It took forty minutes in the freezing mist to secure my truck to Tom’s heavy frame. We used two transport chains rated for ten thousand pounds apiece, binding the Peterbilt’s front axle tight so the bent flatbed trailed straight along the asphalt crown. Calloway held traffic on the south curve, his blue light bar guiding us through the dark while Vance followed behind in his cruiser, escorting the tandem haul across the county line to ensure no lingering deputy from Cole’s shift tried to stage a secondary stop.
We rolled into Gilbertown just as the streetlights began to hum against the gray predawn fog. The town was quiet, the storefronts dark behind their plate-glass windows. We pulled the dead wrecker onto the gravel apron outside Miller Machine & Supply, dropping the chains right by the delivery bay where the new hydraulic parts were scheduled to arrive on the morning freight from Birmingham.
Standing on the damp gravel outside the shop, I looked down the road toward the county courthouse. At six o'clock sharp—the exact minute Harlan Cole had written on his pre-dated seizure voucher—the county dispatch tower was completely silent. There was no interdiction checkpoint at the Black Warrior River boat ramp. There was no fleet of county cruisers seizing cash drawers from honest mechanics.
Instead, two unmarked black sedans from the State Bureau of Investigation were already parked outside the sheriff's office in Butler. Through the wire fence of the motor pool, I saw three state investigators in windbreakers carrying sealed cardboard boxes out of the records annex, loading the department’s duplicate citation files and receipt books into the back of an agency van.
At seven o'clock, I pulled into my mother’s driveway in Toxey behind the wheel of Tom Miller’s borrowed Buick. The exhaust gave a quiet rumble against the damp gravel as I killed the motor and stepped out into the yard.
My brother David was already waiting on the front porch, wrapped in his heavy woolen coat, his dialysis travel bag resting against his knees. He was twenty-four, thin from three years of kidney failure, but his eyes were clear as he watched me walk up the wooden steps. He looked past me toward the driveway, noticing the sedan instead of the yellow Peterbilt that usually rattled the porch boards every Tuesday morning.
"Truck give up on you, Jesse?" he asked, his voice quiet in the morning chill.
"Ruptured a return line on Route 84," I said, picking up his travel bag with my left hand and offering him my right shoulder to lean on as he stood up. "Tom Miller lent us the Buick for the Mobile run. We have plenty of time to clear the bay bridge before your appointment."
David didn't ask why my canvas coat was coated in dried red mud, or why my knuckles were scraped raw from handling heavy transport chains in the dark. He just put his arm across my shoulders, taking the weight off his weak leg, and let me guide him down the porch steps to the car door.
"Did you get the valve bought?" he asked as I helped him into the front passenger seat.
"Not today," I said, pulling the wool blanket across his lap and closing the heavy door with a solid, clean latch. "The state has the cash in a locker until Tuesday. But the shop knows the order is good. The rig will be running by next week."
I walked around to the driver's side, climbed behind the wheel, and pulled the gearshift down into drive. As we turned south toward Mobile, the morning sun finally broke through the gray canopy of the Alabama pines, casting long, sharp shadows across the clean blacktop of the open highway.
FINAL THANK-YOU NOTE
Thank you for making room for these pages today.