What if the rat had followed him? What if it was under the bed right now?

There was no rat, he thought, and slept.

28

“Wow,” Brandon said. His tone was respectful and a little awed. He and his sister were in the driveway waiting for the bus, their backpacks shouldered.

“What did you do to it, Dad?” Stacey asked.

They were looking at the Suburban, which was splattered with dried mud all the way up to the doorhandles. The windshield was opaque except for the crescents that had been cut by the windshield wipers. And there was the missing passenger side mirror, of course.

“There was a storm,” Drew said. He was wearing pajama bottoms, bedroom slippers, and a Boston College tee. “And that road out there isn’t in very good shape.”

“Shithouse Road,” Stacey said, clearly relishing the name.

Now Lucy came out as well. She stood looking at the hapless Suburban with her hands on her hips. “Holy crow.”

“I’ll get it washed this afternoon,” Drew said.

“I like it that way,” Brandon said. “It’s cool. You must have done some crazy driving, Dad.”

“Oh, he’s crazy, all right,” Lucy said. “Your crazy daddy. No doubt about that.”

The schoolbus appeared then, sparing him a comeback.

“Come inside,” Lucy said after they’d watched the kids get on. “I’ll fix you some pancakes or something. You look like you’ve lost weight.”

As she turned away, he caught her hand. “Have you heard anything about Al Stamper? Talked to Nadine, maybe?”

“I talked to her the day you left for the cabin, because you told me he was sick. Pancreatic, that’s so awful. She said he was doing pretty well.”

“You haven’t talked to her since?”

Lucy frowned. “No, why would I?”

“No reason,” he said, and that was true. Dreams were dreams, and the only rat he’d seen at the cabin was the stuffed one in the toybox. “Just concerned about him.”

“Call him yourself, then. Cut out the middle man. Now do you want some pancakes or not?”

What he wanted to do was work. But pancakes first. Keep things quiet on the home front.

29

After pancakes, he went upstairs to his little study, plugged in his laptop, and looked at the hard copy he’d done on Pop’s typewriter. Start by keyboarding it in, or just press on? He decided on the latter. Best to find out right away if the magic spell that had been over Bitter River still held, or if it had departed when he left the cabin.

It did hold. For the first ten minutes or so he was in the upstairs study, vaguely aware of reggae from downstairs, which meant that Lucy was in her study, crunching numbers. Then the music was gone, the walls dissolved, and moonlight was shining down on DeWitt Road, the rutted, potholed track running between Bitter River and the county seat. The stagecoach was coming. Sheriff Averill would hold his badge high and flag it down. Pretty soon he and Andy Prescott would be onboard. The kid had a date in county court. And not long after with the hangman.

Drew knocked off at noon and called Al Stamper. There was no need to be frightened, and he told himself he wasn’t, but he couldn’t deny that his pulse had kicked up several notches.

“Hey, Drew,” Al said, sounding just like himself. Sounding strong. “How did it go up in the wilderness?”

“Pretty well. I got almost ninety pages before a storm came along—”

“Pierre,” Al said, and with a clear distaste that warmed Drew’s heart. “Ninety pages, really? You?”

“I know, hard to believe, and another ten this morning, but never mind that. What I really want to know is how you’re doing.”

“Pretty damn good,” Al said. “Except I’ve got this damn rat to contend with.”

Drew had been sitting in one of the kitchen chairs. Now he bolted to his feet, suddenly feeling sick again. Feverish. “What?”

“Oh, don’t sound so concerned,” Al said. “It’s a new medication the doctors put me on. Supposed to have all kinds of side effects, but the only one I’ve got, at least so far, is the goddam rash. All over my back and sides. Nadie swore it was shingles, but I had the test and it’s just a rash. Itches like hell, though.”

“Just a rash,” Drew echoed. He wiped a hand across his mouth. CLOSED FOR FUNNERAL, he thought. “Well, that’s not so bad. You take care of yourself, Al.”

“I will. And I want to see that book when you finish it.” He paused. “Notice I said when, not if.”

“After Lucy, you’ll be first in line,” Drew said, and hung up. Good news. All good news. Al sounded strong. Like his old self. All fine, except for that damn rat.

Drew found he could laugh at that.

30

November was cold and snowy, but Drew Larson barely noticed. On the last day of the month, he watched (through the eyes of Sheriff Jim Averill) as Andy Prescott climbed the stairs to the gallows in the county seat. Drew was curious as to how the boy would take it. As it turned out—as the words spilled out—he did just fine. He had grown up. The tragedy (Averill knew it) was that the kid would never grow old. One drunken night and a fit of jealousy over a dancehall girl had put paid to everything that might have been.

On the first of December, Jim Averill turned in his badge to the circuit judge who had been in town to witness the hanging, then rode back to Bitter River, where he would pack his few things (one trunk would be enough) and say goodbye to his deputies, who had done a damn good job when the chips were down. Yes, even Jep Leonard, who was about as smart as a rock. Or sharp as a marble, take your pick.

On the second of December, the sheriff harnessed his horse to a light buggy, threw his trunk and saddle in the back, and headed west, thinking he might try his luck in California. The gold rush was over, but he longed to see the Pacific Ocean. He was unaware of Andy Prescott’s grief-stricken father, laid up behind a rock two miles out of town and looking down the barrel of a Sharps Big Fifty, the rifle which would become known as “the gun that changed the history of the west.”

Here came a light wagon, and sitting up there on the seat, boots on the splashboard, was the man responsible for his grief and spoiled hopes, the man who had killed his son. Not the judge, not the jury, not the hangman. No. That man down there. If not for Jim Averill, his son would be in Mexico now, with his long life—all the way into a new century!—ahead of him.

Prescott cocked the hammer. He laid the sights on the man in the wagon. He hesitated with his finger curled on the cold steel crescent of the trigger, deciding what to do in the forty seconds or so before the wagon breasted the next hill and disappeared from sight. Shoot? Or let him go?

Drew thought of adding one more sentence—He made up his mind—and didn’t. That would lead some readers, perhaps many, to believe Prescott had decided to shoot, and Drew wanted to leave that issue unresolved. Instead, he hit the space bar twice and typed.

THE END

He looked at those two words for quite a long time. He looked at the pile of manuscript between his laptop and his printer; with the work of this final session added, it would come in at just under three hundred pages.