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Locked inside that rock is oil. Billions and billions of barrels of it, pressed in so tight that for most of human history nobody could get to it.

Then hydraulic fracturing happened.

Fracking, they call it. You drill down, you drill horizontal, you pump water and sand and chemicals into the rock at pressure so violent it cracks the shale open like a fist through drywall. And the oil bleeds out.

"When they figured out how to do it," Cash says, eyes on the road, "eastern Montana and North Dakota stopped bein' the ass end of nowhere and started bein' the ass end of everywhere. You couldn't drive through Williston without trippin' over roughnecks. Man camps everywhere. Strip clubs. Truck traffic twenty-four hours a day. Towns that had been dyin' for forty years suddenly had more money than they knew what to do with."

I shake my head here, lookin' out the window. "So it's connected."

"What?" Cash asks.

I look back at him. "Are you about to tell me that the whole operation is black ops?"

Cash laughs. "Oh, I guess you've met Mike then, have you?"

I'm incredulous. "You know him?”

"Of course, I know him, Legion. I know everything about your club." He says the word 'club' like it's an insult. "Drybone is mine, OK? I own that whole place. I am the man in charge, whether anyone knows it or not. I control the money, I control the water, I control the roads. The only thing I don't control is the sun, but give me time and I'll rope that too."

He scoffs a little, shaking his head. "I'm surprised you didn't know that already. That Brick didn't make it clear."

"Brick didn't tell me shit."

Cash side-eyes me. "Is that why you killed him?"

Am I surprised he knows? Not really.

"No," I say. "That's not why. He's just… he was dirty. I'm not like that. I mean, have I killed more people than I could count in one go, in a single mornin'? Yes. Yes, I have. But did I know what that club was up to?" I shake my head. "I didn't. Not until the Feds started showing up for church LARPin' as bikers. Then it all came out."

"So you know now? That your club is just a front for everything they're doing on the Bakken formation?"

I nod.

"All of it?" he asks.

And I know what he's asking, even though he doesn't say it. He's askin' about the traffickin'.

"That we're helpin' them move people?" I say.

Cash nods.

"I do now. But only by accident. I don't think anyone at the club knew that part. Not until last night."

"So." Cash taps his fingers on the steerin' wheel, lookin' straight ahead for a few moments. "Then you understand that untangling oneself from a situation like this isn't as easy as standing on principle."

"I do."

"Good." And for a moment, I think that's it. That's all we're gonna say about that for now. But he says, "So what did you think I was doing when I took Mercy from Badlands?"

"What?" I'm caught off guard by the question.

"When I brought social services up there and took her?"

"I was unconscious for that. But… when I woke up and found out, I thought you were just bein' a dick. Trying to get back at me. But I guess that wasn't the reason, was it?"

"No," Cash says. Puttin' on his blinker to exit the freeway. "It's well known in some circles that Badlands does kids."

For the first time, I'm angry. "That's bullshit. I don't believe you. Brick didn't even want Mercy there. Told me to get rid of her."