Early-morning clouds, shreds of a heavy late-night rainstorm, masked the Ortiz Mountains. Wispy tendrils drifted over the foothills, turned into translucent streamers, and vanished in the sky. The cabin roof had leaked during the night, soaking a stack of unopened junk mail and the borrowed copy of a Winston Churchill biography left on the cushion of an easy chair. The chair smelled like wet cat piss, and Kerney didn't own a cat. Kerney mopped up the floor, dragged the chair outside into the sun, and tipped it over. The junk mail and catalogs dribbled into a brown puddle in the driveway, floated momentarily, and sank out of sight. The cover model on the Victoria's Secret catalog pouted up at him as the brown stain seeped into her eyes.

The saffron sun in the east, an extravagant eye, washed the mesa in soft light. Inside, Kerney popped the Tchaikovsky tape in the cassette desk and cranked up the volume. The music, pushed along by a slight breeze, followed him to the horse barn, where a gallon of roof asphalt sat next to the ladder, both conveniently at hand for the leaks that never failed to materialize after a soaking, windblown rain. He had patched the roof so many times it was now nothing more than a routine challenge. Given a few more storms, every seam, nail hole, and protrusion on the pitched roof would be coated with asphalt gook. The old cabin wanted to sink into oblivion. Listing on a stone foundation, it was pretty to the eye, with a fresh coat of white paint and dark green trim around the windows and doors, but sadly in need of major renovation. Kerney strapped on a tool belt, deciding he would pull up the whole strip of roofing paper and slop gook directly on the boards over the leak. He carried the ladder to the cabin, set it against the side of the house, and stripped off his shirt. With the asphalt can in one hand, Kerney hauled himself up the ladder, dragging his right leg slowly to each rung.