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night. “Should I wear tennis shoes?”
    “No, you’re done with that. McCarthy’s a neurologist.”
    Crane nodded again, pulling his boot back on.
    “This doesn’t have to be what you think it is,” Dan said.
    Crane stood out of the chair. He put his hat on, squaring it. “You don’t know what I’m thinking. You’re not that kind of doctor.”
    “But I know you never thought it was your heart.”
    He didn’t sleep well that night, or the next, or any of the nights before he told Jean he had to escort a prisoner to Billings and drove by himself to the clinic.
    That had been a week ago, and this afternoon he was standing on the screened-in porch off the east end of the house, watching Jean work in her garden. He was on the phone. First it’d been McCarthy’s nurse, but now it was the doctor.
    “There’re a few more tests I’d like you to consider.”
    McCarthy’s voice sounded farther away than Montana, as if he were calling from somewhere overseas, and Crane wanted to ask, “Did I flunk the others?” or something smart-ass like that, but he hadn’t been able to finish his cereal that morning, his left hand wobbling so much he couldn’t keep the spoon level. He asked, “Is there a problem with the tests we already did?”
    “No, Mr. Carlson, the other tests were conclusive.”
    “You can call me Crane.”
    “Then how about Monday, Crane?”
    Jean was dragging a cardboard box behind her, filling it withweeds. When it got too heavy to drag she’d empty it into the wheelbarrow.
    “If you have something to tell me I’d rather hear it now.”
    “I’d prefer to discuss this in person, Crane.”
    “I’m not coming back up there.”
    There was a pause on the line, the sound of papers being shuffled. Jean scooted a foam pad ahead of her in the row, kneeled on it and pulled the sodden box along. The bottom was stained dark and looked about ready to tear.
    “Your electromyogram indicates certain abnormalities, and along with the other—”
    “It’s Lou Gehrig’s, isn’t it?” He moved the phone to his other ear, watching Jean staring up at the sun, checking the advancement of the afternoon. It seemed clear to him how alone she must feel, how little he’d done to fill any part of her life.
    “Yes, it is. It’s ALS.”
    He sat back against the edge of the wrought-iron table, heard its legs scrape on the redwood and then catch, holding his weight. “Well, goddamn.”
    “I’m very sorry, but I think it’s important for you to come in and—”
    “I don’t suppose you’ve got a cure now?”
    “What I’d like to talk about are your treatment options, Crane. We need to set up a schedule to monitor the possible progressions I believe you can expect.”
    Again, the shuffling of papers.
    “What I can expect is to lose more control of what muscles I’ve got, until a year or two from now when I’ll die choking on my own spit.”
    “That isn’t exactly how I’d choose to characterize it.”
    “It’s what killed my granddad.”
    At the funeral for the Tylerson boy he’d sat in a back pew, and when Nancy came in, walking very straight with her hands forming fists at her sides, she’d stopped at the end of the row, staringdirectly at him. Her mouth hung open slightly, like she might be about to speak, or else just didn’t care about closing it anymore, and even though it had only been a little more than a week since he’d seen her, she appeared older, like she wasn’t there at all and had sent her mother instead.
    “I’m not finding that in your medical history.”
    “I didn’t put it down.”
    “There’s a great deal that’s changed, Mr. Carlson. With nasal ventilation, patients can now expect—”
    “The same thing they always could.” He hung up, set the phone on the table and pushed through the screen door, standing on the apron of gravel below the stoop. He couldn’t remember if he’d intended to go any farther, but at least he was away from the phone.
    “Who was that?”