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to some college kid years later about that nightmare?
    I know, the professor said. I know. I told him that, but he’s got a burr under his saddle about it and he’s damned determined. I can’t talk him out of it.
    He’s gonna have to get rid of that burr on his own. ’Cause he’s not talking to me. Sheridan looked at his friend. There’s other people involved here, and even if I wanted to stir up that whole nasty business, I don’t have the right to do that to them. You know that.
    The professor had known Sheridan since his first campaign for county commissioner, and Sheridan occasionally had a quiet dinner with the Smithson family. Smithson had witnessed the events that brought upheaval to Sheridan’s life, though he had never known, and would never ask about, details that had never come to light.
    If I didn’t know you better, Duane, I’d think you might have put this young man up to this. Sheridan looked at him steadily. But I know you’d never do that.
    The professor shook his head forcefully. Dan, I’d never do that. You know that.
    I do, Duane, I do. But I’m gonna have to ask you to call young Mr. Carroll off. Give him a new project. Have him do one of these profile things on Mr. Cloud. He’s a lot more interesting—and important—than I ever was.
    Actually, that’s the project I proposed to Pat. He was doing his research for a long story on Leonard, and he found your tracks all over the place. But the more he tried to put the pieces together, the less sense he could make of it all.
    He wouldn’t be the first, now would he? Sheridan asked.
    He’s not my student anymore, Dan, the professor said. I’ll do what I can to call him off. But he’s not necessarily going to do what I ask him.
    He can do what he wants, Sheridan said. But he’s not getting any help from me. You do what you can to help him understand that. And, by the way, I can say with authority that there’s one or two other people he hadn’t ought to be talking to either.
    The professor watched Sheridan retreating down Main Avenue and knew very well he meant Caroline Chandler.
    8.
    The following Saturday night, Caroline looked out her kitchen window and saw Sheridan’s dusty red pickup truck even before she heard it coming up her road. Like Sheridan, she had a gate, and the locals by custom honored the privacy those gates requested.
    He took off his hat and grinned as he set the quart whiskey bottle down. You got ice, he asked, or is your freezer broken again?
    She started past him, and he firmly grasped her wrist. She looked at him at close range, then gave him a lingering kiss on the lips.
    Well, doesn’t that ever heal a broken day, he said.
    Your day broken? she asked as she poured the drinks.
    Not now it isn’t, he said.
    Well, then, she said, that just makes my job that much easier.
    No job from me, he chuckled, unless you’re lookin’ for one.
    She waved him to the corner kitchen table and set the drinks down. Sheridan scratched her frisky Irish setter pup behind the ear as it sniffed Toby’s scent on his Levis. What’re you up to nowadays? he asked.
    Just waitin’ for little chicks to hatch, she said over the top of her glass, and prayin’ for sinners.
    Sheridan laughed. Well, now, that’s a full-time job all by itself. Any particular sinners, or you prayin’ for all of us?
    Just you, Daniel. She smiled warmly. You require about all the prayers I’ve got.
    Let me ask you something, Ms. Caroline. They tapped glasses, and he took a hefty sip and said, Ahhh. Do you think Leonard and the Utes are doing the right thing with this trust fund they’ve set up? Like any big family that’s just won the lottery, they’re beginning to fall out amongst themselves over what to take and what to save. I’d hate to see a donnybrook down there over all this money.
    She thought, then said, I believe he knows