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just…I can’t.”
    Mitchell heard footsteps outside the door. He
got up quickly, glanced through the peephole just in time to see
the battering ram swing back.
    He stumbled toward the bed as the door
exploded off its hinges and slammed to the floor, two men standing
in the threshold—the sheriff with the shotgun trained on him, a
deputy with a flashlight and a handgun.
    Mitchell shielded his eyes, specks of snow
blowing in, luminescent where they passed through the LED beam,
couldn’t see the man behind the light, but the sheriff’s eyes were
hard and kind. He could tell this even though they lived in the
shadow of a Stetson.
    The sheriff said, “I don’t see the boy, Wade.
Mitchell, let me see those hands.”
    Mitchell took a deep, trembling breath.
    “Come on, Mitch, let me see your hands.”
    Mitchell shook his head.
    “Goddamn, son, I won’t tell you—”
    Mitchell swung his right arm behind his back,
his fingers wrapping around the remote control jammed down his
boxer shorts, the room fired into blue by the illumination of the
television, the laugh track to Seinfeld blaring, Wade screaming the
sheriff’s name as a greater light bloomed beside the lesser.
     
    Sheriff James flicked the light, felt the
breath leave him, blinking through the tears.
    He leaned the shotgun against the wall and
stepped inside the bathroom.
    The cheap fiberglass of the tub had been
lined with blankets and pillows, and the little boy was sitting up
staring at the sheriff, orange earplugs protruding from his
ears.
    The sheriff knelt down, smiled at the boy,
pulled out the earplugs.
    “You okay, Joel?”
    The boy said, “A noise woke me up.”
    “Did he make you sleep in here?”
    “Mitchell said if I was a good boy and kept
my earplugs in and stayed in here all night, I could see my Daddy
in the morning.”
    “He did, huh?”
    “Where’s my Daddy?”
    “Down in the parking lot. We’ll take you to
him, but I need to ask you something first.” The sheriff sat down
on the cracked linoleum tile. “Did Mitchell hurt you?”
    “No.”
    “He didn’t touch you anywhere private or make
you touch him?”
    “No, we just sat on the bed and watched about
spiders and stuff.”
    “You mean on the TV?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What’s that?” The sheriff pointed to the
notebook sitting on a pillow under the faucet.
    “Mitchell said to give this to the people who
came to get me.”
    Wade walked into the bathroom, stood behind
the sheriff as he lifted the spiral-bound notebook and opened the
red cover to a page of handwriting in black ink.
    “What is it?” Wade asked.
    “It’s to his wife.”
    “What’s it say?”
    The sheriff closed the notebook. “I believe
that’s some of her business.” He stood, faced his deputy, snow
melting off his Stetson. “Get this boy wrapped up in some blankets
and bring him down to his dad. I gotta go call Lisa Griggs.”
    “Will do.”
    “And Wade?”
    “Yeah?”
    “You throw a blanket over Mr. Griggs before
you bring Joel out. Don’t want so much as a strand of hair visible.
Shield the boy’s eyes if you have to, maybe even turn the lights
out when you carry him through the room.”
    The deputy shook his head. “What the hell was
wrong with this man?”
    “You got kids yet, Wade?”
    “You know I don’t.”
    “Well, just a heads up—if you ever do, this
is how much they make you love them.”
     
     
    An introduction to “On the Good, Red
Road”
     
    This story takes place in the universe of my
third book, ABANDON, and is a companion piece to that novel. It
works fine as a standalone, but will be a richer experience for
those who have read ABANDON, as this one explores how Oatha Wallace
came to the mining town in the autumn of 1893, delving into the
doomed journey from Silverton to Abandon, which turned this
pacifist into a murderous outlaw.
     
     
    on the good, red road
     
    October 1893
    San Juan Mountains
    Southwest Colorado
     
    If Durango was on the road to hell, Silverton
had