A solitary. 32 bullet had struck me between the shoulder blades. It was fired by a woman neither Clete nor I had believed was armed. The wound was no more painful and seemed no more consequential than the sharp smack of a fist. The shooter’s motivation had been a simple one and had nothing to do with survival, fear, greed, or panic: I had spoken down to her and called her to task for her imperious treatment of others. My show of disrespect enraged her and sent her out my back screen door into the darkness, walking fast across the yellowed oak leaves and the moldy pecan husks, oblivious to the dead men on the ground, a pistol extended in front of her with one arm, her mission as mindless and petty as they come. She paused only long enough to make a brief vituperative statement about the nature of my offense, then I heard a pop like a wet firecracker, and a. 32 round pierced my back and exited my chest. Like the dead man walking, I stumbled to the edge of the bayou, where a nineteenth-century paddle wheeler that no one else saw waited for me.

Though my description of that peculiar moment in my career as a police officer is probably not of much significance now, I must add a caveat. If one loses his life at the hands of another, he would like to believe his sacrifice is in the service of a greater cause. He would like to believe that he has left the world a better place, that because of his death at least one other person, perhaps a member of his family, will be spared, that his grave will reside in a green arbor where others will visit him. He does not want to believe that his life was made forfeit because he offended someone’s vanity and that his passing, like that of almost all who die in wars, means absolutely nothing.

One day after Clete’s visit, Alafair, my adopted daughter, brought me the mail and fresh flowers for the vase in my window. My wife, Molly, had stopped at the administrative office for reasons I wasn’t aware of. Alafair’s hair was thick and black and cut short on her neck and had a lustrous quality that made people want to touch it. “We’ve got a surprise for you,” she said.