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in every direction. The landscape’s unwelcome resemblance to that of Afghanistan struck her again. She reminded herself of the differences: the luxury of a smooth paved road, a truck that she could drive without hiring a man to do it for her, and the absence of anyone intent upon killing her. Still, the old tendrils of unease, her constant companion during her years overseas, curled insistently around her spine.
    The outskirts of Thirty arose, sudden hard angles amid the rolling hills and wind-rounded rocks. Lola left her memories behind and pointed the truck toward the offices of the Last Word , Thirty’s weekly newspaper. She intended to find out everything she could about the soldiers who went to Afghanistan, starting with the first body blow that had come in the form of Mike St. Clair’s death. She’d gone to the newspaper’s website on her phone the previous night, looking in vain for an online archive, but beyond posting a sampling of stories from each week’s edition, the Last Word had yet to go fully digital. She drove around the block, seeking a parking place in the shade, and retraced her route on foot with Margaret to the newspaper office, forcing herself not to look back at Bub, whose drooping ears and tucked-in tail telegraphed a full sulk. A woman behind the front desk removed a cherry popsicle from her mouth at the sight of Lola and Margaret. Her face glistened.
    â€œSorry about the heat. Air conditioner’s broke. Been broke for two weeks now. Every day, the publisher passes out popsicles to help us keep cool. He musta got a crate of ’em the last time the store had a sale. Cheap S.O.B.” Her lips were stained red. A scarlet droplet ran down the popsicle stick, skittered across her thumb and wrapped itself in a line around her wrist. Lola explained their mission.
    â€œYou wait here. I’ll see about those back copies. You want a popsicle?”
    â€œNo, thank you,” said Lola, over Margaret’s hopeful intake of breath. While they waited, Lola read a plaque summarizing the Last Word’s brief history. She’d already surmised that newspapering and the town were inextricably linked, given that, back in the long-gone days of hot type, the notation “—30—” signaled to pressmen that they’d reached a story’s end. The plaque confirmed her guess. A newspaperman had founded the town after the Conestoga wagon that had hauled his printing press across a thousand miles of prairie irreparably foundered on the banks of the nearby Popo Agie River. The receptionist returned, sans popsicle, and held open a door for Lola and Margaret. “You can come back now. Honey, I think I can find a toy or two for you to play with while your mommy does her work.”
    â€œShe’s fine,” Lola said. Margaret had spent much of her young life in the Daily Express office, learning early how to entertain herself, drawing flaking pictures on pieces of printer paper with red grease pencils and old bottles of Wite-Out that nobody had gotten around to throwing away. Lola handed Margaret a pen and looked around. The people in the room spoke into phones tucked between ear and shoulder, or tapped at their computers. Lola filched a couple of pieces of paper from a printer tray and gave them to Margaret, then she approached the daunting stacks of what looked to be decades’ worth of newspapers.
    â€œLooking for anything in particular?”
    Lola took a single glance at the guy who’d posed the question and knew him for a reporter. Shave a little past due, shirt a little too wrinkled, demeanor a little too pleasant. The old competitiveness flared, the resistance to telling another reporter what she was working on. But she wasn’t actually doing a story. Technically, she was still on vacation. Even though she’d felt far more relaxed than at any point on her so-called vacation the minute she’d stepped into the Last Word and inhaled