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in the geographical center of all political correctness, Missoula, Montana.
    â€œSo what does that mean? you hurriedly ask yourself. It means either the FBI is going to prove it’s an equal opportunity law enforcement agency by jamming a mile-long freight train up your ass, or you’ll do state time in Deer Lodge, where the bucks will take turns shoving something else up your ass.”
    â€œThat’s an entertaining rap you do. I like it,” he said.
    â€œYou’re going down for an attempted contract hit, Michael. That’s probably worth twenty years here. You want to take that kind of bounce to protect some rich guy?”
    â€œMichael’s my first name. I use my middle name. Everybody calls me Charlie. Charlie Ruggles.”
    â€œYou’re looking at double-digit time, Charlie. Your bud gave you up in the O.R. They didn’t tell you?”
    He looked at the light in the sky, then turned his head toward the nightstand, where a glass of ice water sat with a straw in it. “I can’t reach over to pick it up,” he said.
    Temple lifted the glass to his mouth and held it there while he drew through the straw. She could feel his breath on the back of her wrist, his eyes examining her face.
    â€œThanks,” he said. “You got nice tits. Are they implants or the real thing?”
    Â 
    THAT NIGHT THE MOON was full above the valley and there were deep shadows inside the fir trees on the hill behind our house. Temple had been quiet all evening, and as we prepared to go to bed she put on her nightgown with her back to me.
    â€œYou still thinking about Ruggles?” I said.
    â€œNo, not Ruggles.”
    She sat on the side of the bed, looking out the window. I placed my hand between her shoulder blades. I could feel her heart beating. “What’s the trouble?” I asked.
    â€œJohnny American Horse is a professional martyr. He’s going to hurt us,” she said.
    â€œI don’t read him that way.”
    â€œThat’s why he comes to you and not somebody else.”
    â€œHe’s our friend,” I replied.
    She peeled back the covers and lay down, the curvature of her spine imprinted against her nightgown.
    â€œTemple?” I said.
    â€œRuggles is a Detroit button man. So was the other guy. Johnny has to know who sent them.”
    I couldn’t argue with her. Maybe in some ways Johnny was enigmatic by choice. People who claim mystical powers don’t spend a lot of time feigning normalcy at Kiwanis meetings. But I still believed Johnny was basically honest about who he was.
    â€œI’ll talk to him tomorrow,” I said.
    â€œIt won’t do any good,” she replied.
    Moments later she was asleep. I lay in the darkness with my eyes open a long time. We had a wonderful home in Montana, one hundred and twenty acres spread up both sides of a dirt road that traversed timber, meadowland, and knobbed hills. It was an enclave where distant wars and images of oil smoke on desert horizons seemed to have no application.
    Why put it at risk for Johnny American Horse?
    I heard a vehicle on the road, I supposed one of the few neighbors living up the valley from us. But a moment later I heard the same vehicle again, then a third time, as though the driver were lost.
    I put on my slippers and went into the living room. Through the window I could see a paint-skinned pickup truck with slat sides stopped on the road and a man in a snow-white Stetson, a long-sleeved canary-yellow shirt, and tight jeans leaning on our railed fence, studying the front of our house.
    I went back into the bedroom, slipped on my khakis and boots, then stopped in the hallway to put on my hat and leather jacket. In the living room I removed a .30–30 Winchester from the gun rack. Every firearm in our house was kept loaded, although no round was ever in the chamber. I heard Temple behind me. “What’s wrong?” she said.
    â€œIt’s Wyatt Dixon,” I