Burke was already reaching for the door, Lucy standing and stretching. Burke pulled the door open, stepped back for Jess to go through. Then he dug into his pockets, came out with cash, a pair of hundred-dollar bills.

As Jess watched, he held them out toward Rengo. The kid was leaned over, scratching behind Lucy’s ears, the damn dog loving every second of it, Rengo’s smile coming back, Christmas morning and Santa’d brought him a puppy. “What, just for talking to you?”

“No,” Burke replied. “For your gun.”

*  *  *

“You know they’ll send you back if they catch you with this thing,” Jess said from the passenger seat, studying the pistol as Mason drove them back toward town. “No record of sale, and you’re already a felon? Hell, they’ll put you away for a long while.”

Mason navigated the narrow road, the wipers working now, sheets of water cascading across the windshield. He’d talked Rengo into throwing in what spare ammunition he had, three magazines’ worth of nine-millimeter shells. A couple hundred bucks was probably a bargain, but the kid hadn’t had much leverage, what with Jess and her shotgun standing right there in the doorway. Mason figured he should feel bad, but money was getting tight, and anyway, the kid was going to hurt somebody, waving that piece around.

“They’ll throw me in jail if they catch me regardless,” Mason said, eyes on the road.

“This isn’t your fight, Burke,” she said. “I appreciate what you’ve done, but this is serious now. You spent half your life in a jail cell; you haven’t even barely lived yet. Why on earth would you risk going back?”

Mason said nothing. They’d come to a steep spot in the road; he focused on braking the Blazer down the slippery terrain.

We do not admire the man of timid peace. That wasn’t scripture; it was Teddy Roosevelt. We admire…the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.

“You want me gone, I’ll get going,” he said when the road leveled out again. “I’ve still got enough money for a bus ticket home. But it seems to me you could use a friend right now.”

She said nothing and Mason kept driving, listening to the wipers across the windshield, and the mud and gravel beneath the tires. They reached the forestry main line, and he turned the Blazer north, toward the highway and the town.

They drove in silence. Even Lucy was quiet in the back seat.

Finally Jess spoke. “You must think I’m really stupid.” Her voice was soft, and she was staring out the passenger window at the trees passing by, her face hidden. “Marrying a guy like Ty.”

“No,” Mason said. “I don’t know anything about it.”