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"I don't get that verse, Orson," I said. "Are you just fucking with me?"

"You will," he said, turning on a ceiling light in the bathroom. Though the tub was hidden behind the wall, I could see Orson's bare shoulders in the streaked mirror and the sink and toilet to his right. Laughter and moaning came suddenly through the walls.

"Go to sleep, Andy," he said lifelessly as he shut the door.

# # #

"Get your ass out of bed," Orson whispered, and the dusky room came slowly into focus. The lamps on each bedside table shed their orange light upon the walls, and though the curtains were drawn, I had the feeling it was still night. I couldn't remember falling asleep.

"What time is it?" I asked, rubbing my eyes and sitting up against the headboard.

"Four-thirty," Orson said. He stood at the foot of the bed, still wearing his clothes from yesterday, his face flushed, sprinkles of blood on his white fleece.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Get dressed. We don't have much time. Move!" he shouted.

Climbing out of bed, I dug through my suitcase, lying open on the floor. I put on a pair of blue jeans, a close-fitting long-johns top, and a green sweater. Then I forced my slim, yet bulging suitcase to close and stepped into my hiking boots.

"You got the room key?" I asked, lifting my suitcase.

Orson smiled sickly. "It doesn't matter now," he said, laughing.

Though only an hour from daybreak, the clouded sky was dark as midnight. Snow flurries bumbled in the air, and a brisk wind blew out of the north, so the tiny feathers of ice stung my cheeks and eyes. As we moved towards the car, now lightly dusted with snow, Orson tossed me the keys. I walked to the trunk so I could pack my suitcase away, but he stopped me.

"Put it in the backseat," he said.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, I looked across the road to the New Atlas Bar. It was dark now, the drunken crowds gone, the parking lot empty save two pick-up trucks. I looked up the highway towards the gas station, and it still glowed, the snow flurries visible in its artificial light. The motel was enveloped in an eerie, lifeless silence now, and Orson's over-anxiousness to leave this place frightened me.

We headed west on highway 89, and in several moments, the small transit community was only a fading splotch of light on the immense prairie. In the rearview mirror, I saw the eastern horizon, tinged now with the faintest trace of purple. It will be light soon, I thought, but a foreboding sensation flooded me as I thought of the coming day.

We'd been on the road for a half-hour when I asked him, "Whose blood is on your shirt?"

"You'll find out," he said. "I told you you'd know everything by tonight."

I put my foot on the brake and brought the car to an abrupt halt on the grassy shoulder of the highway. Turning the ignition back, the car died.

"I don't trust you," I said, glaring to the passenger seat. I could barely see Orson in the predawn darkness. "I don't have to drive you to Choteau. What'd you do last night? Drug me?"

"No."

"I think you're lying," I said. "I think you're lying about everything. I could be driving myself straight to prison. Even if you do confess, you could finger me, and I know you got the evidence to do it, with all your little fuckin' pictures and videos. You're such a pussy, you know that? I hope they fry your fuckin' ass."

"You done?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think I'm done driving you across the country. I'm done being your chauffeur."

"Then I'll get out," he said, reaching for the door. "But it's gonna look bad when you get arrested alone at the roadblock."

"What roadblock?"

He smiled. "The one the police are gonna set up on every highway in Montana when someone figures out what happened at the Blue Sky Motel."

"What happened?"

He turned and stared calmly into my eyes. "For two hours this morning, a police officer knocked on the doors of the eleven occupied rooms at the Blue Sky Motel. When a guest opened the door, this cop flashed a badge, said he was looking into a reported robbery,