Czarnecki’s cabin is the last place I thought I’d find myself, but here I am. In a way, I guess, it’s appropriate: This nightmare will end where it began.

To backtrack a bit, Jesse was a man of his word. The night after the shootout at the trailer, he returned my wallet and Czarnecki’s .45, and he and Edgar drove off in a stolen car. My first thought was that I should leave the motel too, put some distance between me and the scene of my crime, but my leg still ached, and I needed more rest. My appetite was back, so I had a pizza delivered. After eating my fill, I thought of Beaumont chained in the camper. He’d been without food or water for nearly twenty-four hours.

He didn’t say anything when I lifted the lid of the crate, didn’t reach for the jug of water I offered him.

“I won’t beg you,” I said.

“I need to use the toilet,” he said.

I told him to go on. He stood slowly, awkwardly, chains jingling. I turned away while he squatted over the bucket.

“May I stand for a bit?” he said when he finished.

I let him lean against the counter while he ate a couple of slices of pizza and drank some water.

“Where is Jesse?” he asked.

“Gone,” I replied.

“But I’m still a prisoner.”

“For as long as you earn your keep,” I said. “You’re going to help me hunt rovers.”

“While living in a box and shitting in a bucket?”

“Better than you’ll do in hell.”

“I’d rule hell in a week.”

I took his arrogance as a warning. After being surprised by Sally, I’d never again let my guard down around a rover, but I’d have to be extra cautious with Beaumont. I could tell from his sneer, from the tilt of his head, that even in chains he thought he was superior to me and would always be scheming to escape. The first chance he got—when I was feeding him my own blood to keep him alive?—he’d be on me like a tiger. I hurried him into the crate and didn’t feel safe until he was locked inside.

Back in the room I changed the dressing on my leg. It didn’t look any better, but it also didn’t look any worse. I tried to get lost in a ballgame on TV, but you know how that goes. Whatever’s bedeviling you always wins out.

That I’d killed a man, even mistakenly, weighed heavily on me. Rovers were soulless demons, and with not much twisting I could convince myself that putting them down was doing the Lord’s work. Killing a human being, though. Even if the man I shot was a killer himself, murder is a mortal sin.