Barryman might even forgive the stolen rifle. Barryman is a cowboy himself, after all. They’re all cowboys here except for the Indians. Consider too that Barryman’s door was unlocked, as good as saying Come on in. The porch light burnin’ bright all night, clearly indicating Feel free. Moths nearly killing themselves against the bulb! What of that, folks? And Barryman’s house was exactly on the way. Such an ostentatious domicile, the biggest house in town. The quarry made Barryman rich. Which is why everyone hates Barryman. So let’s call the rifle hers, pardners. ’Least till we meet a cowboy who’s got himself a stronger claim.

Dan loves the past, but he dreams of the future. Screaming in his sleep under the tree, what did he see? What did he forget as soon as the pain in his head woke him up?

Some sci-fi scientist behind a sheet of glass, writing some kind of report. Not that deputy’s. What did it say? You could just about make out

FINAL ARBOREAL CENSUS

2179, May (under the arch of a flame-gold sky)

SPECIES: Callitropsis nootkatensis

LOCATION: West Sea

It was nearly ready for transmission back to Central Cedar Lab: “On the Carpathian Peninsula on the West Sea six varieties of cedar are fully restored, three others at 93.34%.”

But the point, to the yeoman on the wing watching her superior at work, was that he was writing. Pen and paper were historical fiction to her. That, in olden times, the hand had dragged a stick of ink across processed wood pulp to record data, the implement woven in the fingers. Also carbon sticks or chalk. But the act was hardly dragging, she saw now. The pen glided in the cedar scientist’s hand, forming graceful blue-black loops. Who had taught the old man this quaint, extinct craft? Some even-more-aged person? Who’d learned it in turn from someone long dead?

CEDAR SCIENTIST’S NOTE: Stupendous dramatic display of local megafauna during inspection on beach: (wild mustangs) colt (black) and filly (brown in estrus) divided by blowdown.

YEOMAN’S NOTE: blowdown: Trees piled like pick-up sticks. (She writes on the wing with the corner of her big sponge. The letters dry and disappear.)