Caddy watched him work, sitting on the small porch of his cabin. He had a pair of old rusted porch chairs and a glider that used to belong to his grandmother. Caddy rocked back and forth in the glider drinking some Mountain Dew, looking out at the long dirt road running straight and long through the Sugar Ditch bottomland. She thought about Boom staying down here for so long, hiding from town when he got back, healing up after Iraq, taking that job at the county barn and then hitting the road, driving trucks. He got beaten down right where he was standing now. J. B. Hood and Wes Taggart coming onto his land, his world, thinking he’d been the one tipping off those Pritchard boys after they jacked one of their drug shipments.

“You mind if I ask you a question?” Caddy said.

“Never stopped you before.”

It was Kitty Wells now, “How Far Is Heaven.” The song saying . . . let’s go tonight. She just wanted her daddy to hold her tight. Miss Kitty sure knew what country music was all about.

“Can you ever let it go?”

“About you not changing your damn spark plugs?”

“Wes Taggart.”

“Taggart?” Boom asked, reaching back into the engine and returning with a rubber belt. A cigarette hung loose from his mouth. “No, ma’am. Can’t do it.”

“But you know he’s dead?” she said. “Holding on to that hate will eat away at you.”

“What about scars adding character?”

“The kind of stuff you’re feeling is deeper than scars,” she said. “We both talked about that.”

“Belts,” Boom said. “And hoses, too. Did you know your heater hose has been leaking like hell?”

“I knew something was leaking,” she said. “But Big Bertha has been running and I didn’t ask any questions.”

“Maybe you should have,” he said. “Just because shit’s running don’t mean it’s correct.”

“I know.”

Caddy walked up to the truck and stood side by side with Boom. She watched as the big man loosened the strap of the prosthetic and set it with a thud on a bench he’d pulled out for the work. He used a towel to dry the wet nub of his arm. Caddy smiled at him. “How are you doing, Boom?”

“Fine and dandy,” Boom said.

“Come on,” Caddy said. “I know you.”

“You want to check my house?” Boom said. “I tossed out all the liquor last night. Two full bottles of whiskey. Poured both out into the ditch.”

“You’re going cold turkey.”

“Why not?” Boom said. “Gonna try and wrangle those snakes in my head without Jim Beam helping. See how it works.”

“Can we pray?” she said. “Can I least do that for you?”