“Um. I get that . . . Sorry if I was talking down,” the lawyer apologized. “Occupational hazard.”

“Umm.”

“So, I’ll be there in Sarne, day after tomorrow, to get your brother out of jail,” she said. “These charges sound like a bunch of crap, but I’m calling Montana first thing in the morning to get this straightened out. In the meantime, don’t do anything rash, and don’t worry. Art especially charged me to tell you that. Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Now I’m going to switch you over to our financial office, so you can take care of that part of it.”

Everyone wants to be paid, even me—especially me, since I figure at any moment my gift could be taken from me. I want to use it while I have it, and it’s really my only marketable skill. It should support me, I figure. It robbed me of a normal life.

After I fixed things with the financial office, I hung up and tried to figure out what I should do next. I packed up Tolliver’s stuff and stowed it in my room, then I walked up to the motel office and told horrible old Vernon McCluskey that we wouldn’t be using the second room for now. He said he was about ready for me to check out, and I said I had to stay in Sarne a few more days. He couldn’t throw me out, not legally—though today I’d had a big hint that the legal system in Sarne wasn’t exactly on the up and up. If he did somehow make me leave, I’d just go to the next town, which was in a different county.

While I ran through all these contingencies, I returned to the room. I found myself shaking my hands vigorously in the air like in a children’s exercise, to refocus my mind. It was time to eat, and I opened a granola bar. I needed more than that, better food, but I didn’t want to go out by myself. It was one thing when I knew Tolliver was waiting for me back at the motel, or that he was somewhere in the same town: it was entirely another thing when Tolliver was locked away in a jail. I wondered what they’d fed him for supper, and when I could see him. I wondered if he had a cellmate. I wondered how ruthless his cellmate was.

The most important person I knew in Sarne, aside from the sheriff, was Sybil Teague. I didn’t know if she’d even care, and I doubted she’d help, but I called her anyway.

“My brother’s in jail on a trumped-up charge, Sybil,” I said, after she’d told me she was glad to hear from me.

“Paul Edwards mentioned that to me this afternoon,” Sybil said, in her cool rich-woman’s voice. “I’m so sorry for your trouble.”