"His mother and sister filed a missing-persons report. We found his car with a broken axle in the ditch. The keys were gone, the spare tire was gone, the radio was gone, somebody even tore the clock out of the dashboard. What's that tell you?"

"Somebody stripped it."

"Yeah, Clayton Desmarteau did. It was going to be repossessed. Him and his cousin were in the bar three miles up the road, they got juiced, they ran off the road. That's the way we see it."

"And he just didn't bother to come home after that?"

"Where are you from again?"

" New Iberia, Louisiana."

He blew smoke out into a shaft of sunlight shining through the window. His hair was thin across his pate.

"Believe it or not, that's not uncommon here," he said. Then his voice changed and assumed a resigned and tired note.

"We're talking about two guys in AIM. One of them, Clayton's cousin, was in the pen in South Dakota. There's also a warrant out on him for nonsupport. Clayton's had his share of trouble, too."

"What kind?"

"Fights, carrying a concealed weapon, bullshit like that."

"Has he ever just disappeared from his home and job before?"

"Look, here's the situation. There's one bar on that road. They were in there till midnight. It's five miles from that bar up to Clayton's house. Three miles up the road they wrecked the car. Maybe they walked up to Clayton's house without waking the old lady and took off before she got up. Maybe she doesn't remember what they did. Maybe they hitched a ride with somebody after they stripped the car. I don't know what they did. You think a bear ate them?"

"No, I think you're telling me Desmarteau was an irresponsible man. His mother says otherwise. The guy had the Silver Star. What do you make of that?"

"I don't guess I'm communicating with you very well. What you don't understand is the way some people live around here. Come back on a Saturday night and take your own tour. Look, when a white person hires Indians to work for him, he hires six so maybe three will show up in the morning. They cut up their own relatives at wedding parties, they hang themselves in jail cells, they get souped up and drive into the sides of trains. Last winter three kids climbed in a boxcar with a gallon of dago red and a tube of airplane glue. The train went on up into Canada and stopped on a siding in a blizzard. I went up with the families to bring their bodies back. The RCMP said they were frozen so hard you could break their parts off with a hammer."

I asked him to show me where Clayton Desmarteau's car had gone off the road. He was irritated, but he consented and drove me down the same dirt road I had been on earlier. We passed the bar where Desmarteau and his cousin had been last seen, a wide, flat log building with neon Grain Belt and Great Falls beer signs in the windows; then we curved up the road through bare, hardpan fields and finally picked up the creek, the cottonwoods, and the sloping stands of lodgepole pine that began on the far bank. The deputy stopped his car on the shoulder and pointed.

"Right over there in the ditch," he said.

"He hooked one wheel over the side and went in. Snapped the axle like a stick. No mystery, my friend. It's a way of life."

I got back to Missoula late but in time to pick up Alafair at the baby-sitter's before she went to sleep. The baby-sitter had run an errand, and a friend of hers, a third-grade teacher and assistant principal at the school named Miss Regan, had come over to stay with Alafair. The two of them were watching television and eating from a bowl of popcorn in the enclosed side porch. Miss Regan was a pretty girl in her late twenties, with auburn hair and green eyes, and although her skin was still pale from the winter months, I could see sun freckles on her shoulders and at the bottom of her neck.

"Come see, Dave," Alafair said.

"Miss Regan drew a picture of Tex and she ain't ever seen him."

"Don't say 'ain't," little guy," I said.

"Look," Alafair said, and held up a piece of art paper with a pastel drawing of an Appaloosa on it.

"That's very nice of Miss Regan," I said.

"My name's Tess," she said, and smiled.

"Well, thank you for watching Alafair. It was good meeting you."

"She's a sweet little girl. We had a lot of fun together," she said.

"Do you live in the neighborhood?"

"Yes, only two blocks from the school."

"Well, I hope to see you again. Thanks for your help. Good night."

"Good night," she said.

We walked home in the dark. The air was warm, and the maple trees looked black and full under the moon. The lights of the bridge reflected off the swirling brown surface of the river.

"Everybody says she's the best teacher in the school," Alafair said.

"I bet she is."

"I told her to come down to New Iberia and visit us."

"That's good."

"Because she don't have a husband."

"Say 'doesn't.' "

"She doesn't have a husband. How come that, Dave?"

"I don't know. Some people just don't like to get married."

"How come?"

"You got me."

We ate a piece of pie before we turned out the lights and went to bed. Our bedrooms adjoined, and the door was opened between them. Across the river I could hear the whistle of a Burlington Northern freight.

"Dave?"

"What?"

"Why don't you marry Miss Regan?"

"I'll give it some thought. See you tomorrow, little guy."

"Okay, big guy."

"Good night, little guy."

"Good night, big guy."

The next morning I made long-distance calls to Batist, the bondsman, and my lawyer. Batist was managing fine at the bait shop and the bondsman was tranquil about my returning to Louisiana by trial date, but the lawyer had not been able to get a continuance and he was worried.

"What have you come up with in Montana?" he said.

"Nothing definite. But I think Dixie Lee was telling the truth about Mapes, that he killed a couple of people here, maybe Indians."

"I tell you, Dave, that might be our only out. If you can get him locked up in Montana, he won't be a witness against us in Louisiana."

"It's not the ninth race yet."

"Maybe not, but so far we don't have a defense. It's that simple. I hired a PI to do a background on Mapes. He beat the shit out of another kid with a golf club in Marshall, Texas, when he was seventeen, but that's the only trouble he's been in. He graduated from the University of Texas and flew an army helicopter in Vietnam The rest of the guy's life is a blank. It's hard to make him out as Jack the Ripper."

"We'll see," I said. I didn't want to concede the truth in his words, but I could feel my heart tripping.

"The prosecutor's talking a deal," he said.

I remained silent and listened to the whir of long-distance sound in the earpiece. Through the window I could see the maple tree in my front yard ruffling with the breeze.

"Dave, we're reaching the point where we might have to listen to him."

"What deal?"

"Second-degree homicide. We'll show provocation, he won't contend with us, you'll get five years. With good time, you can be out in three or less."

"No deal."

"It may turn out to be the only crap game in town."

"It's bullshit."

"Maybe so, but there's something else I'm honor-bound to tell you. We're going up against Judge Mouton. He's sent six men I know of to the electric chair. I don't think he'd do that in this case. But he's a cranky, old sonofabitch, and you never know."

After I hung up the phone I tried to read the paper on the front porch with a cup of coffee, but my eyes couldn't concentrate on the words.

I washed the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, and started to change the oil in my truck. I didn't want to think about my conversation with my lawyer. One day at a time, easy does it, I told myself. Don't live in tomorrow's problems. Tomorrow has no more existence than yesterday, but you can always control now. We live in a series of nows. Think about now.