Dane borrowed Keith’s Nissan Titan and drove it down State Road 515 until the forest broke open into massive fields of overgrown wheat and wildflowers. The landscape turned into a sea of violet, gold, and swaying rust. He slowly brought the truck to a stop at a sun-faded stop sign mounted to a petrified wooden post. Ned and Roselita just watched and waited as Dane looked both ways, scratched at his stubble. He shifted the truck into park and got out. He walked around to the front of the truck and crouched down. He rubbed his hands over the fresh indentations in the dirt. There were several tire tracks in the road, but only one set came from a compact car. It was unusual to see small tread like that out here. Cars that size had no business out here where the roads ended. That’s why they’d borrowed Keith’s truck and left the Infiniti at the station.
“What are you looking at?” Ned said from the window.
“Nothing.” Dane rubbed at his chin again and got back in. He sat behind the wheel for a few beats before he pulled the shifter into drive and hung a right.
“You trying to earn your Eagle Scout pathfinder patch, Dane?”
“Shut up, Ned. It’s just been a while since I’ve been out this way. Don’t the roads out here turn to shit past this four-way?”
“Yeah, they get a little rough. Why?”
“Just keep your eyes peeled for something compact. A Volkswagen, maybe—something that doesn’t belong.”
“Why?” Roselita asked.
“Because cars like that don’t fare well on roads out here. That’s the reason we took this and not that hot rod of yours.”
“It’s not a hot rod.”
“Whatever. I’m just saying that if someone drove a small car like that out here, they’re likely not to be from around here, and they’re likely to be stuck. Ned—which way am I going?”
“Just drive about a half mile down and pull off to the left after Tater’s Rock.”
Dane nodded as if it were coming back to him. “Right. I remember.”
“Tater’s Rock?” Roselita repeated like a question.
Ned explained. “Yeah, it’s a big-ass chunk of limestone that looks like a fucking meteor crash landed. Nobody knows how it got there—kinda like those heads on Easter Island. It’s a national treasure around here.”
“Tater’s Rock is a national treasure?” Roselita still couldn’t believe August O’Barr had her out here running around with the Dukes of Hazzard.
“Yep. It should be, anyway.”
“And why is it called Tater’s Rock?”
Ned looked at Roselita as if that was the dumbest question he’d ever heard. “Because Tater named it.”
“Who the hell is Tater?”
Dane shut down the banter. “It doesn’t matter, Roselita. It’s just a big rock. You’ll recognize it when you see it. The high-school kids around here have been spray-painting shit on it since we were in school, so it should stick out like a sore thumb. We’re almost there.”
“Right,” Roselita said, and began to recount out loud all the redneck shit she’d heard over the past few hours. “Tater—Boner—Rooster—everyone up here sounds like they were named after cartoons. Is there a Tweety Bird out here, too?”
Now Ned looked offended. “Watch your mouth, Velasquez. Tweety is good people. No reason to trash talk good folk.”
Roselita wasn’t sure if he was kidding. If he was, he didn’t show it. Roselita rubbed at the bridge of her nose and Ned went back to hanging his head out the window like a dog. “It’s right up there,” he said. “On the left.”
“I see it.” Dane cut the truck to the left at the huge rock that had been painted green and white and said FUCK STATE FARM in detailed spray paint, and pulled the Nissan onto a road most people would’ve missed, just a set of twin ditches gnawed into the wheat grass by other big trucks like this one. Most of the roads out in this part of the county looked like this one—unmarked and unnamed. The few signs that were posted were handmade and put there by the families that lived out there. Soon enough, the truck’s chassis was vibrating from hood to tailgate as Dane tried to keep it in the winding set of ditches. Every time the truck hit a stump or an exposed root, all three of them bounced an inch or two off the seat in the cab. At one point, Roselita’s sunglasses were jarred off her face, but she caught them before they fell to the floorboard. “This is ridiculous, Kirby. You’re going to break my neck driving like this.”
“It ain’t my driving. It’s the road.”
“C’mon, Kirby, are you sure you can even call this a road? It doesn’t look like it’s been driven on by anything with an engine—ever. I can feel my teeth rattle.”
Dane adjusted the rearview mirror. “Relax, Roselita, we’re almost there.”
“Yeah, Rose, relax.” Ned pulled the side mirror on the door inward and looked at his reflection. He rarely liked to look at his own face, but he didn’t have to very long before they bounced again, hard enough to test the limits of the truck’s shocks. Ned cracked his forehead against the window frame and Roselita caught her sunglasses a second time. She laughed as Ned rubbed his head. “That right there was the thumb of God, Lemon.”
Dane revved the big-block V8 through the last stretch of ditch before the ground finally flattened out into red dirt. The ride smoothed out, and so did the conversation, until the talking stopped completely as Rockdale’s house came into view. It was gorgeous. The two-story farmhouse looked like something ripped off the cover of Southern Living. The entire place was log built and trimmed with red brick. Perfectly pruned azalea bushes surrounded the house, with manicured flowerbeds surrounded by stone pavers underneath. The house was a far cry from the single-wide trailer Casper Rockdale had lived in all those years ago at the far edge of the property. The trailer was still there, and Dane could see it from where he stopped and parked the truck, but no one else mentioned it. No one looked toward the chicken coops or the row of X-shaped scarecrows made from wooden crossbeams that led back to the barn. All of them, including Roselita, who didn’t expect to see a place anything like this, were out of the truck with their eyes now glued to the only thing more beautiful than the two-million-dollar home.
Her name was Lydia, and she was the lady of the house.
Lydia stood barefoot in the open doorway, leaning against the jamb as if she’d been expecting them. Dane was sure she had. Anyone in the house or down at the barn knew they were coming the second they turned off the main road back by Tater’s Rock. Just because you couldn’t see the security didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Two men with scatterguns weren’t necessary anymore now that trail cams were so advanced. This place was well protected and for good reasons. Lydia was just one of them. The thin material of her cotton dress hugged her figure, showing off every curve exactly the way she wanted it to. The hem slapped against her thigh in the breeze to a rhythm that was almost hypnotic to watch. She pushed herself off the edge of the door and moved like river water across the porch to the steps. Dane took off his hat.
“Who the hell is that?” Roselita whispered to Dane. She sounded unsure of the question.
“That’s Lydia,” Dane said. “Eddie’s wife.” He smiled as he saw Roselita become speechless for the first time since they met. Lydia had that effect on people—men and women alike. Dane wasn’t sure if Lydia and Eddie had ever been legally married, but it didn’t matter. They’d been together longer than anyone could remember. Paperwork and court proceedings weren’t necessary to enforce that fact. Eddie’s reputation was enforcement enough.