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THE FIFTH CHAPTER IN A SEVEN PART STORY

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We didn’t abandon the Expedition so much as we surrendered it.

There’s a difference.

Abandoning something implies you might come back. That you’ve got a plan, or at least the illusion of one. Surrendering it means you’ve accepted that whatever got you here isn’t getting you out.

The barn sat just outside Albuquerque, leaning into itself like it had given up arguing with gravity sometime during the Truman administration. The doors groaned open in protest, dust lifting in a slow, deliberate cloud that caught the afternoon light like memory trying to decide if it wanted to stick around.

We rolled the Expedition inside.

Even under shadow, it didn’t belong.

Too clean. Too precise. Too confident in a world that still believed in grease pencils and handshake deals. It looked like something a man would build if he didn’t trust time to behave itself.

Hairless shut it off.

The silence that followed wasn’t quiet.

It was final.

“Well,” I said, looking at the thing like it might offer an apology. “That’s eighty thousand dollars of bad timing.”

Hairless patted the dash once, almost affectionate.

“She’ll be here when we get back,” he said.

“You sure about that?”

He gave me that look. The one that said he knew something, but not enough to bet on it.

“No,” he said. “But I’m sure she ain’t helping us now.”

That was the last we saw of it.

At least for the moment.

The first used car lot we passed might as well have been a museum.

Studebakers lined up like they were waiting to be picked for something important. A couple of Fords sat off to the side, honest and a little tired. A Buick wore its chrome like a man who knew he was being watched.

We stood there, two broke fools from the future, hands in our pockets like we were considering options.

We had none.

The cards in my wallet might as well have been playing cards.

Hairless pulled out his roll of hundreds, flipped through them once, and shook his head.

“Too new,” he said.

“Figures.”

“Fifty years too new.”

“That’s a hell of a depreciation curve.”

We didn’t even bother trying.

We hit Route 66 on foot.

Two men who had outrun their own money.

There’s a kind of quiet that only shows up when you’ve run out of things to say.

We walked west.

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Thumbs out when we heard engines, down when they passed us by. The road stretched ahead like it had somewhere to be and didn’t much care if we made it along.

The sun didn’t beat down so much as settle on you.

Heavy. Personal.

Every now and then, I’d glance over at Hairless. He wasn’t thinking about the Expedition. Or Fort Stockton. Or even the road.

He had that grin.

The one that showed up when Trixie was somewhere in the equation, whether she belonged there or not.

Meanwhile, I was doing the math.

Which, at that point, didn’t add up to much.

We heard it before we saw it.

A low, steady hum—refined, deliberate. Not the rattle of something worn out, not the growl of something trying too hard.

This was something else.

Something that knew exactly what it was.

The car eased up beside us and stopped with a confidence that felt rehearsed.

Black paint. Deep enough to fall into.

White ash and mahogany running down the sides like the kind of detail a man adds when he’s already got everything he needs and wants to prove it.

The driver leaned over, opened the passenger door from the inside.

Francis Craig’s Near You drifted out through the open air, soft and perfect, like it had been waiting for us.

“You boys headed west,” he said, “or just practicing?”

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Hairless didn’t hesitate. Climbed in the back like he’d been doing it his whole life.

I slid into the front seat.

And that’s when I got a good look at him.

Clean. Sharp. The kind of face that had never had to explain itself twice.

Hair slicked back, just enough gray at the temples to make it intentional. Smile that could sell you something and make you thank him for it.

Angus Hopper.

Or at least… a version of him.

“Appreciate the ride,” I said.

He glanced at me, then at Hairless in the rearview.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Not like we haven’t crossed paths before.”

I felt that one land somewhere behind my ribs.

Hairless said nothing.

Of course he didn’t.

The Chrysler moved like it was floating on purpose.

Not fast. Not slow. Just… correct.

We passed men in uniform along the roadside. Some walking, some standing, all of them carrying something the war hadn’t taken back with it.

“Strange time,” Angus said, almost to himself. “War’s over, but it ain’t finished.”

Nobody argued that.

He tapped the radio once.

The song shifted.

“Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier,” he said. “Imagine that. Man outrunning the noise he makes.”

I glanced back at Hairless.

Stone.

Nothing.

Angus kept going.

“And Jackie Robinson,” he said, a little brighter now. “Finally broke through. Took long enough.”

He shook his head, smiling.

“Maybe we’re finally getting somewhere.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Hairless stared out the window.

Gallup didn’t feel like a place that had settled yet.

It felt like something still deciding what it was going to be.

We rolled into town slow. People looked. Not at us—at the car. At Angus. At the idea of something just slightly better than what they were used to.

He slid the Chrysler into a spot outside Jerry’s Café like it belonged there.

“Best Mexican food in Arizona,” he said, cutting the engine.

“This New Mexico,” I said.

He smiled.

“Depends who you ask.”

The newspapers were stacked out front, tied up with twine like they were trying to hold something in.

I pulled one free.

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The headline hit like a fist:

HUNDREDS DEAD IN TEXAS DISASTER

Texas City.

The explosion.

The kind of tragedy that rewrites a place whether it wants to be rewritten or not.

I felt my grip tighten on the paper.

Angus watched me.

“Damn good thing it wasn’t Fort Stockton,” he said.

It wasn’t a question.

I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “Damn good.”

Hairless went quiet.

Not his usual quiet.

Something deeper.

Like he’d just stepped on something buried.

Lunch came and went in that strange, careful way where nobody says what they’re actually thinking.

Angus knew something.

Not everything.

But enough.

Hairless knew more.

And wasn’t saying a word.

And me?

I was just trying to keep up.

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Afterward, Angus drove us through town like a man showing off a place he didn’t own but felt responsible for.

El Morro Theater.

Perry Null Trading Company.

Then the El Rancho Hotel, standing proud like it had already seen more than it planned to admit.

He stopped the car.

Reached into his pocket.

Pulled out cash.

Real cash.

Folded, worn, belonging.

He handed it to Hairless.

“Loan,” he said.

Hairless took it without hesitation.

“I’ll get it back,” Angus added.

“I know,” Hairless said.

That seemed to satisfy him.

Then Angus looked at me.

And tossed me the keys.

“I got an Indian motorcycle,” he said. “Reckon I’ll manage.”

I caught them.

The weight of it felt like responsibility.

Or maybe just trouble with better upholstery.

“Park it when you’re done,” he said. “I’ll find it.”

I believed him.

Didn’t know why.

But I did.

The Hotel El Rancho didn’t sit on Route 66 so much as it held court over it.

You saw it before you got there—the wide, rambling three-story shape rising out of Gallup like something that had been built with equal parts ambition and storytelling. A long portico stretched across the front, held up by thick wooden beams that looked like they’d been cut by men who didn’t believe in straight lines unless they absolutely had to. Above it, a central balcony ran the length of the building, plantation-style, like it had been borrowed from somewhere humid and stubborn and dropped into the high desert just to see if it would work.

Somehow, it did.

The neon sign buzzed faintly even in daylight, humming with that particular confidence only old electricity seems to have. “Charm of Yesterday, Convenience of Tomorrow.” It wasn’t a promise so much as a dare.

The place had been built in 1937 by R.E. “Griff” Griffith, brother to D.W. Griffith, back when Hollywood came looking for stories out here instead of trying to manufacture them back in Los Angeles. Movie stars had passed through these doors like weather—John Wayne, Errol Flynn, folks who wore their reputations the same way this place wore its wood and stone: a little rough, a little exaggerated, and entirely on purpose.

The National Park Service would later call it a “rusticated fantasy,” which sounded about right. Brick and random ashlar stone formed the bones of the place, but it was the rough-hewn wood—thick beams, uneven edges, split-log details—that gave it its voice. Nothing matched exactly, and that was the point. It looked like it had grown instead of been built.

Inside, the lobby didn’t just greet you—it took you in.

A massive walk-in fireplace anchored the room, built from brick and stone stacked in a way that felt less engineered and more negotiated. You could have stepped inside it and held a conversation without raising your voice. On either side, twin staircases climbed to the second floor, their railings made from split logs that still remembered the trees they came from. They curved upward like they were inviting you somewhere important, even if you didn’t know what that was yet.

The air smelled faintly of wood smoke, old leather, and a hundred stories that had never been written down.

There were photos on the walls—faces you recognized and some you didn’t, all of them caught in that moment where fame still looked like fun instead of obligation. Somewhere between the shadows and the soft light, you got the feeling the place was keeping track of who came through… and who didn’t leave quite the same.

Out front, Route 66 kept rolling past like it always had, tying Gallup to everything else whether it wanted to be or not. The hotel sat right there along what would one day be called the Trails of the Ancients Byway, though nobody in 1947 was calling it anything but the road.

Hairless paused just inside the lobby, taking it all in.

“Well,” he said, low and thoughtful, “if a place could remember things for you… this’d be the one.”

I nodded, looking up at the beams, the stairs, the fire that had burned a thousand nights just like this one.

“Yeah,” I said. “Only question is… what it remembers about us.”

We slept at the El Rancho like men who had finally outrun something.

Didn’t know what.

Didn’t ask.

Gallup at night didn’t quiet down.

It just changed its tone.

We took the Chrysler out again, the engine humming low, steady, like it was in on the secret.

A few beers later, we saw the fire.

Off the highway.

A crowd gathered.

Music carrying through the desert air.

Not loud.

Deep.

We pulled over.

Walked closer.

And there he was.

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Angus.

Bare-chested. Painted. Moving like he’d been born to it.

Not performing.

Not pretending.

Participating.

The fire lit him up in pieces—shoulders, arms, that same easy grin now turned into something older than any of it.

The dancers moved around him.

The crowd responded.

And then—

Like Fort Stockton had decided it wasn’t done with us—

Mrs. Drury.

From the Piggly Wiggly.

Stepping forward.

Taking his hand.

Joining him.

Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Hairless leaned over.

“Well,” he said, “that explains a few things.”

“Does it?” I asked.

“Not a single one,” he said.

We stood there a long time.

Watching.

Trying to understand something that didn’t want to be understood.

The fire crackled.

The music carried.

The past kept moving.

Just like it always had.

On the way back, I kept my hands light on the wheel.

Didn’t want to pretend I was in control of anything.

Hairless sat back, quiet again.

But not heavy this time.

Just… thinking.

“You ever notice,” I said, “how none of this lines up the way you expect it to?”

He smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s the part they don’t tell you.”

“What part’s that?”

“The past ain’t simpler,” he said. “It’s just less finished.”

We pulled into the motel.

Shut the Chrysler down.

Sat there a second longer than we needed to.

“Where we headed next?” I asked.

Hairless looked out into the dark.

“West,” he said.

“Of course we are.”

He glanced at me.

Grin back in place.

“Always are.”

Somewhere out there, the road kept going.

Didn’t matter what year it was.

Didn’t matter who we were supposed to be.

It just kept unrolling.

And now—

So did we.

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