Ed limped over and helped ratchet the chain around the twisted axle. The POS rattled like a bone cage as we dragged it up the side of the bluff, whipping it around the switchbacks to Dead Man’s Curve. We disengaged the chain and gave the car a good shove. It knocked itself to pieces all the way down the mountain, spraying bits of metal off into the trees. It flipped at the bottom and landed in the front seat of the red minivan from last month—we dug up a lot of old holes that day. Big holes and little holes. No one left to miss them.

At least a dozen vehicles cluttered the gorge, the mountainside glittering with their leavings. Ed and me, we put every one of them there. Got to put them somewhere. Can’t leave the prairie ditches lined with old metal, with hood-ornament headstones, with evidence. At least people drive these switchbacks a little slower these days. All those steel carcasses, better than a posted sign. But it’s not the switchbacks they should be worried about.

Ed nudged me. A trail of dust rose behind a vehicle along the road out on the open plain below. The dust cloud churned with a tangle of black birds—crows, oil-slick rainbow feathers flashing through the dirt like a back-alley burlesque.

“Was a pretty shallow hole this time,” Ed said.

We watched as the speck—that old Winnebago—slowed past the site of the accident. The cloud of crows dropped, clawing at the loose dirt over Benjamin Macy 34 Iowa.

The speck peeled out, spraying dust over the inky pack. It tore off across the plain and disappeared behind a bluff.

“Was him, all right.”

I slapped the binoculars from Ed’s hands. They jerked on the end of the nylon cord around his neck. “Course it fuckin’ was.”

The crows raised their own cloud of dust. Single birds lifted, having had their fill of Mr. Macey, and trailed off around the bluff where the old Winnebago had vanished. Back on his tail.

“Better radio in another abandoned wreck at Dead Man’s Curve,” I said. “Where’d you get that?”

“It was in his glove box.” Ed spun the barrel of a large revolver.

“Well, be careful, or you’ll blow off another foot, or worse.”

“Be fair, Cap, that weren’t an accident.” He slid the cylinder open and counted bullets.

“There’s no anti-venom in lead, Ed.”

“Worked, though. Blew that rattler and his venom into the next county.” He spat and thrust the barrel though his belt. “We gonna chase him?”

I shook my head. “Waste of time.”

“You could let me drive. Should be able to catch a ratty old camper.”

“You saying I can’t drive?”

“No. I’m saying you always drive and we never caught him.”

“And we’re never going to catch him—not chasing after. Just like them damn birds never have.”