Chapters (110)
- Cover
- ALSO BY J. TODD SCOTT
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- PROLOGUE
- I
- II
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- PART FOUR
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Excerpt from LOST RIVER
- LITTLE PARIS
- DILLON
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“I can’t do shit on an empty fuckin’ stomach, so I’m gonna make some eggs . . . Any of you sons of bitches want any?”
FIFTY-FIVE
Marco Lucero was almost asleep . . . again.
It was the slow-rising heat, the relentless eastern morning sun against the windshield, and the boredom.
That, and the fact he was plain tired. He’d been sitting out here alone since he got a surprise wake-up call from the sheriff at three-thirty a.m.
Marco didn’t mean for it to keep happening, but his eyes kept getting heavy. Heavier. There was just nothing out here near the Far Six.
He hadn’t seen a single living thing move in more than an hour.
Nothing at all, after the coyotes . . .
—
THERE’D BEEN FIVE OF THEM, moving fast to stay ahead of the retreating night.
After they’d slipped by, he tried to do some Googling on his phone about them—anything to pass the time and stay awake—learning that it was unusual to see coyotes in packs, unless they were hunting a deer or some other big animal. He couldn’t imagine what was big enough to hunt out here other than a deer, except for maybe a bored deputy, sitting alone in a crappy truck.
But he hadn’t felt any fear watching them, all sleek fur, in tans and grays and whites. Alive, and almost within reach, as they swept around the truck. There was something fast and feral and low to the ground about them, and they’d moved away so silently. They were gone as fast as they’d appeared, except for one—the largest, with a clear white flash along its spine. It had stopped just beyond the truck’s hood to look back at him, and where he expected to see orbs as dark as the shadows they were chasing, its eyes had been bright, startling yellow.
Curious.
Those eyes had asked the same question Marco was asking himself: What the hell are you doing here?
It had watched him watching it back, before disappearing into a patch of creosote.
—
SINCE THE COYOTES, time had crawled by increasingly hot and empty, with Marco cooped up in a truck Till Greer had seized from Walter Denbrow, after the old bastard had gotten two DWIs and refused to pay three years’ worth of speeding tickets. It had been sitting in the department impound for about six months, and it still smelled of Denbrow’s cheap cigars and something rotten, like an animal had died inside it. Other than getting out to take a piss against an ocotillo, Marco had been constantly wrapped in that stink, and he was afraid even a good, long shower wouldn’t wash it off.
Murfee was safer for not having Walter Denbrow on the road, but he was slowly killing Marco Lucero.