Sam Frye sat in the idling car, looking out into the rain, when he spotted Toby stumbling from the woods. The boy holding his stomach, falling down to his knees. Sam ran out and grabbed the boy, helping him into the backseat, finding an old towel to hold to the gunshot.

“Cops,” Toby said. “They came from fucking nowhere, Sam.”

“Don’t talk,” he said. “I’ll get help. Just breathe and lay back. I know many back roads to the Rez. Hold tight. We’ll get you fixed up, son. You hear me?”

Toby didn’t answer and Sam looked back in the rearview, seeing the boy curled into a ball with the pain. He turned on his high beams, taking a wide turn down south, trying to get out of Tibbehah County as fast as they’d come. There was a good doctor at the Rez, an old friend, who never asked questions with wounds like this. If they didn’t have any more trouble, he could get Toby there in thirty minutes.

“You with me?” Sam Frye said. “Hold that towel tight. Keep all that blood in.”

“Goddamn, it hurts,” Toby said. “Damn, Sam. Holy fucking shit.”

“Hold on,” Sam Frye said, high beams soon hitting the county line sign. “I’ve been shot many times. It hurts like a bastard. But you grit your teeth, do what you need to do to stop that bleeding. Just breathe. You can breathe, right? Breathe with me, son.”

“Damn, they got me good. I feel like my whole goddamn stomach got shot out. Fucking shit, man.”

“This isn’t the life for you,” Sam Frye said. “We get you home, get you healed, and I don’t want you to mess with this stuff. You say you like to make music? Make your music. Go party. Drink, smoke some weed. Go meet some nice girls. And bad ones, too. But this life? What me and your father got into is no way to live. You were right. Get out before it eats you whole. Once you head down this path, there is nowhere else to go. Nothing else for you to do. You understand? Do you understand me?”

Toby didn’t answer, and somewhere miles and miles from the Rez, on a long, dark country road, Sam Frye pulled off into a clearing. It was still raining as he cut on the overhead light and turned toward the backseat. Toby stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, the front of his shirt covered in blood, as his loose fingers held a red-stained towel.

“They didn’t get you,” Sam Frye said. “You were never caught. You did real good. Now it’s time to take you home. We’re going home, son.”