He came to town riding the wind; when he left, he reckoned he’d do it just about the same way. The thing was, Lafayette Jackson Hendricks had been in the wind a long damned time, and he’d had just about enough of that shit to last a lifetime. In his current occupation, though, that life expectancy was not terribly long compared to most. But that was nothing new. It never had been, not in either of the occupations he’d chosen in his life.
He reflected on all this as he stepped off the running board of the big Mack truck, the engine brake squealing as he jumped down, an old Marine duffel slung over his back, the strap running over his long black drover coat. It was summer, it was night, and it was raining. The drover coat was a duster that helped keep the rain off him. The black cowboy hat he wore helped even more, but it was still coming down bad enough that his jeans were soaked at the bottom almost as soon as his boots hit the ground. The boots were old and leather and faded from landing in puddles just like this all over the U.S.
Hendricks could hear the subtle click of his heels against the blacktop over the rain as it started to slacken up a little. The semi that had carried him pulled down the ramp back onto the interstate, rumbling out of sight. He pulled up the sleeve of his coat to take a peek at his watch. It was just after ten o’clock.
