He vaguely remembered eating a big meal the day before. He put his forehead in the palms of hands and closed his eyes. It was at a steakhouse, he thought. No, that isn’t right. He slowly picked his head up but didn’t open his eyes. It was too painful to do so just yet. It wasn’t a steakhouse; it was a steak—steak and eggs…at a café. There was a waitress.

He put his head back in his hands. The nausea caused his body to shudder. It wasn’t one big meal, he remembered, it was two—one in the morning and one in the afternoon. He raised his head and with one eye squinted against the daylight, the other eye closed, he scanned his surroundings. Through his one blurry eye he could make out that his truck was parked at the very back of a large gravel parking lot. About two hundred feet to his right and up by the road was the Downtowner Restaurant. Two hundred feet to his left, and also up by the road was Torchy’s Bar.

He put his head back down. I had had two big meals yesterday, and I drank all night. How could I afford that? He remembered only having thirteen dollars and some change when he got to town. But why did he come to Elko in the first place? Henry rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. It was difficult to focus. He came there to see someone…

A breeze came up and blew gently past Henry. As it subsided, Henry could smell the strong odor of stale whiskey and cigarette smoke on his clothes. It had been there the whole time, but because he had been immersed in it for over twelve hours, he simply hadn’t detected it before. The breeze had blown the odor away from his body, bending it like tall grass on a windy day. And just like when the wind stops and the grass stands up straight again, so did the odor rise back up when the breeze stopped. Henry gagged.

He forced himself to focus. I came to Elko to see someone…about a job. I came to see…Sam Mitchell. Henry raised his head again. That was where the money for the meals had come from. Sam had given me some money and I put it in…Henry reached his hand up to his shirt pocket. No money. He checked his other shirt pocket…no money there either. Six months pay, he thought. As soon as he could, Henry climbed out of the bed of the pickup and staggered the two hundred feet to the front door of the bar, which, according to the sign on the door that Henry had trouble reading, wouldn’t open for another six hours. He scoured the area around the door, and then retraced his steps all the way back to his truck. He nearly tore the cab, his satchel, rope bag and bedroll apart, but the money was nowhere to be found. What Henry didn’t know was the money he had received from Sam Mitchell for six months worth of work he hadn’t yet done, had already been found.