EPISODE 4 — The Icy Road
Tank was nineteen the winter it happened.
Before the beard — just stubble. Before the vest — a hand-me-down denim jacket. Before the Harley — a rusted pickup with a heater that didn’t work and a shepherd mix named Buddy riding shotgun with his head out the window, ears flying, tongue lolling, the happiest creature in three counties.
They were coming home from the lake. Too late. Too fast. Tank had been drinking — not much, just enough to make the ice invisible and the curves feel straight.
The pickup hit the black ice on Miller’s Curve and spun like a top. Buddy was thrown clear. Tank wasn’t.
When Tank crawled out of the ditch, Buddy was lying in the snow, breathing funny, looking at him with those eyes — not blaming, just confused, asking the only question dogs ever ask: what happened?
Tank held him while he died. Held him and promised him things — I’ll slow down, I’ll be better, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry — and the snow kept falling, and Buddy’s breathing got slower, and then it stopped.
Tank buried him by the lake with his own hands. Didn’t tell his father. Didn’t tell anyone. Just got bigger, louder, meaner — built a wall of noise around the hole in his chest so nobody would ever see it.
Twenty years later, standing in Harlan’s Diner with a water glass in his hand and a soaking-wet war dog staring at him, Tank could smell the snow on Miller’s Curve.
He could feel Buddy’s last breath on his neck.
And the glass started shaking in his hand.
