Joe shrugged. The kid was lucky the camp store was open this early. The store didn't carry much—boot laces, work gloves, cigarettes, Twinkies. Joe sat on the back bumper and looked at the sky. The camp lights were no match for the bright splashes of starlight—Joe had never before been able to see the distant sparkle of the cosmos so clearly. There had always been too much light right in front of him, light that tethered him to the moment. His mind wandered up and into the expanse, so that when the man approached, Joe startled.

The man smiled, held out his hand. “Ben Stone. Company recruiter. You're Joe Baker?”

Stone was a grizzled old guy, mid-seventies maybe, a paper copy of the Tribune under one arm and a set of pencils, actual lead pencils, the kind that needed to be sharpened in one of those rotary sharpeners from grade school, in the front pocket of his shirt. A little old for the rigs themselves, Stone had arrived a week ago for a site visit. Dustin had heard he was retired from some high school in Bismarck, a history teacher, and he looked the part.

Joe shook Stone's hand. “Good to meet you.” Joe cleared his throat to shake the sleep from his voice. “You out from Bismarck?”

“Yep. Turned me loose into the field for a few days. I have to say, I was expecting worse. The food is really quite good, though I would never tell my wife that. Quieter than I thought it would be—I pictured it like something from a Steinbeck novel. Not quite Grapes of Wrath because, no family, you know? But maybe Cannery Row.”

Joe laughed. Steinbeck was the only author he'd actually liked in high school English. “Not near enough alcohol for that. Too many rules.”

“It's some kind of frog hunting, I guess.” Stone shrugged. “I've seen your file. Community college. Associate's but no bachelor's. Former land surveyor. How'd you end up here?”

Joe never knew how much to share. He thought of Mandy as he'd last seen her, in a wheelchair in the assisted living recreation room, a blanket on her lap, her hair greasy and stringy, staring out the window at the red pop of house finches against the spruce outside. Her eyes neutral until she saw him, then a speechless glare that drilled him with hate, with blame. Her silent accusations had reacted with the secret doubts he kept buried, and one thing he knew for sure—Mandy's depression had eaten at the heart of their family life for years, and he, for all those years, had been resentful instead of compassionate. “Turns out hauling water pays better than surveys, at least once the recession hit. I needed the money.”

“You still have family back in Colorado?”

How much of his life were people prepared to take in response to such pleasantries? “My wife is in assisted living. She doesn't really . . . she has a brain injury.”