The surface is tacky from the blood and beer. My face sticks to it, and there is a peeling sound when I lift my head. Bristles of hair adhere to my skin.

The bearded man is at the wheel, and Tina rides in the passenger seat. The vehicle is large enough that there is a second unoccupied row behind them. At least they’ve got the heat jacked. It’s the first time I’ve been truly warm since I went into the river.

Someone up front has a two-way radio. I hear the hissing of an open channel.

Then Tina says: “See you at the gravel pit.”

The response is fuzzed, but I am guessing it’s an affirmative.

The countdown to my execution has begun. The one consolation is knowing that Shadow escaped. The last sight I had of him, rushing into the forest, brings tears to my eyes. Maybe he’ll find his way north to the mountains.

Why can’t my last thought be a sentimental fantasy about the wolf reuniting with his lady love?

Inevitably I find myself picturing the faces of everyone who cares about me: Charley and Ora, Kathy Frost, Billy and Aimee and the Cronklets, Dani, and Stacey. The thought that they’ll never know what became of me hurts almost as much as the physical punishment my body has endured. Because I have a strong certainty that mine won’t be the first corpse the Dillon clan has successfully disposed of.

I try pulling my hands through the cobra cuffs, but they’re too tight, and even if my left wrist weren’t sprained, and both of them bleeding from the tow rope, it would all be for naught.

The road is rough, definitely unpaved, and was probably last plowed two and half storms ago. Sand and gravel rattle around the wheel wells. The muffler has a hole in it that causes it to emit a continuous farting noise.

My captors are making no effort to keep their voices down: another bad sign.

“Tiff was always careless,” Tina says in her smoke-strained voice. “Just like her old man. I was thinking they practically died the same way.”

“What are you talking about? It was totally different. Tiff wasn’t riding an ATV. She didn’t hit a moose.”

“Both of them ran into things because they were going too fast, Tanner. They both deserve Darwin Awards.”

“Show some fucking respect, Tina.”

“My dad deserves one, too,” she argues, before succumbing to a coughing fit. “I went to see him in prison the week before he died. And do you know what he said? That I should be putting more money into his canteen account. Nothing about missing me or his granddaughter.”

Suddenly, I realize there’s another noxious odor circulating in the vehicle, beyond the spilled beer and the deer stench. It is coming from the bench seat in front of me. Like someone emptied a chamber pot.