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Chapter One of Seven.

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Cutter Bridges had always trusted the dead more than the living. The dead didn’t lie, didn’t cheat at cards, and they didn’t put IOUs on his counter before walking out the door. They just lay there, silent and patient, waiting for him to finish his work.

The living, though—they were nothing but trouble.

That was why Cutter trusted his 1976 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser more than most people in Pecos County. The wagon was long, square-shouldered, and honest about its intentions. Nineteen feet of Detroit’s finest sheet metal, with a clamshell tailgate that operated like a vault door. A Rocket 455 under the hood. A vinyl interior trimmed in woodgrain that smelled faintly of heat and embalming fluid. It had carried caskets, mourners, flower arrangements, and—more than once—secrets better left unspoken.

It was carrying one of those secrets tonight.

The coffin in the back wasn’t anything special—plain pine, brass handles, lined in cheap satin. The man inside hadn’t been much of anything either, except to whoever left the envelope of cash on Cutter’s embalming table that morning. The note tucked inside said simply: San Angelo. No receipts. No questions. Cutter wasn’t one for questions, not when the Rocket V8 fired smooth and the air-conditioning still blew cold.

He’d made one mistake: stopping at the Lucky Lady Lounge.

The neon flickered pink against the Oldsmobile’s flanks as he parked. Inside, the jukebox hummed low, the air thick with smoke, whiskey, and sweat. Cutter never stayed long at the Lucky Lady. He’d learned a man could walk in for a soda water and end up leaving in handcuffs.

Tonight was no exception.

A card game in the corner had gone from laughs to shouts. Cutter noticed one man in particular—hair too long, shirt collar too open, a grin sharp enough to draw blood. He was raking in a pile of bills with the kind of reckless cheer that only came before a fight.

Sure enough, a fist flew. Then a chair. Then the man with the grin ducked and bolted, money in hand, laughter still ringing.

He didn’t stop until he slammed face-first into the hood of Cutter’s Oldsmobile.

Cutter sighed, stepped out, and looked down at him.

“Get off my car.”

The man grinned through a split lip, as if the pain was nothing but punctuation. “Hell, I thought it was a runway. Figured I’d catch a flight out of here.”

Behind them, the Lucky Lady’s door burst open. Three men poured out, red-faced and ready. Cutter glanced from them to the stranger bleeding on his hood. Then he unlocked the driver’s door.

“Inside,” he said. “Don’t touch anything.”

The man didn’t argue. He slid across the wide blue vinyl bench, leaving a streak of blood behind. Cutter climbed in, turned the key, and the Rocket 455 rumbled awake. The wagon rolled forward, steady as a train, just as the first of the pursuers reached the gravel lot.

They were three blocks away before the man spoke again.

“You always pick up strays?” he asked, fishing a cigarette from his shirt pocket.

“You always bleed on upholstery?” Cutter replied.

That laugh again, rich and unashamed. “Name’s Topher Thompson. Folks call me lucky. Enemies call me worse. You?”

Cutter kept his eyes on the two-spoke wheel, the green glow of the analog clock, the long road ahead. He didn’t answer.

“Suit yourself,” Topher said. He lit his cigarette, cracked his window, and blew smoke into the night. “I had me a run once in Galveston. Thought I’d struck gold—a woman with a smile like sin, told me her husband was away serving in the military. Said he was somewhere in Southwest Asia, dodging sandstorms and Communists. She was lonely. I was dumb. We burned half a summer in motels by the seawall. Then one night I wake up tied to the bedframe, and there’s a man with a shotgun standing over me, swearing he’s her brother. Might’ve been, might’ve not. Either way, I ran before he decided to prove it.”

Cutter’s hands tightened on the wheel, but he gave no sign of amusement. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat as stone.

“Once,” he said, “I was in Dallas. 1981. Stood there with a shovel in my hand when they dug up Oswald.”

Topher turned, cigarette hanging from his lip. “As in… Lee Harvey Oswald?”

Cutter nodded once. “Folks in town still whisper about it. They think it means something, that I brushed against history. Truth is, it smelled like any other body—damp earth, rot, a mistake that never should’ve happened. People tell themselves what they want. They like a story better than the truth.”

Topher whistled low. “You’re telling me you were there when they cracked open the most famous grave in America?”

“Believe me, Thompson,” Cutter said, his eyes fixed on the road, “the dirt didn’t care whose bones it covered. And neither did the worms.”

Topher chuckled, shaking his head. “You tell that story to impress people, or to scare them?”

“Neither,” Cutter said. “I tell it when I want to see what kind of man I’m riding with.”

Topher leaned back, smoke curling from his lips, grin spreading like a dare. “Then let me return the favor, partner. I may not have dug up a presidential assassin, but I’ve left a few folks tied to bedposts wondering if I was gonna be their executioner or just their entertainment. Turns out, half the time, I’m both.”

The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t empty either. The wagon hummed beneath them, steady as ritual, heavy as sin, carrying two men who’d just learned enough about each other to know they were both trouble.

The Oldsmobile rolled steady through the midnight streets of Fort Stockton, its Rocket 455 muttering beneath the hood like an old hound who knew more than it let on. Cutter kept his eyes forward, hands steady at ten and two, while Topher sprawled against the passenger door as if the big wagon were his own private limousine.

That’s when Cutter caught it: a pair of headlights growing larger in the mirror, not weaving or wandering but locked on them, steady as a rifle barrel.

“Friends of yours?” Cutter asked.

Topher craned his neck, squinted, and smiled like the sight amused him. “Not the kind I’d invite to my birthday party. That’ll be pearl-snap and his buddies. Guess they didn’t like losing their paychecks to my good fortune.”

The truck—a dented Ford with more rust than paint—pulled closer. Its high beams flooded the wagon’s tailgate, throwing the silhouette of the coffin into stark relief under the rear glass. Topher noticed it, the sharp outline of the pine box. His smile widened, curiosity blooming, but Cutter gave him nothing.

“Lot of car to be hauling around,” Topher said, drumming his fingers on the dash. “You sure it can dance?”

Cutter downshifted the three-speed automatic and pressed the accelerator. The Oldsmobile wasn’t a sprinter, but once the Rocket V8 gathered itself, it pulled with the inevitability of gravity. The speedometer needle climbed past fifty, then sixty, the long nose of the wagon floating on its coil springs.

The Ford matched them, inch for inch.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a plan?” Topher asked.

“Stay seated,” Cutter muttered.

He swung the wagon down a side street, tires squealing against the thin whitewalls. The Custom Cruiser’s long wheelbase groaned but held, body roll tugging at the blue vinyl bench. The coffin thudded in back, brass handles clinking like distant church bells.

Topher laughed, bracing against the dash. “You’re running a funeral home on wheels, and you drive it like a stock car!”

The Ford tried to follow, overshooting the turn and fishtailing as it corrected. Cutter guided the Olds down toward the edge of town, where the pavement gave way to gravel. He flicked off the headlights. The Rocket V8’s growl softened to a low hum, and the wagon slipped into the dark like a ghost.

The road narrowed, dust rising in thick plumes behind them. The coffin shifted again, sliding toward the clamshell tailgate. Cutter felt the weight through the chassis, every bump telegraphing up through the steering column. He eased it back under control, jaw tight.

“Tell me something, Bridges,” Topher said over the roar of gravel. “What’s in the box?”

Cutter didn’t answer.

“Because from where I’m sitting, we’re running from three angry drunks in a Ford pickup, and we’ve got a mystery coffin sliding around behind us like it’s itching to get out. That doesn’t sound like a normal Thursday night.”

Cutter’s knuckles tightened on the wheel. “It’s none of your business.”

“Everything’s my business when I’m sitting in the same speeding hearse,” Topher shot back. He leaned closer, grin still shining in the dark. “What is it? Stolen silverware? A county judge? Jimmy Hoffa?”

Cutter said nothing. He guided the wagon onto a dirt track that wound behind the old grain elevator, the suspension moaning as the two-ton Oldsmobile bounced through ruts. The Ford tried to follow but overshot the turn, its headlights swinging wide. Cutter eased the Rocket back to idle, coasting the wagon into the shadows beneath the corrugated steel silos.

They sat in silence, the engine ticking hot, dust settling around them. The coffin bumped softly against the tailgate, like a reminder.

Topher chuckled, low and satisfied. “You just lost a chase in a station wagon. A station wagon. You know how humiliating that’s gonna be for them when they tell the story?”

Cutter didn’t move. He could feel Topher’s eyes on him, probing.

“You’ve got steel in you,” Topher said. “Cold steel. I like that. Makes me wonder what you’re really hauling.”

Cutter turned his head just enough to meet his gaze. “Makes me wonder why you’re still breathing.”

For a heartbeat, neither man looked away. Then Topher grinned again, reckless as ever, and leaned back against the seat.

“Guess we’ll both find out in time,” he said.

Outside, the town slept. Inside, the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser sat like a rolling cathedral, carrying two men who had no business trusting each other—and a coffin that whispered of secrets neither was ready to share.

The grain elevator loomed above them, a hulking shadow against the West Texas sky. Cutter killed the headlights but left the Oldsmobile idling, the faint vibration of the Rocket 455 rolling through the blue vinyl bench like a pulse. He could hear Topher breathing beside him, still grinning like a fool, and the soft creak of the coffin against the tailgate.

“You planning to sit here all night?” Topher asked.

“Safer than waking up with a knife in my ribs,” Cutter said.

Topher chuckled. “Safety in numbers, eh? Funny thing—I quit worrying about safety after Galveston. Spend one summer tied to a bed by a woman with a husband in uniform, and you learn the only thing safety does is slow you down.”

Cutter said nothing. He didn’t trust words at the best of times, and this wasn’t that.

A pair of headlights swept across the lot, momentary brilliance flashing silver off the Olds’ chrome bumper. Cutter stiffened, ready to move, but then he recognized the shape—a Ford F-250 Highboy, brown-and-cream, dented and dusty, rumbling like a bull clearing its throat.

Mason McCullough stepped out, lanky frame unfolding from the cab, his Stetson tilted back. Beside him came Whiskey—broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, his lifelong shadow since elementary school. The two had been best friends so long that nobody in Fort Stockton ever said “Mason” without “Whiskey” following half a breath later.

“Evening, Bridges,” Mason called, casual as if they’d just bumped into each other at the Dairy Twin. “Saw some commotion at the Lady. Figured you’d be right in the thick of it.”

Cutter rolled the window down a few inches. “Just passing through.”

Mason grinned, eyes flicking toward the wagon. “That why I smell trouble hanging off your tailpipe? Or is that just Fort Stockton being itself?”

Whiskey leaned against the truck bed, arms folded. “You’re not usually one to take passengers.”

Topher leaned across Cutter, flashing that grin like a dare. “Guess he made an exception tonight.”

Mason studied him for a beat, then smirked. “You look like the kind of exception that comes back to bite.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Topher said easily.

Cutter let the window roll back up. He didn’t need Mason poking around, not tonight. The Highboy rumbled away, the two men fading into the dark, leaving Cutter with the kind of silence that wasn’t comfortable so much as unavoidable.

Topher stretched, joints popping. “Friends of yours?”

“Acquaintances,” Cutter said.

“Good enough reason for me to stick close. You drop me anywhere in this town tonight, I’ll end up back at the Lady with pearl-snap and his boys waiting. Or worse, end up on the wrong side of your friends there. I like my odds better with you.”

“You think I’m safe?” Cutter asked.

Topher grinned. “I think you’re dangerous. And I’ve learned it’s smarter to sit shotgun with dangerous than try to outrun it.”

Cutter stared at him, weighing the man’s words against the trouble already trailing them. He thought of the coffin in the back, the cash in his pocket, the whispers about Oswald, and the way this stranger talked like sin wrapped in cigarette smoke.

Finally, Cutter put the wagon in gear. The Rocket 455 growled, the clamshell tailgate rattled, and the Oldsmobile rolled back onto the road.

Topher tapped ash out the cracked window, grin never fading. “So where are we headed, partner?”

Cutter kept his eyes on the blacktop, the analog clock glowing green at one a.m. “San Angelo.”

“San Angelo,” Topher repeated, savoring the sound like whiskey on his tongue. “Well, hell. Trouble always did look better out of town.”

The Oldsmobile gathered speed, headlights carving twin tunnels through the West Texas dark. Behind them, Fort Stockton shrank to a scatter of neon and silence. Ahead of them, the road stretched long and uncertain, carrying a mortician, a hustler, and a coffin full of secrets toward whatever waited next.

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