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for the corner stall at the back, where Lester hung the saddles from a beam after he sold the lame horse, saying, “Don’t imagine we’ll be needing these.” Until he died, Lester had taken them down every spring and cleaned them up with Murphy’s oil soap. Several springs have now passed without Lester, and Lee is reminded that the saddles are no longer getting their yearly cleaning. He will do this, he thinks, once he’s had his ride around the pen on the horse, maybe a loop around the yard. He’ll do right by Lester, clean off the dust with Murphy’s and polish the leather to a rich shine and then hang the saddles once again in the barn.
    As Lee lowers the smaller of the two saddles in the dark, he hears a barn owl swoop from its perch in the hayloft above and fly out the open loft window, his wings flapping with effort. An owl has lived in the barn, first the old barn and now this one, for as long as Lee can remember. The current occupant screeches as it flies through the yard and lands in its favourite old poplar tree by the house.
    Lee dusts off the saddle and looks around for a saddle pad and headgear. Rip’s old bridle is too big and anyway the leather is dry and cracked, but Lee finds one made of nylon hanging on a nail, the bridle that Lester bought for the lame horse, its hardware a bit rusty but it will do. With the pad and bridle in one hand and the saddle in the other, he makes his way to the pen. The owl screeches in the night as Lee approaches the horse with the saddle pad, and the horse makes no fuss at all when Lee throws it on his back. He swings the saddle up and still no protest. The horse takes the bit easily, gets a little anxious when Lee steps up and settles his weight in the saddle, but Lee watches the horse’s ears and sees nothing to be concerned about. The moon shines on the Arab’s white coat. Lee reaches down to rub the horse’s neck.
    â€œGood buddy,” Lee says aloud.
    He hears himself, his own voice, and it’s a voice from the past, and he’s a boy again talking to Rip.
    He can sense the two old horses watching him.
    It’s that kind of night, rife with the presence of ghosts.
    The Desert Drive-in
    To the west, the faintest hint of a horizon line separates the dark earth and the blue-black sky. The yardlights in this expanse of open country glow softly. A hundred square miles of farms and ranches, pasture and cultivated fields, sand and coulees. Rail lines, some of them abandoned, a network of grid roads and dirt tracks and cattle trails, and the more recent tracks of gas and oil company trucks cutting erratically into the hills.
    Open windows encourage air to circulate, curtains barely moving in what can’t quite be called a breeze. Air conditioners and overhead fans, bedsprings and pillow-top mattresses shifting under the weight of sleepless bodies, radios tuned to American all-night talk stations. A rooster crowing, confused about the time of day. The yip of coyotes, cattle bawling, tires spinning on gravel. The ping of a bullet ricocheting off a metal highway sign. A match rasping across a rough surface. The sound of laughter, a whispered shhhhh.
    Lee is not the only one who is restless, awake.
    Several miles to the south of the Torgeson farm a great horned owl calls in the night. Not with a barn owl’s screech, but with a wise and deep who who whooo that carries like a radio signal from the dark bones of the Desert Drive-in movie theatre—one of the last of its kind—owned and operated by Willard Shoenfeld. The summer Lee turned fourteen (Astrid had designated the date of Lee’s arrival as his birthdate) he and a couple of friends rigged up an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys and climbed to the top of the projection screen, newly rebuilt after a twister had blown down the old one. If Willard’s late brother Ed had caught the trio messing with the brand-new construction, it’s hard to say what