“I reckon I’ll keep looking for my dad, like I set out to,” I said. “Likely he’s found other work by now. Maybe I can give him a hand.”

“Good luck then,” he told me.

As I walked off, I heard Red say, “I’m afraid that one’s in for a disappointment.”

Back in Miles City again, I tried the filling stations and automotive dealerships first, since machinery was the only thing Pa knew much about besides farming. Mostly I had no luck, although fellows at a couple of places said maybe my dad had been in.

“Wish I could be more help, but when you’re not hiring, you don’t much notice who comes asking for a job,” one told me.

Then I thought to ask at a place that sold farm equipment.

“Trawnley,” the owner said. “Yeah, he came in here right on a day when, for once, I had more work than I could handle. I told him if he wanted to pitch in, I’d see how he did, and then we’d take it from there.”

“So my dad’s working for you?” I asked, hardly able to believe I’d found Pa so easy.

“No. He said he didn’t need to prove himself to anybody, and that was that.”

“Oh.” I tried not to let on how disappointed I was. “I don’t guess you know if he’s still around?”

The man got busy polishing the grille on a tractor. “I might have seen him once or twice,” he said. “You might want to check the bars come evening.”

As I was about to go into yet another saloon, an unshaven man came shambling down the street. He reminded me of somebody, with his shoulders hunched and his old man’s hair dirty and uncombed. I guessed I wouldn’t have recognized him, but for he called out something to another fellow. I knew his voice.

“Pa?” I said. He didn’t look over. “Jackson Trawnley?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s me. Moss.”

It took him a moment to process who I was, and then there was another instant when his eyes shifted this way and that, like he was looking for an escape. But he said, “Well, what do you know! You are the last person I expected to see here!”

He sounded sober enough, but a whiff of alcohol hit my nose. He didn’t smell none too clean, either.

“I came looking for you,” I said. “Ma was worried when she didn’t hear from you.”

“Aw, she’s a worrier,’” he told me, like it was some unwarranted peculiarity she had.

It made me mad. Actually, it felt right good to get mad, after the letdowns that had been jolting me one atop another.