She pulled into the lot, relieved to have so simple a task in front of her as ordering food and then consuming it. Reaching into her pocket, she added paper of a different sort and with a different kind of value than the paper already in her hand.

The only other car in the lot was a silver pickup. Full-size. Well worn. Tall. Long. The windows gray with dried dirt. She had seen it many times. It belonged to John Peters (you know, the farmer?).

He was at the window, already picking up an order of the house specialty, a mysteriously crunchy enchilada.

“Hey, John,” she shouted as she walked up.

He turned, crunchy enchilada in hand.

“Howdy there, Jackie. How goes it with pawning?”

She posted an elbow up on the counter and waved away the shadow on the other side of the frosted glass that was waiting for her order.

“It goes. For sure it goes. I’m just, well, taking a break I guess. People take breaks. How goes it with, you know, farming?”

“Ah, it is what it is. It’s farming, you know.”

“Sure.”

A big crunchy bite of enchilada.

“Man, that looks good.” She turned to the shadowy figure behind the glass. “I’ll take one of those and one Jerry’s Special Taco. How much do I owe you?”

A receipt popped out from under the glass. She took a look at the price.

“Really? Jesus.”

John Peters watched her force a tear out onto the receipt and push it back under the glass. The price paid, the food was delivered through a hatch moments later.

“Prices here have gone up a bit,” said John.

“Tell me about it.”

They both dug into their food. When nothing else works, eating sure does.

“What do you know about a man in a tan jacket, holding a deerskin suitcase?” Jackie asked, not wanting to break the easy quiet of eating, but also not wanting to hang on to the question.

John stopped chewing.

“Have you seen a man in a tan jacket, holding a deerskin suitcase?” he asked.

“Yeah. Except I don’t remember much about him.”

“No,” said John. “Wouldn’t suppose you would. He has that effect on people.”

Jackie looked out from the pool of light they were standing in to the dark desert beyond. There was movement there. She swore that she could see the tan-jacketed man in question sprinting just at the edge of the light. More blur than person, but still with the desperate run that was away from something rather than toward.

“Is that—?” she asked what could only be herself, given that John wasn’t looking.

She dropped her food on the counter and started away from the stand, but John stopped her with a hand on the shoulder.

“Don’t bother. Wouldn’t catch him, probably. And wouldn’t remember if you did. He’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”