This is the fourth chapter in a series of six stories that will run this week.
Eddie Ray got back in the Caddy, the door groaning like it shared his disappointment. His hopes—of spending time or anything else with Lucinda—had been dashed clean. The reminder of who he’d been putting off seeing ripped the scab off an injury he thought had long since healed. But deep down, he knew that was just wishful thinking. The ache was still there, buried but breathing.
He drove aimlessly at first, the Cadillac floating through the quiet streets as if it knew where he was headed before he did. He passed the Piggly Wiggly again, the Dairy Twin, the old high school, like landmarks in a dream he couldn’t wake from. Finally, he turned onto the farm road leading out of town, the horizon smeared with the dusty gold of late afternoon.
It took a good half tank of gas, but eventually the road led him past RoadRunner Estates and out toward the old Bastrop place.
It hadn’t changed much. Still had the rusted gate that squealed like it was warning you to think twice. Still had the faded sign with “Bastrop Ranch” half chipped away and dangling from one side. And the barn—leaning just enough to look like it needed help but not enough to fall.
This was where Eddie Ray had worked summers and weekends when he didn’t have gigs to play. Fixing fences, hauling hay, shoveling things better left undescribed. It was honest work, and the only place back then where he felt like someone counted on him. It was also the last place he remembered feeling anything close to steady.
He eased the Cadillac to a stop under the shade of a tired pecan tree, turned off the engine, and sat there for a long moment, the ticking of the cooling engine the only sound.
It was quiet out there.
Too quiet for lies.
With country songs playing low on KFSX, Eddie Ray leaned back in the seat, letting the twang and steel guitar roll through the cabin like a breeze from another lifetime. The kind of songs that didn’t just tell stories—they confessed them. Songs about missed chances, cheap whiskey, and the kind of women you don’t forget even when you should.
He stared out across the land, dry and stretching, dotted with brittle mesquite and old memories. Out here, it all came back. The long, blistering days where sweat soaked his shirt before noon. The creak of the saddle. The sting of sunburn and pride. The way he used to sing while mucking stalls, making up verses just to keep his mind off how heavy the work felt.
Back then, things were simple. Hard, sure. But simple. You worked, you slept, and if you were lucky, you got to kiss the girl you couldn’t stop thinking about behind the barn when no one was looking.
He remembered the way the stars looked from the hayloft, how quiet it was before the weight of grown-up life, and debt, and failed promises pressed down like a West Texas storm cloud.
He let his mind wander back to being behind the wheel of Ol’ Man Bastrop’s prized 1947 GMC Stake Truck. Metallic green, stained wood planks in the bed, and a 228 cubic inch inline-six under the hood that was as obstinate as Ol’ Man Bastrop himself. That truck didn’t like to start before 10 a.m., didn’t like to idle under 25, and didn’t like to stop for anything but gas and cornbread.
He remembered grinding the gears through the pasture, hauling bales in the back and Charlie riding shotgun with a bottle of RC Cola sweating between his knees. They’d crank the radio when it worked, and when it didn’t, they’d sing loud and badly, inventing songs about feed bills, mean cows, and the girls they’d kiss if they ever made it off the ranch.
One time sitting in the cab of the ol’ GMC, Eddie Ray strummed his guitar and fumbled around with writing a song about the old 228 cubic inch motor under the hood, making it a metaphor for the hard work and small payoff of being a country singer. But he couldn’t think of anything that rhymed with ‘Offenhauser intake manifold’ and gave up. But looking around the cabin, he figured life didn’t get much better than a bench seat trimmed in black vinyl, a locking glovebox, manual windows, and a body-color steel dashboard.
That truck had been more than a ride. It was a classroom, a confessional, a rolling piece of independence. Eddie Ray remembered thinking that if he could ever afford something that beautiful, that stubborn, and that full of promise—he’d have made it.
But he hadn’t. Not really. Not yet.
He leaned back, the memories thick as the dust in the air. The dreams he had behind the wheel of that truck had been loud, bright, and endless. Big-stage dreams. Song-on-the-radio dreams. Prove-everybody-wrong dreams.
Somewhere along the way, those dreams got traded for late-night gigs, broken strings, broken hearts, and too many nights spent trying to forget what he thought he’d never lose.
Now, parked under that same tired pecan tree, Eddie Ray wondered if there was still time to remember what he was really chasing—or if all he’d done was take the long road back to where he’d started.
And then, without meaning to, he thought of her.
Shyla Shackelford.
She’d come along after Lucinda, in that messy stretch of time when he thought love might be a thing he could get right if he just tried a little harder. Shyla had hair the color of the dark sky in full moonlight and a laugh that made you forget your last three mistakes. She used to meet him out at the back fence line of the Bastrop place after her shift at the Dairy Twin, always wearing that pale yellow uniform and the scent of vanilla soft serve.
They never went anywhere fancy. Most nights, they just sat in the bed of that old GMC and talked until the stars came out like witnesses. She believed in him in a way that was quiet and serious, like it wasn’t a gamble—it was a fact. That belief scared him more than anything else ever had.
She wanted things. Real things. A house. A family. Roots. Eddie Ray had wanted them too, maybe, but not then. Not yet. He’d told himself he had to chase the music, chase the dream. He told Shyla he’d come back for her when he made it.
He didn’t. Not really.
And when he did come back, it was already too late.
Still, Lucinda had stirred up her name, hadn’t she? Had looked him in the eye and asked if he’d been to see the one who really broke his heart. Like he wouldn’t have wanted to, anyway.
Eddie Ray closed his eyes, the sound of the country radio still soft in the background.
He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he went to see her. But part of him knew he couldn’t leave Fort Stockton until he did.
