He pulled the truck to the side of the highway, let her idle in park, and got out. He hadn’t had to use his wipers on the drive so he was surprised to feel drops of rain upon his face and hands.

He walked to the truck back with the key out and ready.

Then he did something he hadn’t planned on doing at all.

Rather than opening the back, he put his ear to the closed door and listened. And the silence inside was somehow convincing enough for him to head back to the cabin.

“Sounds like it’s upright,” he said, turning on the wipers and putting the truck in drive.

Then he drove.

7

“Jerry?”

“Yeah, Tommy. You in Goblin already?”

Tom liked the feel of the CB in his hand. Like he was still connected to Jerry, to his job, to his life.

“Not yet.”

“Everything all right?”

“Sure. It’s just—”

“Just what, Tommy?”

“Just nothing. Just wanted to thank you again for the gig. Hell of a gig.”

“You getting emotional on me?”

“Suppose I sort of am.”

“Don’t mention it. You deserve all the big runs anyway. You’re the best driver we got and you know it. You gonna look up that Alice girl?”

“Who?”

“First kiss. The biter.”

“Oh…Alice Pratt.” Tom laughed. It felt really good to laugh. How could he be transporting something illegal and laughing at the same time? Didn’t seem possible. “I think I’ll leave her be.”

“All right, well. CB me after the delivery.”

8

With every mile the truck swallowed, Tom felt like the box was getting lighter. Not that the truck was easier to handle, no, but like the pressure of following those instructions was lessening.

Less time spent with a rule was less time to break it.

He thought he might ask Mr. Crawford what it was when he got there. Maybe it was like a riddle.

What’s sealed and heavy and might smell like a storm and might giggle and you can’t approach it under any circumstances?

The sort of brainteaser that pins you down before it tells you the answer and all at once you understand it so clearly that it’s shameful you didn’t figure it out on your own.

“He’d better be home,” Tom said.

Then he had a vision of himself in a stranger’s driveway, busting up the contents of a mystery box. Because of Alice Pratt he imagined this driveway on the banks of the Blackwater River, the pieces taken by the cold flowing water.

“He’d better be home.”

Was it a gift for a mistress? The secrecy, the small window to deliver, the hush money.

A Pontiac Sunbird pulled up next to him, and through its window Tom saw two young men pointing to the back of the truck.

“What?” Tom mouthed.

Through the falling rain, the men became more animated.