“I did. Just made friends with those in his little flock. They didn’t have anything else. Then I met Anne, brought her in with me. I warned her. But she already saw through his ways and didn’t buy into his words. And she was strong enough to fight back.”

“Sounds like a new leader.”

“I’m no leader,” Anne puts in. “Just want a family.”

Doc grins at her. “Well, looks like you got one, for life.”

Looking around at everyone, Anne realizes that they all have a story. A place they arrived from. Leaving behind their abusers. Fathers who beat them. Mothers who left them. Brothers and sisters who bullied them. Some had good home lives; they just didn’t want what that home suggested. Didn’t want the American dream, whatever that was. Everyone made their own interpretation.

HUNTER

HUNTER

Secrets. Everyone had them, especially his father.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Blake had told him. It seemed that everyone but Hunter knew about their connection. His words had echoed in Hunter’s mind all night as he lay sprawled out on the bunk bed. Nugget and Itch stayed up, drinking Coors Light and munching homemade bison jerky, passing words with Purnell.

Come morning, he was out of the shower, wound cleaned and a new bandage on the knee. A blown tire wasn’t an issue, but the replacement for the bent rim was going to take a while to get delivered, even if they managed to overnight it. Nugget had offered his bike to Hunter, saying he would stay behind, get the rim, and replace the tire. Fix everything and meet up with Itch and Hunter down the road. Tara said that would be fine with her and her father, that Nugget could stay for as long as it took. Hunter could even meet with him back here on his way home.

Now, hauling ass through Utah, the heat rises from the road as the sun climbs over the mountains. The road curves. Miles roll by. Time counts down. Hunter wonders what else his father had kept hidden from him after all the years he was believed to be on the road, traveling and working. Bringing home stories. Life lessons from afar. From encounters with people he met and helped. Hunter supposes he will never know.

The landscape has a desolate beauty. Great sandstone towers rise from the desert floor. A bright green line of cottonwoods marks a seasonal streambed. An atmosphere of changeless calm. Little vegetation, just the vastness of blue overhead. It is something the eyes never tire of, and it delivers a breath of positivity to his senses, cleansing the mind.

Throttling down, Itch and Hunter pull off at a middle-of-nowhere gas station off I-70 for fuel, some water, and a piss.