right now he didn’t have anything else to do.
Nova trudged onward.
It didn’t take him a half hour before he found the dirt bike. It barely even took him twenty minutes. Without needing to weave in and out of the smattering of sagebrush and trees, he made good time. True, the ground eventually did begin to rise up over the hill, and things got stickier there, but he managed it and then kept going, following the trail which seemed to follow the ridge.
And then he found the dirt bike.
It just sat in the shade of a small scrub tree, propped up by its kickstand, all by itself. Its rider was nowhere to be seen.
Nova looked around the area. Suddenly he felt exposed. What if he was being watched?
The ground here wasn’t covered in as much packed dirt, so the tracks weren’t as obvious as they had been back in town, but Nova saw the boot prints leading away from the dirt bike. They headed up the hill toward the ridge, past rocks and boulders and more sagebrush.
Nova surveyed the hill, trying to spot another way to ascend that wasn’t directly following the boot prints. There didn’t appear to be any.
He released a long, heavy sigh. “What the hell am I doing?” he muttered.
When no answer came, Nova started up the hill.