After the truck dropped them off their transportation became their own feet. Divine was still mostly dark at this hour, but Stone could see lights here and there as they trudged down the street. A truck passed them going east. And then another followed. And then another. Stone saw eight in all. Through the dirty truck windows Stone spied lean silhouettes of the drivers as they hunched over their steering wheels, cigarettes dangling between fingers, the windows cracked to let the white cancer-causing vapor escape into the frosty air. All around him he could sense the shadows of the nearby mountains, darker even than the night.

He checked his watch. It was barely two a.m. “Folks get an early start here?” Stone asked, nodding at the mini-caravan of dirty Fords and Chevys.

“They’re miners.”

“Going to work?”

“Nope. Next shift starts at seven. Those boys are heading to the clinic to get their methadone pop for thirteen bucks. Then they go to work.”

“Methadone?”

“Some folks have cereal for breakfast, miners have methadone mixed with OJ in a cup. Just the way it is around here. Lot cheaper than snorting oxy up your nose or banging it into your feet. And that way you don’t get dinged for dirty urine and lose your miner’s license.” Danny pointed up ahead to a small storefront set next to a clothing shop on one side and a hardware store on the other. Apparently Home Depot and Wal-Mart had not yet seen an opportunity in the isolated hamlet of Divine.

“That’s my mom’s place.”

Stone eyed the sign. “Rita’s Restaurant and Bar. So your mom’s name is Rita?”

Danny wagged his head and grinned. “Nope. Rita ran the place before her. My mom never had enough money to switch the sign out. Then when she got some cash she figured why bother changing it. Everybody already knew it was her place. Her name’s Abigail, but everybody calls her Abby.”

Danny put a key in the front door of the restaurant and motioned Stone to follow him in.

“Does your mother live here?”

“Nope, but there’s an apartment above the restaurant. You can crash there for what’s left of tonight.”

“What about you?”

“I got things to do, people to see. Get myself patched up.” He touched his face and his leg.

“A doctor at this hour?”

“Don’t need no doctor. Hell, just feels like Friday night after a football game. Can’t let it screw up your life. I got the quick fix all right.”

“You sure it’s okay that I stay here for the night?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll be back about the time Mom opens up for breakfast. Get it all straight with her.”