I sat up. My heart squirmed with pain. I grabbed my chest and Baptiste left the room. “Don’t be a pussy,” he was saying to me. I couldn’t be seeing right. I sat for a moment stunned and then I grabbed my gun and hugged the wall. I inched my way slowly toward the living room, wishing I had a door to hide behind.

“Take it easy, pal,” Yellow Knife said, like we were old buddies. I switched on the living room light and sighted down my gun. Yellow Knife had been beaten so badly his face puffed twice its size. His left eye ran pus and rolled back red, as if the muscles of that eye couldn’t hold. If I hadn’t been so scared I would have thought he looked pitiful, and he did. He didn’t seem afraid of me. He shuffled to the kitchen table like an old man. I saw a festering black wound at the back of his head. His right arm was wobbling in a scarf sling. His legs trembled when he sat down.

He tried to focus his attention on me but his head seemed too heavy for him.

“You look worse than me,” he said. “If you’re going to use that gun, you better do it quick and put me out of my misery.”

I held the gun in both hands, my legs braced and straddled like I was on the firing range. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I lowered my gun and walked cautiously to the table.

“Have a seat,” he said. “I didn’t come to settle any scores.”

I sat down and rubbed the back of my neck, wondering if I might be dreaming still, but Yellow Knife was real and sitting at my kitchen table.

“Jesus, Charlie, you look like a man who needs a drink.”

I did need a drink. I picked up the whiskey bottle and chugged a good swallow.

“As you can see,” he said, “I’m in no condition to hunt for my wife. I think you can tell me where she is. Save me some time.”

I didn’t answer Yellow Knife. I figured if he was alive again and talking to me he was up to something.

“She’s in for trouble. I know what’s been going on,” he said.

I couldn’t shake the feeling I was talking to a man I’d killed. Yellow Knife was like Coyote. He kept coming back from the dead. “I can’t help you,” I said, remembering Louise’s words. My voice cracked. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything.”

“I know about Stoner,” he said. “It’s not you I’m blaming for my troubles.”