Made an accomplice by proximity for the second time in one night, the driver has to wonder if there is any other way to exit a place with this guy other than with an angry mob at their heels. This time, it is for a transgression that isn’t readily apparent –the hitchhiker stormed out from the house with only one of those giant Champagne bottles, not an armful of money- but obviously warrants their blood all the same. This time, the driver can’t help but hope that the hitchhiker’s affront was really good; meaning something from which these beautiful, rich faces always believed themselves to be protected.

The hitchhiker has an elated though frantic look; not just on his face, but it’s also in the way he gives a full leg up to every hedge and rock on their climb to the front of the house -or its winding driveway, to be exact. He wields the outsized Champagne bottle with surprising grace, like a runner in a baton relay. A fountain of foam adorns their trail.

The uphill climb is brutal, as they ascend at a diagonal in order to skirt the perimeter of the house. The first dazzle of a polished windshield appears and tells them that they have reached the front drive. Angry shouts meet them from on high. The pickup is already in view by the first intelligible words, or screams, escape from the crowd.

“Get them! They tried to kill her! They tried to poison our sweet Lilly!”

There is no fumbling of keys, just the smooth belch of ignition. It briefly blocks out the rising cries for vengeance.

The pickup is facing an unfortunate angle, half-turned off the driveway. The front tire peers over a ditch and there are a number of low shrubs blocking the way. The driver releases the brake and gravity does the rest. They are jostled over every furrow and upturned root on the way down to the main road below. The various parts of the pickup rattle against each other, and it feels as if each will go its separate way on the next bump.

The outrage of the crowd gathered high atop the hill is overcome by a screeching fury, kicked up by the rear tires of the pickup as they leave behind the muddy driveway. The battered vehicle is on its way, doing the top speed the unpaved path will allow. There comes a crack of thunder. The only indication that the two have become a target, that the sudden explosion of shrapnel and glass was meant for them, is that the side mirror of the pickup snaps away in a few shards: gunshot.

The pickup finds, or lurches into, the main road and continues in the same direction that had originally brought them out to Indian Hill, away from Las Vegas. The horizon is overlaid with the night just turning purple: the promise of daybreak, still a good hour off.