“Johnny?” she said.

I folded the newspaper and stuck it in my coat pocket. “Meet me for lunch?” I said from the doorway.

“Can you tell me why you’re acting so weird? Why are you taking the newspaper with you?”

“No reason.”

“Right.”

The phone rang on the counter. I got to it before she did. “Hello?” I said, my mouth dry.

“Well, God bless your little heart, I’d recognize that voice anywhere. Howdy doodie, Mr. Holland? I wasn’t sure you was still around, but soon as I come into town, I looked in the phone directory and there was your name in the middle of the page, big as a horse turd floating in a milk shake. Bet you don’t know who this is?”

“You’re making a mistake, partner.”

“Sir, that injures my feelings. I have called you in good faith and as a fellow American, ’cause this is the land of the free and the home of the brave. I don’t hold no grudges. I have even used your name as a reference in the many letters I have wrote to our country’s leaders. In fact, I have wrote President Bush himself to offer my services. Has he contacted you yet?”

“I’m going to hang up now. Don’t call here again,” I said, trying to avoid Temple’s stare.

“Now listen here, sir, I’m inviting you and your wife to a blowout, all-you-can-eat buffet dinner at the Golden Corral Restaurant. Do not hang up that phone, no-siree-bobtail-”

I returned the receiver to the cradle. Temple’s eyes were riveted on mine.

“Who was that?” she said.

“Wyatt Dixon. He’s out,” I replied.

She began to straighten the tulips in the window again but instead knocked over the vase, shattering it in the sink, the tulip petals red as blood among the shards of glass.

AS I LEFT the house for work the sun was bright on the hillsides of the valley in which we lived, and to the south I could see the timber climbing up into the snowpack on the crests of the Bitterroots.