back.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
KYLE COULDNâT remember having eaten as well as he had the night before at the Wagon Wheel, except at his grandmotherâs house. As he perched on the bluff and looked out over the hundreds of orange flares in the distanceâthe Indian villageâhe could still taste the deep-fried cheese, the breaded shrimp, even the bite of cheesecake his mother had offered him from her dessert. The restaurant had been packed with men from the oil fields.
Nearly all the men wore hoodies, jeans, boots, and ball caps. The few women in the place dressed the same way minus the ball caps. There were loud conversations about the prices on the menu, but he didnât see anyone get up and leave.
He was still full when he got up that morning, hoping his mom would remember she promised to drive him on his route because of the weather. But even though he knocked on her bedroom door and stood outside it for five minutes, she didnât get up.
He left the house after T-Lock yelled for him to âGo the fuck away.â
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
AS THE morning cold started to seep into his clothing, Kyle got ready to finish his route. Then he saw a familiar car slow down on the highway and edge to the side of the road where the crash had occurred. He recognized it by its low-slung, bright-white halogen headlights.
There was no way, he thought, heâd go back down there to see who it was.
The car stopped and the doors opened and the same two menâat least Kyle assumed they were the same menâgot out and descended into the prairie. The crashed car had been towed away, but the men walked to where the car had rolled to a stop. Then two flashlights came on and scoured the snow-covered ground.
Kyle watched as the men circled around the spot where the wreck had occurred, walking in ever-widening circles. It must be tough, Kyle, thought, to see anything under the snow. He guessed they were looking for a lump.
Then, just as had happened the morning before but much slower and without sirens or lights, the cop SUV drove out from the edge of Grimstad and made its way to the parked car. Only this time the two men in the prairie didnât run back to their vehicle and drive away. This time, the men continued to look.
And as Kyle watched and puffed on his big cigar and got ready to go, he saw the deputy join the two men so the three of them could search the ground together.
Â
CHAPTER SEVEN
CASSIE SAW her first man camp fifteen miles west of Grimstad. It was out there in the snow and mud: a kind of high-tech ant colony made up of portable housing units tightly joined together and sprawling off in different directions across the prairie like word tiles on a Scrabble board. The high chain-link fence surrounding the camp recalled a low-security prison except for the massive lot where hundreds of muddy company trucks were parked in neat rows. There wasnât a single man outside walking around.
Because it was dusk about a third of the outside windows of the camp glowed from interior lights. She caught a glimpse inside of what must have been the dining hall. Dozens of men sat at tables inside, heads bent down, shoveling food.
The very name made her smile grimly.
Man camp.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
IT HAD been a long, flat, desolate drive of eight hours for more than 506 miles. All of it was in Montana. The route paralleled both the Lewis and Clark Trail and the railroad from Helena, Montana, to Grimstad. Cassie hoped her 2006 Honda Civic would hold together along the route known as the Montana Hi-Line through Great Falls, Havre, Malta, Glasgow, and Wolf Point long enough to get there. Grimstad was located twenty miles across the North Dakota border.
The terrain flattened the farther she drove east, morphing from mountains in the rearview mirror to hundreds of miles of rolling grass prairie and farmland through the front windshield. The sky was huge and gray and endless and the
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
KYLE COULDNâT remember having eaten as well as he had the night before at the Wagon Wheel, except at his grandmotherâs house. As he perched on the bluff and looked out over the hundreds of orange flares in the distanceâthe Indian villageâhe could still taste the deep-fried cheese, the breaded shrimp, even the bite of cheesecake his mother had offered him from her dessert. The restaurant had been packed with men from the oil fields.
Nearly all the men wore hoodies, jeans, boots, and ball caps. The few women in the place dressed the same way minus the ball caps. There were loud conversations about the prices on the menu, but he didnât see anyone get up and leave.
He was still full when he got up that morning, hoping his mom would remember she promised to drive him on his route because of the weather. But even though he knocked on her bedroom door and stood outside it for five minutes, she didnât get up.
He left the house after T-Lock yelled for him to âGo the fuck away.â
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
AS THE morning cold started to seep into his clothing, Kyle got ready to finish his route. Then he saw a familiar car slow down on the highway and edge to the side of the road where the crash had occurred. He recognized it by its low-slung, bright-white halogen headlights.
There was no way, he thought, heâd go back down there to see who it was.
The car stopped and the doors opened and the same two menâat least Kyle assumed they were the same menâgot out and descended into the prairie. The crashed car had been towed away, but the men walked to where the car had rolled to a stop. Then two flashlights came on and scoured the snow-covered ground.
Kyle watched as the men circled around the spot where the wreck had occurred, walking in ever-widening circles. It must be tough, Kyle, thought, to see anything under the snow. He guessed they were looking for a lump.
Then, just as had happened the morning before but much slower and without sirens or lights, the cop SUV drove out from the edge of Grimstad and made its way to the parked car. Only this time the two men in the prairie didnât run back to their vehicle and drive away. This time, the men continued to look.
And as Kyle watched and puffed on his big cigar and got ready to go, he saw the deputy join the two men so the three of them could search the ground together.
Â
CHAPTER SEVEN
CASSIE SAW her first man camp fifteen miles west of Grimstad. It was out there in the snow and mud: a kind of high-tech ant colony made up of portable housing units tightly joined together and sprawling off in different directions across the prairie like word tiles on a Scrabble board. The high chain-link fence surrounding the camp recalled a low-security prison except for the massive lot where hundreds of muddy company trucks were parked in neat rows. There wasnât a single man outside walking around.
Because it was dusk about a third of the outside windows of the camp glowed from interior lights. She caught a glimpse inside of what must have been the dining hall. Dozens of men sat at tables inside, heads bent down, shoveling food.
The very name made her smile grimly.
Man camp.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
IT HAD been a long, flat, desolate drive of eight hours for more than 506 miles. All of it was in Montana. The route paralleled both the Lewis and Clark Trail and the railroad from Helena, Montana, to Grimstad. Cassie hoped her 2006 Honda Civic would hold together along the route known as the Montana Hi-Line through Great Falls, Havre, Malta, Glasgow, and Wolf Point long enough to get there. Grimstad was located twenty miles across the North Dakota border.
The terrain flattened the farther she drove east, morphing from mountains in the rearview mirror to hundreds of miles of rolling grass prairie and farmland through the front windshield. The sky was huge and gray and endless and the
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