After the line had thinned out at the refreshment table, Wyatt Dixon and his young friend filled their cups. Except Dixon did not drink his. He smelled it, inhaling the strawberry bouquet and seltzer water approvingly. Then he removed his hat and dipped his pocket comb into the bowl and combed his hair in a wall mirror.

While people stared at him openmouthed, he fitted his hat back on and got in the line for a signed book.

"Just make it out to my friend Carl Hinkel, a Virginia gentleman and patriot," Dixon said.

"I can't do that," Xavier said.

"I can see you are a man of your convictions. Just sign your name and I will treasure it always. Sir, I'd also like to shake your hand."

Xavier rose and placed his hand inside Dixon's.

"It was good of you to be here. But you shouldn't try to jerk people around," he said, then his mouth stiffened involuntarily when Dixon began to squeeze.

"Lamar Ellison and me shared the same house inside Quentin," Dixon said. He continued to grin, his vacuous eyes staring into Xavier's. "On the West Coast, people inside call a cell a 'house.' You don't know that, 'cause you ain't never been inside. So that ain't to be held against you. But you might brush up on the details for your next book."

"Let go of my hand," Xavier said, his words spaced out, as he tried to retain any dignity the situation would allow him.

"You didn't set fire to my bunkie, did you, Mr. Girard? Just 'cause he busted out a window in your car and laid open your lip? You can't do that to a Berdoo Jester, sir," Dixon said, his hand catching fresh purchase.

The blood had drained out of Xavier's face. He felt with his other hand for a weapon, for the thermos on the book table, but Dixon pulled him forward, off balance.

"I don't mean to mock you, sir, but for a man who has just warmed up all these women's secret parts, your eloquent vocabulary has flown like a flock of shit birds off a manure wagon," Dixon said.

Xavier's knees were buckling now, tears running without shame down his cheeks.

Suddenly Dixon released him.

"Somebody get a mop. This man has done wet hisself," he said.

He picked up his cup of punch, and, with one gartered arm across his young friend's shoulders, walked out of the room.

The next morning I heard the story from the owner of a local bookstore who had come out to see Doc and Maisey. At noon I drove to the sheriff's office and was told where I could find him.

I parked my truck in the leafy shade of cotton-woods on the Clark Fork, only three blocks from the courthouse, and walked down the embankment to the water's edge. The sheriff was casting a Mepps spinner in a high arc out into the middle of the river, letting it swing taut in the riffle before he began retrieving it. In the sunlight the scars on the backs of his hands looked like thin white snakes.

I went through the account about Wyatt Dixon's behavior at the university reading. He waited for me to finish, reeling in his line, casting it out again, then said, "I know all about it."

"Why's a guy like Dixon care about this gold mine up on the Blackfoot River?" I asked.

"Carl Hinkel uses these morons to run various kinds of scams on the government."

"What kinds of scams?"

"Hinkel finds old mining laws on the books that allow him to file mineral claims for next to nothing. Then he starts bulldozing the mountain away and washing the rock with cyanide. The tree huggers go apeshit and hammer their tallywhackers on their congressman's desk till the government buys out the claim and makes a millionaire out of a pissant who wouldn't recognize gold if you pulled it out of his teeth and stuck it up his nose."

"I think Dixon wants to put suspicion for Ellison's death on Xavier Girard," I said. "He knows Doc didn't do it, and he figures eventually you're going to be looking at him for the murder."

"In other words, just about anybody in Missoula County could have killed Lamar Ellison except your friend?"

I hesitated before I spoke again. His physical size was huge, his level of tolerance unpredictable.

"You told me you'd like to pinch Ellison's head off with a chain. You drove a log truck. Whoever killed Ellison knew how to use a boomer chain," I said.

"Son, there's three categories of stupid. 'Stupid,' 'stupider,' and 'stupidest.' But I think you're establishing new standards. Did the doctor have to use forceps on your head to get you out of the womb?"

"You'd love Texas, Sheriff."

"That's not a compliment, is it?"

"Search me," I said, and walked back to my truck.

Behind me, I heard his nylon line zing off the reel, his metal lure rattling through the shining air.

An hour later I answered the phone at Doc's house.

"I ain't ever seen a place this beautiful, Billy Bob. I cain't wait to hit the stream," the voice on the other end said.

"Lucas?"

"Yeah. We're at Rock Creek. We need directions out to Doc's place."

"We?"

"Temple and me. My drilling rig shut down. You said to come out if I could get some time off."

I tried to remember the conversation but could not. My innocent, wonderful, talented, and vulnerable son, why did you have to come here now?

"Temple's with you?" I said.

"Yeah, what's wrong?"

Temple Carrol was the private investigator I relied on in my law practice. But she was a lot more than that, and our relationship was one that neither of us had ever been able to define.

"I didn't tell her to come up here," I said.

"Since when do you have to tell her anything?"

My head was throbbing.

"Lucas-" I began.

"Maisey called her. So did Doc. He said Maisey's real messed up in the head. Who are these guys who raped her?"

"You stay out of this stuff, Lucas."

"I'm gonna put Temple on the phone. Thanks for the welcome to Montana," he said.

Temple stood in the dusk by the side of the Ford Explorer she drove, her face obviously fatigued by the long drive from Deaf Smith and now my inept-ness in her presence. Temple had been a gunbull in Angola Prison in Louisiana, a patrolwoman in Dallas, and a sheriff's deputy in Fort Bend County in Southeast Texas. She had chestnut hair and dressed like a tomboy and had never lost the baby fat on her hips and arms. Her level of loyalty was ferocious. But so was her demand on the loyalty of others.

Lucas had already unloaded his things and was pegging up a tent among the trees by the river.

"Maisey and Doc didn't tell you I was coming up with Lucas?" she asked.

"No. But I'm glad you did," I said.

"I'm going to check into a motel in Missoula."

"There's room inside."

She shook her head. "Where's a good place to eat?"

"There's a truck stop in Bonner. I'll go with you. Then we'll come back here and you can stay the night."

She thought about it and yawned, then said, "You involved with somebody here?"

"Why do you think that?" I said, my eyes slipping off her face.

"Just a wild guess."

Early the next morning I smelled wood smoke and bacon frying outside, and I looked through the window and saw Lucas squatting by a fire ring he had made of stones next to the river's edge. He dipped a coffeepot into a creek that flowed into the river and sprinkled coffee grinds into the water and set the pot to boil on the edge of his fire. I walked down to the bank and squatted next to him.

"That creek water's got deer scat in it," I said.

"The animals drink it. It don't bother them," he said. He grinned and wedged the blade of his pock-etknife into a can of condensed milk.

He was as tall as I, with the same hair and wide, narrow shoulders. But he had his mother's hands, those of a musician, and her gentle looks.