“Yes. I said I would.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“You’ve got to talk to Spence.”

“I will.”

“I can’t tell him.”

“I’ll call.”

“All right,” she says, and hangs up with a soft click. He wishes she would have slammed the receiver down and yelled something. He wishes she would have screamed something he’d never heard before. Some word. He keeps clutching the phone and staring out at the acres of trapped cattle. He can’t believe he’s going through with this; can’t believe it’s done. He can’t go back. He’s more than halfway to L.A. now. He can’t ever go back. A door has shut behind him with a soft click. Some woman’s voice is speaking to him. A prerecorded operator voice instructing him to hang up the phone. It keeps repeating, then segues into sharp beeps. He drops the phone and lets it swing. The beeps continue.

He drives on and turns the air conditioner up high. His head starts cooling down some. His eyes have finished stinging and the stink of cattle fades slowly behind him. He tries to keep watching the swinging phone in the rearview mirror but loses it quickly, like some small part of himself left behind. The sharp beeps continue in the top of his skull. He remembers a conversation he had with his wife in his head, less than a month ago. His head was not on fire back then. He remembers this imaginary conversation took place on this very same highway, almost exactly halfway like he is now except then he was heading north. Then he was heading back to her. He was telling her how he’d never leave her; talking out loud in the truck as though she were right there beside him. Telling her how he’d come to a decision. How he’d never repeat his father’s mistakes. He would never abandon his son. He was fervent about it—elated. He remembers the feeling of being full of conviction. The impression of himself as an honest man. The hot valley wind through the open window felt like a source of strength back then. He could hardly wait to tell her when he got back; when she’d come running down the front porch to greet him. But he never did. Something happened. Something shifted. Something he never saw taking place.

Night falls fast through the Tejon Pass and now he knows he’s gone way past halfway. Now he knows he’s deep inside the muscle of an action he’d only ever imagined himself doing. Now some scared boy takes the place of the man; shoves him over, grabs the wheel, hunches forward into the dark, and rides the snaking mountain down into the wild lights of L.A.