The knee just didn't bend the way it used to, in spite of the best efforts of modern medicine. He nailed a two-by-four to the roof to serve as a brace, crawled off the ladder, and planted his left foot against the brace to keep from sliding backward. In position, he stretched out on his stomach and got to work with the hammer pulling nails and stripping off the tar paper in the area of the leak. His reconstructed right knee, extended as far as it would go, protested. The planks under the tar paper had separated, leaving an inch gap between the boards. He smeared asphalt into the crevices and on the boards, thinking it was time to ask his landlord to spring for the cost of materials for a new roof. Quinn would oblige, and Kerney would have another project to occupy his time. The Tchaikovsky concerto recycled several times on the stereo before Kerney finished the patch job. He're nailed the tar paper, coated the nail heads with gook, and looked out over the basin. There was a flash of reflected light on the dirt road that cut through the rock escarpment to the ranch. The road, still filled with runoff from the storm, glistened like a wire ribbon in the sharp morning light. He dropped the empty asphalt can to the ground and climbed down the ladder, using his left leg to hop from rung to rung. He walked to the gate and swung it open, leaving sticky black fingerprints on the railing, and watched the vehicle bounce in and out of the ruts of standing water, spewing mud as the tires dug through the puddles. There was no reason for a visitor. Quinn, his landlord, employer, and chief book lender, was presenting a paper at a medical convention in Seattle. After that, he was flying to Germany to attend another conference and take a long vacation. Kerney liked working for a wandering landlord. Most of the time he had the place to himself.

The car splattered through the mud and swerved through the slimy dirt in the roadbed, the tires throwing up a heavy spray of brown paste.