The sun out there did feel good. Its rays were intense for that late in the year and burned some of the October crispness from the air. The cat must have enjoyed it too. He draped her across his shoulders and she made no move to climb down, instead preferring to stretch out and doze with her head resting on his collarbone. Stiles felt just as tired, and the porch chairs beckoned to him. You can’t do much till Charlie comes back, they said, so take a load off.

He was almost to the steps when his eyes fell on the scorched sections of grass a few paces away. Especially the longer one where he’d stomped Nathan Danner’s ashes into the soil. Suddenly the sun wasn’t so warm after all. It left a cold place deep within him, down at his core where its rays could not reach, and that was where the bitterness and guilt roiled subconsciously. The questions centered there. Was this my fault? Am I responsible? What if I’d been a little more decisive, a little quicker to act?

He reproached himself. Not that shit again. It wasn’t even your fight. This town is lucky—if you hadn’t stepped in, the virus would have spread everywhere. At least you stopped it.

He nodded. But it was little consolation. If he had been a little more thorough that first night . . .

He looked down the hill toward town. There was a good view of Isherwood from here, but there wasn’t much to be seen. The town was comatose. Nothing moved down there to his eye, no cars on the street, no people. It had simply gone to sleep the night before and never awakened. And he wondered if it ever would. Had the cancer been excised in time, or had it spread too far, infected too much tissue? He looked at the black patch of burned earth and he knew what his own answer would be. Let it die. Let it go peacefully and then bury it. Doze it over. Indiana doesn’t have enough parking lots.

The sounds of engines intruded on his brooding silence. Two pickup trucks motored up Moffit Trail and pulled to the shoulder out front, and behind them a newer model Chevy van. People began to pour from the beds and cabs, probably twenty to twenty-five in all, men and women, teenagers to adults. They looked like a day-weary road crew coming in from the job: they carried picks and mallets and sharpened dowel rods along with their shotguns, and their faces were sullen from what they had seen. It was certainly not a job any of them wanted. But they had accepted the responsibility and hardened themselves to the task. Some of them unloaded groceries from the truck, but he wagered few would be in the mood to eat. He couldn’t blame them. He was never completely used to it himself.