The Picker Palace hasn’t changed at all since the last time I was in there. It might even be more crowded. There’s only room enough to walk one in front of the other toward the back of the store. I follow Charlotte Rose. The piles start on the floor and go almost to the ceiling. Stacks of books, buckets of tools, chairs on top of tables, birdcages, huge spools of rope, old lawn mowers, tire rims, pitchforks, lamps, strips of sheet metal, and rusted sewing machines. There are more things piled behind the stacks we walk past, but I can’t figure out how anyone would get to them. The Picker Palace is like an iceberg. You can only see about ten percent of what’s there.

All the way in the back, the narrow path through the store opens to a small clearing, where Mr. Ronnie stands. There’s no space to even set a chair. The black-and-white dog lies under a table.

Charlotte Rose puts her arm around my shoulders and speaks to Mr. Ronnie.

“Henry is best friends with James, and he was there during the assault. He’s willing to hear what you have to say.”

Mr. Ronnie wears his green-and-black-plaid jacket. It’s cold in the store, almost as cold as it is outside. His head is bent and he talks into the collar of his jacket.

“The Palace’s not been doing too good. I lost my house and moved in upstairs here. I thought if I could get the reward for a piece of that rock it would help. I didn’t see you folks lining up to get the money. My son, Dwayne, was mad I lost our house and wanted me to sell this building and give him half the money so he could buy himself a piece of land. But who’d buy it without water?”

When Mr. Ronnie says his son’s name, the dog picks his head up and barks once.

“Quiet down, Badger,” Mr. Ronnie tells the dog. “He’s not coming back anytime soon.”

The dog puts his head back down on the dusty floor, and Mr. Ronnie continues with his story.

“I got Dwayne riled up about the rock and the water. Told him it was the rock’s fault and your father’s fault for witching away our water. We never had a flood or a drought like this before and I lived in Lowington my whole life. Never had a space rock fall out of the sky. Yes, I did put up those signs in town. It’s not against the law to say what you think. I know Dwayne has a short fuse, but I didn’t think he’d do anything like throwing a brick through your window and hurting that boy so bad. He was in jail before for fighting, but this time he’s gonna be there a long time.”

Mr. Ronnie looks up at us then.