Trevor Hicks slowed the rented white Chevrolet as he approached the small town of Shoshone—little more than a junction, according to the map. He saw a cinder-block U.S. post office flanked by tall tamarisk trees and beyond it, a stark sprawling white building housing a gas station and grocery store. On the opposite side of the highway was a coffee shop and attached to it, a spare building with neon beer advertisements in its two small square windows. A small sign spelled out "Crow Bar" in flickering light bulbs—a local tavern or pub, obviously. Hicks had always been partial to local pubs. This one, however, did not seem to be open.

He pulled into the post office's gravel parking lot, hoping to ask someone if the coffee shop was worth a visit. He didn't trust local American eateries any more than he liked most American beer, and he did not think the appearance of the coffee shop—or café, as it styled itself on an inconspicuous sign—was very encouraging.

It was almost five o'clock and the desert was already chilly. Twilight was an hour or so away and a mournful wind blew through the tamarisk trees beside the post office. His morning and afternoon had been frustrating— a rental car breakdown fifty miles outside Las Vegas, a ride in the tow truck, arranging for another car, and as a lagniappe, a heated conversation with his publisher's publicist when he thought to call and explain his missed interview . . . Delay after delay. He stood near the car for a moment, wondering what sort of idiot he was, then chose the glass door on his right. As it happened, that led him into the local equivalent of a branch library—two tall shelves of books in a corner, with a child-sized reading table squatting before them. A counter stood opposite the shelves, and beyond it the furniture and apparatus—so a small plaque read—of the Charles Morgan Company. The door on the left led into a separate alcove that was the post office proper. The air of the office was institutional but friendly.

Beyond the counter, seated before an old desktop computer, was a stately woman of about seventy-five or eighty years, wearing jeans and a checked blouse, her white hair carelessly combed back. She spoke into a black phone receiver cradled between her neck and shoulder. Slowly, she swiveled on her chair to glance at Hicks, then raised one hand, requesting patience.

Hicks turned to examine the books in the library.

"No, Bonnie, not a word," the woman said, her warm voice cracking slightly. "Not a word since the letter. I'm just about at my wits' end, you know. Esther and Mike have quit. No. I'm doing fine, but things are kind of sliding here ..."

The library held a fair selection of science books, including one of his own, an early popular work on communications satellites, long since out of date.