I feel it through the hitch, the way I always feel him—like the truck, the trailer, the horse, and I are one long connected thing, and whatever happens to one of us registers in all four.
He's tired as all hell. He ran clean yesterday. He ran clean the day before.
He earned the silver on my dash and the ribbon I have tucked away in the storage part of my trailer.
I lean forward and rest my forehead on the steering wheel.
George Strait is on the radio. I’d almost laugh if I wasn’t so drained.
I didn't put him there. I don't even know what station this is.
I had the dial on something else when I left the hotel. Somewhere between San Angelo and here, the signal died. When I didn't reach over to change it, the radio did what radios do and kept searching, and George is what it found.
Because George is what it always finds.
Because he is on this radio whether I want him or not.
I’ve been hearing George Strait on drives home since I was fifteen years old, riding shotgun with my mother in a truck she shouldn't have been driving, with a bottle of Crown she shouldn't have been drinking, with the windows rolled down because the air conditioning never worked, with the hot Texas wind on my face.
Oh, and how could I forget her voice being horribly off-key and happy beside me singing about Amarillo.
The radio crackles. George keeps going. The Texas highway keeps going. And my mother, who I haven’t heard from in almost a year now, is a ghost in the wind.
I sit with my forehead on the wheel and I listen to George tell me how he oughta be somewhere else, but he's here.
"Same, George," I say out loud. To nobody.
I straighten up and cut the engine.
The Valero sign buzzes like a dying thing.
Four-fifty-two diesel.
Three-eighty-nine regular.
The attendant inside is watching me through the glass the way men watch women at gas stations at dawn—assessing whether I'm a problem and deciding I'm not.
I push the door open. Texas air hits me. Cool still, but barely.
Another hour and it'll be warm. Another three and it'll be punishing.
I walk around to the trailer, drop the side door a few inches, and peek in.
Jaeger's nose comes up. His eyes find me.
"Hey, bud."
He snorts.
The snort that means “I'm fine but I'd like to be out of this trailer now, please.”
"Thirty more minutes, buddy. Then breakfast."
He lowers his head. Patient. A horse who's been my partner since he was four years old has learned that thirty more minutes is always thirty more minutes, and I don't lie to him.
I close the door gently, the way my mother used to close trailer doors.
Not a slam. A settle. A horse in a trailer hears everything.
