He’d chewed up two packages of Stride gum and drained his Nalgene bottle, pretending the warm plastic-tasting water was 100-proof alcohol, but it wasn’t. His cravings for nicotine and booze pulled at him from the inside like talons and he thought, One cold beer, one cigarette, that’s all I fucking ask. That, and my son. The single cigarette he had remaining was in his breast pocket, but he’d sworn to himself to save it for when everything was over and Justin was safe. As he rode past pine trees he wondered what their bark would taste like if he stripped it, crumbled it into powder, and inhaled. When he rode Gipper over small streams of water he looked down and wished it came from a brewery. His head swam and he couldn’t concentrate, but there was one thing he knew and he finally said it to Bull Mitchell. “You need to turn around and go home.” Mitchell acted as if he hadn’t heard him.
