The Lone Survivor by Colton Lively

Author:Colton Lively [Lively, Colton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

2

“There’s nothing quite like being deep in the desert on a moonless night, ain’t that right, Theo?” William asked before taking a long, satisfying sip of his beer. “Man, the stars … you can see the whole Milky Way in all its glory. Even out by your place, although there isn’t much light pollution there, the stars are never quite this bright or numerous. Amazing … just breathtaking. I could camp out here every night.”

“I don’t think your old lady would be too happy about that, buddy,” Theo remarked with a wry smile as he sipped his beer. “Olivia would miss you, too.”

William chuckled. “I know, I know. I’m just saying. Come on, you know you’d like to be out here just as often as me. At least your kids are mostly grown now, so you’ve got the freedom to do these ride-outs more often. Olivia’s fifteen, so she is still a few years away from independence and going away to college. I’m gonna miss her; don’t get me wrong. I mean, hell, I love my l’il girl more than anything, but I sure wouldn’t mind a little more freedom and stuff, too. Jeez, fifteen years since my Olivia was born. The old-timers always tell you it goes by in the blink of an eye, but you never really understand that until you experience it.”

“Yeah, man, I hear you,” Theo said, sipping sagely on his beer and staring into the writhing flames of the crackling campfire. “I hear you.”

Like his eldest son, Sean, Theo was a man of few words, but the words he did utter were always carefully considered and wise. William, on the other hand, was quite a chatterbox. He needed to be, in some ways, for his job—the sheriff of the small town where he and Theo had grown up as neighbors and childhood friends—was one that needed something of a charismatic personality.

Theo, on the other hand, owned a tiny gas station around twenty miles from the small town, and about the only people who frequented the gas station were long-distance truckers, off-road bikers, and other people who came to explore this remote section of the desert in their off-road vehicles.

Near Theo’s gas station was the tiny handful of properties that made up this rustic desert settlement. One of these properties was Theo’s off-grid homestead, a labor of love that he and his wife, Marissa, had been working on since they had bought the gas station and moved out to the tiny desert hamlet around twenty years prior.

“You know, it feels like just yesterday that you and I were riding in motocross races all over the country,” William remarked with a nostalgic sigh after glugging down another mouthful of beer. “With you always winning pretty much every race and me just doing my best not to come stone last,” he added with a self-effacing chuckle.

“Those were good days, my friend, good days.”

“Oh, dude, they were the best! The early nineties? The best time in human history, man!

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