The Tall Pines had been closed down by the Nevada Health Department just two months earlier because of a rodent and insect infestation, but that didn’t seem a good enough reason for the owner to actually want to keep it closed. It was that owner who had met Henry when he rang the bell the night before, dressed in a dirty T-shirt, boxers and wrapped in what was quite possibly the oldest bathrobe Henry had ever seen.

“What?” the man had grunted upon answering the door.

“Got a room for the night?” Henry asked, rain dripping off his hat.

“Yeah,” was his answer. “$6.50 a room.”

Henry pulled a small wad of bills out of his jeans pockets and counted what he had. Not including the coins he had also pulled out, there was a total of seventeen dollars out of the seventy-four he’d gotten from Audrey as change from his breakfast at the Teamster Café. Thunder rolled ominously out of the darkness behind him. Henry looked up. “Got anything any cheaper?”

“Cheaper?” the man in the robe scoffed. “Jesus, mister! You want cheaper, go live with your mother.” He was about to close the door, when Henry stopped him.

“Okay,” Henry shouted over another boisterous clap of thunder. “I’ll take it.”

“Fine,” The man in the robe jutted his hand out, apparently for Henry to place the money in. “Running water’s extra.”

Henry passed on the running water, and as it turned out, he might as well have passed on the bed as well. In order for him to sleep in it he would have had to share it with a mouse that not only had built a nest there, but also had apparently recently given birth.

Even so, Henry was able to get some rest by sleeping on the floor. That morning, less hung over than he’d been in a while since he’d run out of whiskey when he was still out in the desert, he climbed out of his bedroll. He went to his satchel and pulled out a clean shirt and jeans. He had found a coin laundry two days before and had washed everything he had for a dollar in change. He didn’t spend money on soap, nor on drying the clothes, but rather he secured the wet shirts and jeans to the tailgate of his pickup and drove through the desert until they were dry.

Henry was feeling more and more like he was at a crossroads. He had known for quite some time the way he was living his life wasn’t working for him, not that it ever had, but since the night he pulled the gate down—the night he’d heard Annie’s voice cheerfully telling him it was “time to change”—it had been on his mind a lot. He now knew he wanted to change. But before he could, he’d need a job. Any job, doing anything. He had to prove not only to himself, but also to an employer that he was worthwhile. He understood he needed to be responsible again, but more than that, he needed to be reliable. It was the one word on the little piece of paper with the information for the Lazy K ranch that stuck with him. It was also the one that worried him the most. The way he looked at it, the last time people he cared about relied on him, he drove them over a cliff and killed them. Somewhere in the back of his mind, subconsciously perhaps, he had decided being reliable wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He wasn’t sure if he could do it. Maybe it was too late for him. But still, he decided it was time to try.