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Sunday mornings in Fort Stockton have a particular stillness to them. Not the polite quiet of a library or the reverent hush of a church service. No, this is the kind of quiet that happens when the town collectively decides it is going to take one more slow sip of coffee before facing the day. Even the wind seems to wait its turn.

That morning I took the Fairlane 500 out for a drive to clear the cobwebs. The car had been sitting under the carport for three days, which for a 1960 Ford is about two days too many. Machines like that were built to move, and if you leave them sitting too long they develop the mechanical equivalent of a bad attitude.

Under the hood lived Ford’s honest little Mileage Maker Six, 223 cubic inches of dependable American iron, rated at 145 horsepower back when numbers like that were still considered respectable. Those ponies looked forward to stretching their legs almost as much as Buttercup looked forward to me leaving the house.

I rolled out past the courthouse square with the windows down, the air still cool from the night before. The Fairlane hummed along like a sewing machine that had finally been allowed to gossip.

Eventually I swung into the gravel lot at Eggs & Ammo.

Eggs & Ammo is one of those places that perfectly explains Fort Stockton to outsiders. It’s a gas station, convenience store, breakfast joint, and informal town hall all under one slightly sun-faded roof. The sign out front advertises burritos, bait, diesel, and shotgun shells with equal enthusiasm.

More importantly, they’re the only place in town that still sells gasoline with zero ethanol.

A Mileage Maker Six never developed much of a taste for corn. Those old seals and gaskets prefer their fuel the way God and Standard Oil originally intended. Pure American crude, refined just enough to keep the engine happy and what’s left of the EPA mildly uncomfortable.

I eased up to the Ethyl pump and stepped out into the morning light. Somewhere down the road a dog barked once and decided that was probably sufficient.

Inside the store Colt Peterson was behind the counter.

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Colt is Pastor Peterson’s middle boy, though calling him a boy at this point is becoming a technicality. He’s a junior at Jim Bowie High School, tall and lanky in the way young men get when their bones grow faster than their coordination can keep up.

His hair is the color of wheat that’s been sitting in the sun too long, and it never quite lies flat no matter what he does with it. His shoulders are starting to broaden from football practice, though he still carries himself like he’s apologizing for taking up space.

That morning he was wearing a faded Jim Bowie Fighting Knives baseball cap backwards and a red Eggs & Ammo apron that had clearly been washed with something that bled color.

Behind him sat the store’s famous breakfast burrito heat lamp. Beneath it rested a small aluminum tray of egg, sausage, and cheese burritos that he flipped occasionally with the solemn focus of a man performing surgery.

“Morning, Captain,” he said.

“Morning, Colt.”

He rang up a sale for a rancher buying coffee and Copenhagen, then turned his attention back to the burritos.

Colt works at Eggs & Ammo part-time on weekends, except during baseball season when his priorities shift toward pitching and pretending not to notice girls in the bleachers.

The job mostly exists so he can earn a little spending money.

“Just in case he ever has a date,” as his mother once explained to Lucinda at the Grounds for Divorce, in a tone that suggested such an event would require divine intervention and possibly two witnesses.

I leaned on the counter.

“So,” I said casually, “what does your father think about you missing services at Almost United Methodist Church this morning?”

Colt didn’t even look up from rotating a burrito.

“He wasn’t thrilled at first.”

“I imagine not.”

“But I reminded him I’ve heard the sermon about fifteen times this week while he was practicing it around the house.”

He turned, cleared his throat dramatically, and recited:

“‘Faith without works is like a pickup truck without gasoline. It may look impressive in the driveway, but it’s not taking you anywhere.’”

I blinked.

“That’s word-for-word.”

Colt nodded.

“I quoted the whole second half too. After that he said I could skip as long as I didn’t start correcting his delivery.”

“That seems fair.”

He shrugged.

“Also I’m technically serving the community by selling breakfast burritos.”

“Hard to argue with that theology.”

I grabbed a cup of coffee and nodded toward the cooler.

“How’s your little brother Wu doing?”

Colt’s face brightened immediately.

Wu had arrived in Fort Stockton under circumstances so complicated it had taken three separate stories to explain them properly.

“He’s good,” Colt said.

“Good how?”

“Well… yesterday he taught Grandma Peterson how to use chopsticks.”

“That must’ve been something.”

“She stabbed a meatball with one and declared victory.”

I took a sip of coffee.

“Sounds like progress.”

“And he beat Dad at checkers.”

Pastor Peterson losing at checkers to a six-year-old was the sort of information that needed to be handled carefully.

“I assume your father blamed the board.”

“Board, lighting, gravity, the devil…”

We both laughed.

Right about then the distant rumble of a large engine drifted through the open door.

A moment later a big white Buick Electra 225 convertible rolled into the lot like it owned the place.

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Trixie climbed out wearing sunglasses the size of salad plates and a silk scarf tied around her bouffant like a movie star on vacation.

Even before she stepped through the door the whole room smelled faintly of perfume and expensive hairspray.

“Mornin’, boys,” she said.

Colt immediately turned the color of a tomato.

“I need an ice chest, a bag of ice, and two six-packs of wine coolers.”

“Road trip?” I asked.

“Self-care.”

She winked.

Through the window I noticed someone sitting in the Electra. The morning glare made it hard to see clearly, but the silhouette looked suspiciously like the new pitching prospect the Mud Hens had signed for the season.

Trixie noticed me noticing.

“I’ve got a bumper sticker on the back of the Electra that says ‘Honk if you think I’m sexy,’” she said.

“That explains a lot.”

“Sometimes I just stay at a green light until I’m feeling good about myself.”

She winked at Colt again.

The kid nearly dropped the ice bag.

He packed everything into the chest and carried it outside one-handed, like a gentleman trying very hard not to make eye contact.

When he came back in he was still red.

“Seems like the gentlemanly thing to do would’ve been for him to come in and carry the beverages,” I said.

Colt hesitated.

“She’s looking out for his arm.”

“His arm.”

“Last time they were here she said it was his second-best asset.”

Colt froze halfway through the sentence as realization dawned.

I patted his shoulder.

“Miss Trixie is one of a kind.”

Before Colt could recover, the rumble of another vehicle approached.

Sister Thelma pulled up in the Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern church van.

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She came inside, grabbed two bottles of Gatorade and a bag of beef jerky, and set them on the counter.

“Even the apostles believed in hydration,” she said.

Halfway out the door she stopped and turned back toward me.

“And remember to close all those parentheses,” she added. “We’re not paying to air-condition the entire paragraph.”

Then she was gone.

Colt finally cleared his throat.

“I had an idea for a story you might want to write.”

“Oh?”

He had just opened his mouth when an Imperial came skidding into the lot in a cloud of dust.

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Delgado burst through the door like a man escaping a burning building and headed straight for the dairy case.

He began grabbing egg cartons with the urgency of a gold miner discovering a new vein.

“Grounds for Divorce ran out,” he said breathlessly. “Lucinda’s in crisis mode.”

“How many do you need?” Colt asked.

“All of them.”

Within seconds he was carrying a backseat’s worth of eggs out to the car.

“Some days it’s just not worth chewing through the restraints,” he muttered.

The dust hadn’t even settled before another truck rolled in.

Angus Hopper climbed out of his faded red ’64 F-100, muttering darkly.

“What’s got you wound up?” I asked.

“Mayor Goodman,” he said.

“Again?”

“I’m always disappointed when a liar’s pants don’t actually catch fire.”

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He poured himself coffee from a pot that had clearly been brewing since the Clinton administration and dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the counter.

“Keep the change, kid.”

Colt stared at the bill like it might explode.

As Angus left, Chad from the Piggly Wiggly pulled in with Prudence and the boys.

He paid for gas, grinned, and said, “It’s a gorgeous day in Pecos County. I think I’ll skip my meds and stir things up a bit.”

Then he was gone too.

Suddenly the store was quiet again.

Just Colt and me.

The kid leaned forward slightly.

“I think it’s time for you to tell the story,” he said.

“What story?”

“You know.”

He lowered his voice.

“Howie Hermleigh.”

I hadn’t thought about Howie Hermleigh in years.

Not really.

Back then it had been front-page news. The kind of thing people talked about at every coffee counter and church potluck in the county.

But time has a way of sanding the edges off old stories until they slide quietly into the background.

“I’m not sure it would serve any purpose bringing that back up,” I said.

Colt thought about that.

“My dad says stories that aren’t retold eventually get forgotten,” he said.

“And then it’s like they never happened.”

He had a point.

“I’ll give it some thought,” I said.

I gathered my coffee and headed out to the Fairlane.

“You don’t tell it,” Colt called after me, “nobody else will.”

The Wimbledon White sedan waited at the pump like a patient horse.

I turned the key.

All 223 cubic inches came to life under the hood with that familiar smooth mechanical chatter.

I rolled all four windows down and opened both wing vents.

When I hit sixty on Highway 10 the wind rushed through the cabin like a freight train.

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Out there on the open road, the question hung in the air.

Was it finally time to tell the story of Howie Hermleigh and the widow?

Or was it better to leave that particular sleeping dog alone?

The Fairlane didn’t have an opinion.

But the road ahead stretched west toward the Davis Mountains, bright and empty.

And something told me the kid might be right.

The story starts tomorrow.

Seven days. Seven chapters.

And if memory serves… it’s one hell of a ride.

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