“What’ll ah say?” The driver has not considered it so far. “S’there anything? ‘You hurt me’? ‘You kilt her’? ‘Now yull feel what she felt’?” He had better keep on thinking.

It dawns on the driver that dying, or being on the verge of taking a life, is so unlike anything else in the realm of human experience that no one can know what to say until they’re finally there. Even then, it is doubtful that the experience can be hemmed in by words, even if the driver had an encyclopedic knowledge of the English language. Since he doesn’t, the thought crystallizes in the driver’s mind as, “Shit! Ah’ll be so hungry for that bastard’s blood, ah won have a cun-hair’s in’tress in h’wut lass words he hears.”

This does not relieve the driver from the burden of having to decide exactly how he wants to kill the man. He only knows he wants to inflict as much pain as possible. He has at least another day and a half of driving, and God-knows how long of hunting down the sick son of a bitch, to go over all the gruesome possibilities.

“Keep’m alive,” goes through the driver’s head. “Skin’m, cut’m, choke’m, but keep’m alive an keep’m conscious for as long as you can.” The driver wishes he brought a knife in addition to his .44. He looks over to the hitchhiker enveloped in darkness, slumped on the seat. The driver can’t help but wonder what he’s carrying.