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16 The Dead Guy and the Evangelist A guy wearing a tie and a soaking shirt was handing out religious pamphlets today at the truckstop, asking everybody have they been saved from eternal damnation by Christ our personal lord and savior. I’d just picked up four deads that were three days gone from the heat down at Shafer Brothers Feedlot. My mind was on air conditioning and fueling up so I could get my load back to the plant. He came over, wearing enough cologne to keep a dog away from a dead wagon, and asked me if I know where I’m going when I die. A rancher who called me once to carry off a palomino asked how I liked the resurrection business, and so I told that preacher I wasn’t sure, but I work in resurrection too, and had to get a load to Wauneta before it spoiled. Who is he to ask me where I’m going when I die? Me and that preacher and a millionaire will end up drained and pickled and dressed in suits, and that’s all any of us knows. What’s left is just a carcass the undertaker powders and buries instead of hauling off to the rendering plant. We both keep the dead from piling up. People would know if somebody wasn’t there to keep those cows from laying around getting ripe where they died. 17 I don’t need to imagine more of a heaven than the light inside of Five Springs Canyon afternoons when cutthroats pop the surface and bite on anything you throw in the water, or watching pheasants break from a field of cornstalks, or even having Rhonda call me Darlin’ when I stop for lunch at the Conestoga Grill. I won’t say I’m ready. But if I got run over by a sugar beet truck tonight, I could die knowing I did some good in life, that I was willing to do a job not many people would do. ...

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