The Winnebago sat wedged between two aspen trees. Bits of pale, rusty paint peeked out from under layers of dust and dead leaves. Dry, dead stalks of milkweed hung from the wheel wells. Bindweed wrapped it, tying it to the copse of aspens. It had grown up though the holes in the rusted hood and coiled around itself, then frozen dry.

I patted myself down. A lump on the head and a few bruises. Probably a cracked rib or two. I cursed my way to my feet and walked over to the wreck.

Old, burnt flecks of metal curled away from its sides. They were cold to the touch. I walked the length up to the driver’s window, crushing frozen weeds under my boots.

A stone-colored pile of bones sat slumped in the seat, wrapped in rags, its forehead resting against the crooked steering column. The salt and pepper hair hung in loose patches: the same hair I still gripped, wrapped around my knuckles, tangled in the same bits of rag.

“Captain!”

I hollered, nearly wet myself. I flicked my radio on. “The fuck, Ed?”

“The hell have you been? I’ve been driving all over the county.”

“We went off the road. Guess I was out a while. Years, by the look of it.” I poked at a loose plate of bone on the skull, and it fell away into the cavity.

“You get him?”

“Yeah, he’s dead.” I released my finger from the mic button. “Too dead,” I whispered.

“Where are you, I’ll come get you.”

“I think we’re off behind Rodger’s Bluff. In a group of aspens just past the bend.”

“Be there in ten.”

***

“Did you check his cards?”

I shook my head. Felt the pressure of the blood pulse in the bruises on my forehead.

Ed reached into the cab. The skull wavered on its spine, jaw swinging, as Ed dug around the body. He pulled his hand back wrapped around a stained leather square.

“Nathan Jones,” he read, “43. Nebraska.”

“Kids?”

“Yeah. Three, looks like. Older boy, two girls.”

“Somebody out there missing him.” I tugged at the back door of the camper. It fell away from its hinges, but the weeds held it in place. “Somebody’s out there looking.”

“This can’t be the same camper, Cap. This one ain’t running, let alone running folks off the road. My guess is he ran this guy off years ago, and we just never found ‘em.”

I gave up on the back door and walked around to the front. “It is him, though—that’s him.” There was nothing left of the passenger side windshield. Bits of red cloth hung in ribbons from the edges of broken glass. “This is the same camper—I know it.”

“It ain’t in two places at once, Cap.”