Page 85 of South of Nowhere

Hire was a pool ball of a man.Roundwas the only word that fit his physique—body and nearly bald head.

“You ready, boys and girls,” he called. “Almost there.” And hummed a song whose name and lyrics he did not recall. Something from a soft rock channel.

Hire continued slowly up the wannabe trail in the rocks and found a flat area, wider, like the landing in a stairway going up to a second story in a tall house. He climbed from the vehicle and looked at the rain-swept landscape.

Desolate.

Overcast sky, rain, mist.

And gray cliffs.

Oh, and mud. A lot of mud.

He knew for a fact it had rained for about ten hours, but he could have been told it was thirty and he’d’ve believed the person doing the telling.

He tapped the gun on his right hip to make sure he knew exactly where it was in case he needed it. He didn’t know that he would, and didn’t know that he wouldn’t.

But Hire Denton was a man who took very few chances.

Just ask his boys and girls.

He walked to the back of the Jeep and scanned the area again to make certain he was alone. He was. But who the fuck would want to be here anyway?

He opened the liftgate and leaned close to a camo backpack.

“How we doing in there?” he whispered. “Comfy? Glad to hear it.”

The boss knew he talked to his friends. But so what? That was his business and his alone.

“Be right back.”

Hire pulled on his fly fisherman rubberized waders and gloves, and a baseball cap, backward.

There was no uncertainty about where he was supposed to go. He simply followed the sound of falling water. Despite all the carnage it had caused and promised to cause yet, the waterfall over the broken Hinowah levee was quite the soothing sound to him.

A man who was accustomed to more, one might say,staccatonoises.

Keeping low, he peeked over a formation of rock that looked like something you’d see on Mars. Except it wasn’t. The rocks on Mars were red. Netflix, a special he and Alma had watched.

He studied the levee and, beyond it, the town of Hinowah. He couldn’t see where the water was falling, which he’d been told by the boss was nearly a ghost town now.

Deserted.

You want to empty a town—and leave it free for the pickings—just threaten to flood it to the gills.

Hire now eased closer and studied the levee and the road and the rocks around them carefully. He was fast and moved smoothly, which might have surprised an onlooker. But with his low center of gravity the ballish man had a natural sense of balance. He was also extremely strong and pushed through the water as if it were not much denser than air.

He shivered, despite the gear. People sometimes commented—out of curiosity, not cruelty—that he must be naturally insulated against the cold, being so round.

They seemed to forget that temperature sensors on the human body were not under the layers of fat but on the surface of the skin.

And so, yeah, he got fucking cold.

He returned to the Jeep and, leaving the waders on, drank a cup of hot coffee, black. Then, the core temperature up a few degrees, hewalked to the tailgate, opening it manually. He’d disabled the remote on this and his other car, a Mercedes, and the GPS and online assistance.

Radio signals…Not good.

He opened the backpack and said, “Morning, Charlie. How was the ride?”

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