That was the secret: to hold on to the things you loved and never give them up for any reason, no matter how strong the entreaty.

He walked down the street to the town’s one block of business buildings, stepping up on an elevated sidewalk that still had tethering rings inset in the concrete. He passed a shut-down bank that had been constructed in 1891, a barbershop with a revolving striped pole in a plastic tube, a used-appliance store, a café that advertised bison burgers in water-based white paint on the window, a barroom that was as long and narrow and dark as a boxcar. The town’s library was tucked compactly inside a one-story limestone building that once sold recapped automobile tires.

In the reference section, he found a stack of phone books for all the counties in Southwest Texas. It took him only five minutes to find the number he needed. He borrowed a pencil from the reference librarian and wrote the number on a piece of scrap paper. The librarian’s hair was almost blue, her eyes very tiny and bright behind her glasses; her facial skin was wrinkled with deep folds that had the coloration of a pink rose. “You’re not from here, are you?” she said.

“No, ma’am. I’m a visitor.”

“Well, you come back here any time you want.”

“I surely will.”

“You’re a nice young man.”

“Thank you. But how do you know what I am?”

“You removed your hat when you entered the building. You removed it even though you thought no one was watching you. Your manners are those of a naturally considerate and respectful person. That makes you a very nice young man.”

Pete walked back to the motel, left a note for Vikki on her pillow, and hitchhiked thirty miles west of town to a desolate crossroads that reminded him of the place where the Asian women had died and his life had changed forever. He entered a phone booth, took a deep breath, and dialed a number on the phone’s console. In the distance, he could see a mile-long train inching its way along a stretch of alkali hardpan, like a black centipede, heat waves warping the horizon.

“Sheriff’s Department,” a woman said. It was a voice he had heard before.

“Is this the business line?” he asked.

“That’s the number you dialed. Did you want to report an emergency?”

“I need to talk to Sheriff Holland.”

“He’s not in right now. Who’s calling, please?”

“When will he be in?”

“That’s hard to say. Can I he’p you with something?”

“Patch me through. You can do that, cain’t you?”

“You need to give me your name. Is there a reason you don’t want to give me your name?”

He could feel sweat pooling inside his armpits, his own stale odor rising into his face. He folded back the door of the booth and stepped outside, the receiver pressed against his ear.

“Are you there, sir?” the woman said. “We’ve spoken before, haven’t we? You remember me? Your name is Pete, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s what I go by.”

“We want you to come see us, Pete. You need to bring Ms. Gaddis with you.”

“That’s why I want to talk to the sheriff.”

“The sheriff is at the hospital. A man tried to kill him and Deputy Tibbs last night. I think you know the man we’re talking about.”

“This guy Preacher? No, I don’t know him. I know his name. I know he tried to kidnap and maybe kill Vikki. But I don’t know him.”

“We’ve been trying to he’p you, soldier. Sheriff Holland in particular.”

“I didn’t ask him to.” He could hear sweat creaking between his ear and the phone receiver. He held the receiver away from his head and wiped his ear with his shoulder. “Hello?”

“I’m still here.”

“How bad are the sheriff and the deputy hurt?”

“The sheriff is having some X-rays done. You’re not a criminal, Pete. But you’re not acting real bright, either.”

“What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Maydeen Stoltz.”

Pete looked at his watch. How long did it take to trace a call? “Well, Miss Maydeen, why don’t you pull your head out of your hole and give me the sheriff’s cell phone number? That way I won’t have to trouble you anymore.”

He thought he could hear her ticking a ballpoint on a desk blotter.

“I’ll give you his number and tell him to expect your call in the next few minutes. But you listen to me on this one, smartass. Last night we almost lost two of the best people either one of us will ever know. You give that some thought. And if you talk to me like that again and I catch up with you, I’m gonna slap the daylights out of you.”

She gave him the sheriff’s cell number, but he had nothing to write with and had to draw the numerals on the dusty shelf under the phone console with his finger.

He went inside the small grocery store at the intersection, the smell of cheese and lunch meat and insect spray and stale cigarette smoke and overripe fruit enough to make him choke. At the back of the store, he stared through the smoky glass doors of the coolers, his arms folded across his chest as though he were protecting himself from an enemy. Inside one door, the Dr Peppers and root beers and Coca-Colas stood end to end in neat racks. Behind the next door were six-pack upon six-pack of every brand of beer sold in Texas, the amber bottles beaded with coldness, the cardboard containers damp and soft, waiting to be picked up gingerly by caring hands.

One six-pack of sixteen-ouncers, he thought. He could space them out through the afternoon, just enough to flatten the kinks in his nervous system. Sometimes you needed a parachute. Wasn’t it better to ease into sobriety rather than to be jolted into it?

“Find what you want?” the woman behind the counter said. She weighed at least 250 pounds and swelled out like an inverted washtub below the waistline. She was smoking a cigarette and flicking the ash into a bottle cap, her lipstick rimmed crisply on the filter, a V-shaped yellow stain between her fingers.

“Where’s the men’s room?” he asked.

She drew in on her cigarette and exhaled the smoke slowly, taking his measure. “About four feet behind you, the door with the sign over it that says Men’s Room.”

He went in the restroom and came back out wiping the water off his face with a paper towel. He slid open the door to the cold box and lifted out a six-pack of Budweiser, balancing it on his palm, the cans coated with moisture and hard and clinking against one another inside the plastic yoke. The cashier was smoking a fresh one, blowing the smoke through her fingers while she held the cigarette to her mouth. He set the six-pack on the counter and reached for his wallet. But she didn’t ring up the purchase.

“Ma’am?”

“What?”

“You have a reason for acting so damn weird?”

“Weird in like what way?”

“For openers, staring at me like I just climbed out of a spaceship.”

She dropped her cigarette into a bucket of water under the counter. “I don’t have a reason for staring at you.”

“So-”

“He might.”

Her gaze drifted out the front window of the store, past the two gas pumps under the porte cochere. A town constable’s patrol car was parked beside the telephone booth. A man wearing a khaki uniform and shades was sitting behind the wheel, the engine off, the doors open to let in the breeze while he wrote on a clipboard.

“That’s Howard. He asked who was just using the phone,” the woman said.

“I reckon that could have been me.”

“I saw you at the A.A. meeting at the church.”

“That could have been me, too.”

“You still want the beer?”

“What I want is a whole lot of gone between me and your store.”

“I cain’t he’p you do that.”

“Ma’am, I’m in a mess of trouble. But I haven’t harmed anybody, not intentionally, anyway.”

“I expect you haven’t.”

Her eyes were full of pity, the same kind of pity and sorrow he had heard in the voice of his friend Billy Bob. Pete folded his arms across his chest again and watched the town constable get out of his patrol car and walk under the porte cochere and pull open the front door of the store. In those few seconds, a line of stitches seemed to form and burst apart across Pete’s heart.