Now, seventeen years later, and after a long dry spell without work (as his reputation for being a hard drinker had started to precede him) Henry found himself working a good job as a cowboy on the Rafter Seven Ranch in northern Arizona. He was still drinking but had found ways to regulate himself. He had almost stopped the day drinking all together, and for the most part was staying out of the bars, although there was never a bottle far away from wherever he was.

To make sure he could sleep through the night, he’d sneak out of the bunkhouse after everyone else was snoring in their beds, uncork a bottle and drink enough to sleep clear through till morning without a nightmare waking him, and everyone around him. Henry figured no one knew what he was up to. In reality, everyone did. Even with that, however, so far his drinking didn’t seem to hinder his work. There were the odd times he’d come to breakfast late and then stagger around for an hour or two until the previous night’s buzz wore off. But those times were rare, and besides, if old man Hill, the owner of the ranch, fired every cowboy who staggered around in the morning from drinking too much the night before, he’d be working the ranch by himself.

But then about three months into his time at the Rafter Seven, Henry was sent to town with the ranch truck to pick up a load of lumber. Town was nearly forty miles away, with fifteen of those miles—the ones closest to the ranch—gravel road. His trip to town was uneventful, as was his stop at the lumberyard. Within about a half hour of his arrival, the boys there had the lumber, mostly eight-foot two-by-fours and two-by-sixes, loaded on the flatbed of the pickup and strapped down.

Henry signed for the lumber, climbed into the truck and as he was pulling out of the parking lot, he heard the screeching of tires and the loud crash of metal impacting metal. He looked to his left in time to see a woman in a blue Chevy Impala run the stoplight on the corner and slam into the side of a school bus that had just entered the intersection. Both vehicles came to a stop in the intersection, and almost immediately muffled screams from children began emanating from inside the bus. The now crushed radiator from the Impala began hissing and sending steam high into the air.

Henry sat, fixated on the scene and unable to move. The high-pitched screaming, the hissing, the steam, the sound of metal on metal and breaking glass transformed itself into the night Annie and Josh died. It was dark, he could hear Annie and Josh screaming, he could smell the tires on the truck burning, the paint as it melted off its metal body, burning trees and bushes…and flesh. He could feel the heat on his face, and the hopelessness of not being able to do anything. Time stood still.